I teach US History in San Francisco. I had a disagreement with a fellow teacher over housing. She said that housing in the Marine in San Francisco in 1935 was 10,000.00 I said that housing in 1935 was expensive compared to income. What is the quesitions? What was the price of housing in the marine in 1935 and what was the average income in San Francisco?

richard Bruni John O'Connell HS

-- Richard Bruni (rbruni@hotmail.com), November 22, 2004

Answers

Your answer is simple to find. All you have to do is look at the real estate ads in old newspapers on microfilm at the public library or maybe one of the college libraries.

I can tell you that in the early 1950s, the average home in San Francisco was selling for approximately $25,000 and average income then was about $50 per week. So take about 15 to 20 years off of that and adjust for the inflation caused by World War II and a home in the Marina for about $10,000 sounds just about right.

By the way, I wish I could teach economics because I would blast the hell out of this economic system for allowing inflation. No matter what any economist will ever tell you, inflation is not good, it can destroy an economic system, the people and the entire country.

We have an economic system that has serious flaws in it which in order to correct those flaws inflation must be used. The object is to correct the flaws of the system not screw with it by adjusting for inflation. Laws could be established, rules of exchange to foreign countries could be made and inflation could be stopped. But that's not what the leaders of this country want. Nor do they have the foresight to see the end result.

It's not too long from now that the average old worn down home in San Francisco will cost 1 million dollars and 20 years from now the average home could cost $10 million dollars and by the year 3000, the average home in San Francisco will cost 100 million dollars. Where does it end? It's absolute idiocy at its finest.

I'm only hoping that a new smarter progressive generation will eventually do something and fix this system before it spells serious disaster.

-- Harry Murphy (harrymurphy*@bigmailbox.net), November 23, 2004.