NY Times Gilded Rich - Just Poor Bums Really

This weekend the NY Times did an article on Saturday regarding the increasing demands of high-end apartment buyers - the additional monies spent on decorating, re-building interiors, adding amenities, and the millions of dollars these changes might cost. And the Times mentions this is part of a Second Gilded Age series.

Admittedly not everyone can spend $10 Million overall on an apartment. The article even shows a graph in which the average median cost of the high-end apartment has moved into the tens of millions, with the very top ends in the low 40's.

Indeed. Let us not be impressed dear friends. Though the writers at the Times are well informed gents to be sure, they have perhaps not factored in the effects of 140 years of inflation since the First Gilded Age. Let me explain with numbers:

In 1877 when Cornelius Vanderbilt died he left an estate of $105,000,00. In 1877, 50 cents would buy a BARREL of flour. That's enough food to last about a month. Annual wages for a servant averaged $200. Now imagine what a servant would cost today - maybe $35,000? That said, how much is that $105,000,000 worth today? Oh around $18,375,000,000.00. Yes, that's $18 BILLION dollars.

So how incredible is an apartment that costs $45,000,000 then? Not a heck of a lot. This is not evidence of a Second Gilded Age. That dinky apartment had a price of about $250,000 in 1877 dollars. Isn't that still a lot of money? Not when you consider that the great-grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt erected a manion at 664 Fifth Avenue that cost $5,000,000 in 1877 dollars! In other words the house and all its contents came to around $875,000,000 in 2007 dollars. WOW - that's a Gilded Age. Gold-Leafed dollars I'd say.

So perhaps the rustic folks over at the NY Times will pull out a handy calculator, and adjust for some inflation. We'd all be less ready with Class Warefare to be sure. They should begin to take notice when someone (and I don't mean a corporation) knocks down a skyscraper and erects a ONE BILLION mansion on the site. Then you'd have a Second Gilded Age. If that does happen, I do want to visit the house.