Official rates have been fake for years, maybe forever.... Reality is much MUCH higher inflation. That doesn't even account for the massive decline in quality of manufactured goods that we've seen over the decades. My break room at work has a microwave from freaking 1982, still working perfectly. I tested for leaking microwaves and it was fine.Ugly as sin and no popcorn button,, but that's how they got us to get rid of the stuff that was too good for THEIR interests. Now if a microwave lasts 2 years, you're lucky. My parents' first dishwasher lasted 20+ years. Now they don't last much past the warranty period, if that. But I digress. Everyone surely has felt that those inflation numbers didn't really match the reality at the cash register and in their bank account.
Official rates have been fake for years, maybe forever.... Reality is much MUCH higher inflation. That doesn't even account for the massive decline in quality of manufactured goods that we've seen over the decades. My break room at work has a microwave from freaking 1982, still working perfectly. I tested for leaking microwaves and it was fine.Ugly as sin and no popcorn button,, but that's how they got us to get rid of the stuff that was too good for THEIR interests. Now if a microwave lasts 2 years, you're lucky. My parents' first dishwasher lasted 20+ years. Now they don't last much past the warranty period, if that. But I digress. Everyone surely has felt that those inflation numbers didn't really match the reality at the cash register and in their bank account.
When appliances were almost exclusively made in the US, they lasted decades.
Once all that manufacturing went overseas the quality went to shit.