thegrover Loc: Yorba Linda, CA

You are right, in the 50's the rich payed taxes.

bobfitz Loc: Kendall-Miami, Florida

The manufacturers are probably trying to maximize profits before cell phones put them out of business.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

When people have no choice - they have no choice. I paid $199 for an iPhone in 2008. Now, they cost $1,000, and people wait online to buy them. I buy Samsung from TracFone for $50 or less. They're so inexpensive that I have a spare.

JBRIII

So many things change with time that it is, at least for me, difficult to know what things like inflation mean in a practical sense. For example, someone else mentioned both parents now work, but we see no advantage to it, but homes are bigger now, families own two or more cars, multiple phones, tvs, day care is needed, etc. So quality and quantity have changed, if not circumstances (still can't affored to retire at 50 or take more vacations, etc. which we equate to being richer).
My example of inflation is this: I use to think (1970), that if one had $1,000,000 in the bank you were set. My parents home cost $14,500, so 1 million would provide 3 x that per year ($40,000 per year). My father was a machinist at the time. Today that cost is $300,000 so 20x, so I'd need $20,000,000 in the bank instead of $1,000,000. Today you buy a house 2-3 X your yearly income, not 1/3 my original assumptions for wealth.

Finally, one thing seems apparent, many of todays home owners can only do so because they own a previous own. We have travel friends who we ask: How can people afford to live in CA? Answer we could not afford our home today!