I remember in my twenties buying excellent Brooks Brothers oxford-cloth, button-down shirts for $7.50. Those same shirts now sell for $92. One has to grimace and bear it—or, in the case of these shirts, go topless. I remember when candy bars were 5 cents and so were Cokes. Cigarettes, now something like $10 a pack in Chicago, were 25 cents when I began smoking at the age of 16. That I don’t buy candy bars or drink Cokes and long ago quit smoking is beside the point. Gasoline when I began driving was around 30 cents a gallon. In 1970, I bought a new Volvo for $3,000. Today cars I wouldn’t care to own are priced in the 20-grand range. It’s not the principle, you understand, it’s the money.
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