[jogger08152]

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I'm going to explain this as simply as possible

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If you want to play semantic games go right ahead and play with yourself. You ought to be embarrassed by trying to pretend what your passing off here is an argument. Higher quality and quantity at the same price = cheaper.

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Yes. Strikingly, you haven't made an argument for this either. 12 is still > 0.

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[random thing tolbiny enjoys that isn't part of the entertainment industry] =/= the entertainment industry

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So the internet doesn't count as entertainment? Yeah, youtube, poker, blogs, uhh huh, people don't turn to those for entertainment.

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There are things on the internet that you may find entertaining, but of course, that doesn't make the internet a part of the entertainment industry. Moreover, poker isn't cheap for the 90% or so who lose at it, whether they play on the 'net or not. (It's also questionable whether it's more "entertainment" or "job" for most of the 10% or so who win.)

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No, but you could triple it on a 1907 train though, and for a f*ck of a lot less money than it costs to drive a car today. Transportation isn't cheaper, it's more expensive. Grossly.

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No, its really not, and its not even close. Your (again pathetic) attempts to find some way to justify it are hilarious. A $20,000 car is a luxury item. There are a dozen ways I can reduce the cost of traveling, for example i can buy a scooter for 1-2k which will get me 60-80 mpg at a lower insurance rate and get me more than enough miles on it to totally shatter your estimates (and would still be more comfortable than the average transportation of 100 years ago). The fact that people don't regularly choose this option is simply a testament to how much people value comfort over strict $/hr calculations.

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comfort =/= cheap
also, scooters =/= more comfortable than trains, last time I checked. Particularly not during hailstorms.

If you'd like to prove my example wrong, the method is fairly straightforward: figure out the average American's yearly expenditure on transportation in 1907 and compare it to the average American's yearly expenditure on transportation today. As I've already indicated, it's more expensive today, and it isn't close.

Slightly off topic: You mentioned in a previous response that an advantage of cars is that they enable people to live farther away from their workplaces. I can't say "for sure", but I'd speculate that for the average American, traffic jams and hour+ commutes (one way, naturally), suck. Personally I prefer to, and choose to, live close to my work precisely to avoid that mess. I think more people would do the same if they could do it without paying outlandish prices for real estate and/or having to live in bad neighborhoods - IE, if urban sprawl, largely a consequence of "cheap" transportation, was less of an issue.

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If air travel today is cheaper than ocean travel 100 years ago, you found a total of one example in the transportation industry and none in entertainment. That would mean you're only 94% wrong. Well told!

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To be fair you also gave me the example of the bicycle for free.

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Not even that. The actual ("estimated") average cost of transportation is higher today than it was in 1907, when viewed as a percentage of the average worker's salary. The fact that you "can" buy a scooter or I "can" pedal a bike at 16 mph doesn't change the facts. You're simply trying to cover your error by changing the subject to a hypothetical cost that "could" be acheived, but actually hasn't been.

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I was going to use a television as an example, but i'm sure you would counter by saying that buying a 1950s era 12 in B&W TV would cost a pretty penny now, and that somehow buying a 37" lcd for the same dollar amount (much lower actual cost after inflation) doesn't count because your giong to spend more itme watching that TV sine it is far better.

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No, but I would point out that the 12" b&w TV might cost something like $10, plus the extremely inexpensive cost of transporting it here from f*cking China, which you will no doubt argue is far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far cheaper than the transportation cost in 1957, when it would have been shipped from a factory maybe a few states away.

Of course, you would probably respond by saying "yeah, but, well, my um TV has 9 gazillion channels now, and I can adjust the volume with the clapper, so obviously mine's "really" cheaper!!!11", and then I'd have to point out that being able to use the clapper =/= cheaper, and we'd go right back around again.

So yeah, I agree that it's probably a good idea that you didn't use that example to "prove" your point.