Question: Has there been anything that has gone down drastically in price? Yes, Do you know what?

[malthaussen]

18. Electronics in general.

It's really quite astonishing to remember how much a tube color TV cost in, say 1965, compared to the same thing in a sold state configuration. In order to make televisions more expensive, manufactures had to increase the sizes, resolutions, and overall utility, and they're still not as expensive as a Magnavox in constant dollars. Same is true of adio equipment, calculators, computers, etc. As a corollary of Moore's Law, the more transistors they cram on a chip, the cheaper the chips seem to get.

Large appliances, while still pricey items, are not so expensive in constant dollars as they were, say, 50 years ago, but their durability has gone downhill, so it kind of balances. Who keeps a refrigerator for 40 years now, or could?

Many commodities have not gone up in sync with inflation, but many others have shot up disproportionately, the biggest being housing.

-- Mal