CD Prices and Inflation

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 6:18 PM 7/25/96, jim bell wrote:

>If what Duncan said were true, then you'd see music stores spring up which
>sell ONLY the "Top-40 stock", but sell it for pre-CD vinyl prices.  They'd
>get all that business, and OTHER record stores would sell the obscure stuff.
> That's not happening.

Something not being talked about in any of the messages I've seen is the
role of _inflation_. Those claiming CD prices are "too high" should
consider inflation.

(Caveat: I also consider CD prices "too high," in terms of what I'd _like_
to pay.)

When I first started buying LPs, circa 1967, LP prices were usually around
$4.88 (that figure rings a bell, no pun intended). Some discount prices
were around $3.67, at a local PX (Post Exchange, a military store, usually
having subsidized prices). I do recall paying $5.98 for some albums I
wanted.

And in those days the average working man's salary was under $10,000 a
year, gold was $35-40 an ounce, a new 3-bedroom house in many areas cost
$20-30K, a pound of hamburger cost less than a dollar, a copy of
"Scientific American" cost either 60 or 75 cents (price increased) and a
paperback book cost between 75 cents and $1.25.

(These numbers are approximate, but mostly about right. Paperback books,
for example, were at about 35 cents until the 60s, then moved to 50 cents,
then to 60-75 cents, then hit the dollar point around 1970, the $1.95 point
a few years later, then jumped to $2.95, $3.95, etc., and are now around
$5.95 for most bestseller paperbacks. Again, don't quibble too much. A
detailed check of paperback collections showing publishing dates and prices
would pin these numbers down.)

So, what do we have now? Salaries are 2-4x higher, gold is at $375 an
ounce, a new 3-br house averages about $100K (and is 2x that in many
places), hamburger is at $2-3/pound, "Scietific American" sells for $3.95
or $4.95, and paperback books go for $4.95.

Roughly, then, everything on this list is 3-4 times more expensive than it
was in the late 60s. So, those LPs I was buying for $4-5  should now cost
$12-20, correcting for inflation/price rises.

And yet I am able to find many CDs I want for $8.67 (Tower Records: "3 for
$25" sales). And they never wear out. And they usually have 60 minutes or
more music on them--at least the CDs I buy do--, compared to the paltry
35-40 minutes on most LPs of the past.

I can also make flawless copies of CDs I borrow onto DATs. (A friend of
mine has gone a bit far with this, borrowing thousands of CDs from
libraries...he now has 3900 CDs recorded digitally.)

So, while I "wish" CD prices were even lower, I'm paying a lot less in
"real dollars" for more music today than I was paying 15 years ago or 30
years ago.

--Tim May

Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software!
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