Re: Your Income will Increase by 50%
 

The catch is that the 50% bump is the one and only raise you'll get until 2070.

(2070+, even, so maybe even longer....)

Re: Your Income will Increase by 50%
 

Also computers that only have 10 or 100 gig total storage will suddenly next year come out with new models that store 1000 times as much!

It is of course a granularity issue. Games that you play with pen and paper need to have steps for things as too small and frequent steps do not work when you need to have a document that has limited number of pages

But if we look at inflation adjusted (as GURPS$ is supposed to represent) earnings during TL 8 from 1980 to 2024, they have gone up and down but have been suprisingly even.

I found a good statistic until 2022 and in 2022 dollars it was 16.34 in 1980, 16.94 in 2000 and 18.12 in 2022.

Re: Your Income will Increase by 50%
 

You and me both though I think you have a few years on me.

Re: Your Income will Increase by 50%
 

Could be. I was born in 1949.

Re: Your Income will Increase by 50%
 

OMG, we're eating food tonight!

Re: Your Income will Increase by 50%
 

Wealth isn't only spendable cash on hand. As the description of wealth mentions, the average middle class US American has more wealth then a King in the 1600s or 1700s. Not as much spendable cash, but far better standard of living. Most of us in the US can get in our personal carriages and in a few minutes be in a store with more food variety then that King could imagine. Or clothing options. We can use a device and after a bit of typing, send a message to someone almost anywhere in the world that can be received in a few moments. (Very useful when you remember that the Battle of New Orleans was fought after the Peace Treaty ending the War of 1812 was signed because the 'Wars over' message had not gotten there yet).
Not to mention having a wide assortment of 'court jesters' on beck and call using yet other devices. And you don't have to pay, house or feed them when they are not performing.

I can definitely see where a higher TL will result in a higher wealth level even if spendable cash doesn't increase.

Re: Your Income will Increase by 50%
 

I've been thinking about this as I work on my GURPS wealth project, but we probably do have more spendable cash than prior tech levels. We also have more options for how it gets spent, so we have more but it gets spread thinner, which probably feels like less even if there's more in total.

So when TL9 rolls around on New Years day I'll suddenly have 1.5 times as many RPG books, but there will be 10 times as many in the store I want to buy!

Re: Your Income will Increase by 50%
 

Side-track quibble, but given his personal axe to grind it's possible that our seventh president did get that message and chose to ignore it; nobody ever accused the man on the $20 of playing by the rules.

Re: Your Income will Increase by 50%
 

While I certainly wouldn't put it past him, from my reading the treaty was signed only 15 days prior, and in Europe - specifically in Ghent, United Netherlands (now Ghent, Belgium). It wasn't ratified in the US (and thus wasn't official) until around two months later. Also, the distance between Ghent and New Orleans is nearly 8,000 km; for word of the treaty to have reached Jackson in that amount of time, it would have needed to travel at an average rate of somewhere around 22 km/h in a straight line from Ghent to New Orleans. So we can be confident that he didn't know it had been signed at the time of the battle (unless he was or had access to a psychic or time traveler or similar).

Re: Your Income will Increase by 50%
 

Agreed.

Whether or not this would technically count as wealth or not, there is also the cost/availability of medical care. Someone living at the poverty level today could get medical care a medieval king could only dream about being able to pay to get.

But on another issue, there's land. Back in 19th century America, someone could ride a horse a few miles away from the nearest city. There they could declare, "This is my land!" And it would be theirs.

But on the flip side, emotionally and socially wealth is largely relative. How does my wealth compare to that of my friends and neighbors, and to that of the people in power?