Weekend Photos - August 2022

[robert.]

First one is Luray Cavern. 2nd and 3rd are Penn's cavern in center hall pa.



Penn's cave is a half hour boat ride through the cave

[healey36]

The wife’s family owned Skyline Caverns for many years. Always second-fiddle to Luray.

[robert.]

We went there also. Luray has made some changes. Some good and others bad. The blew a hole through the side. This moved their entrance away from the original. All their walkways are brick paths. Their new entrance allows for wheel chairs. They no longer give guided tours. You can walk through at your leisure. They had some BS covid story about removing tour guides. They have a bunch of kids spread out to answer questions. Their new entrance and unguided tours is damaging the cave. They leave the lights on all day. This causes mold to grow all over. Last time i was there. They would turn the lights on when you entered a section and off when you left.
We had a great tour guide in skyline. My daughter was answering his questions and tell bad cave humor jokes. He asked “if she wanted the flashlight to give the tour?” She took it and yapped about the formation for 20 minutes and moved the people along. As we’re about to leave she says “ can you tell the me how far we walked, how for below the surface we went and who discovered this cave. He told her. She repeated it. Then say” Don’t forget to stop in our gift shop for fudge “
I forgot. Luray now had a model train display. Some O and standard gauge tinplate.

[healey36]

I recall going to Luray some thirty years ago and they had bricked the floors even back then. While it was still pretty spectacular, it felt more like a Disney exhibit than natural formations. It seemed a bit over the top, but that's just me.

Skyline, at least back then, was quite rustic in comparison. That cavern, unlike Luray, had anthodite formations, these spidery crystallized bits that formed in various places on the ceiling. In some places, they had to put wire over them to keep folks from reaching up and breaking them off with their hands. Haven't been there in a very long time, but I would suspect the owners have made numerous "improvements" as well.

There's a long band of karst topography that runs from south-central Pennsylvania down through the Cumberland Valley, through Maryland, then into Virginia. With it are quite a few caverns, some of which are open to the public commercially. The only one I know of in Maryland is Crystal Grottoes, just south of Hagerstown on the road to Antietam. I've never been there, but folks say it's interesting.

http://www.mgs.md.gov/geology/caves/crystal_grottoes.html

[HONDO74]

I always found this to be an interesting picture of the 1939 model builder magazine.

Who is the guy in the picture and who was the famous person he was married to.

Also what is the engine he is looking at

[J. S. Bach]

It looks like the Lionel scale Hudson; the rest I know nothing about.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

A young Dimaggio in '39 who later married Marilyn in '54

[webenda]

It looks like the Lionel scale Hudson; the rest I know nothing about.

Rufus got the rest of the story...
Joe DiMaggio was married to Marilyn Monroe from January 14, 1954 to October 31, 1955

Cover details are revealed on page 29 of the Model Builder issue.

[webenda]

I notice Model Builder (a Lionel publication) cost $0.10 in 1939.

We have not had "Fun With Math" for a long time on MTJ. Let us have some fun.

Inflation Rate = ((B-A)/A) x 100
Where A = Starting Cost
and B = Ending Cost

Example 1:
A, 1939--a model railroad magazine (Model Builder) costs $0.10.
B, 2022--an equivalent magazine (O Scale Trains) costs $6.67.
Inflation Rate = ((B-A)/A) x 100 = ((6.67-0.10)/0.10) x 100 = 6,570% inflation.

Example 2:
A, 1939--a model railroad magazine (Model Builder) costs $0.10.
B, 2022--an equvalent magazine (The O Scale Resouce) costs $0.00.
Inflation Rate = ((B-A)/A) x 100 = ((0.00-0.10)/0.10) x 100 = -100% inflation.

Example 3:
A, 1939--a Lionel Scale Hudson costs $75.00.
B, 2022--a used 1939 Lionel Scale Hudson* costs $3,150.99.
Inflation Rate = ((B-A)/A) x 100 = ((3150.99-75)/75) x 100 = 4,101.32% inflation.

*Reference: https://www.ebay.com/p/1000822639

[healey36]

Thinking back to my college econ classes, I don't think any of those are true examples of inflation in its classic form. People tend to leave out other factors such as the cost of technology, supply/demand considerations, speculation, etc. If I could buy a ton of iron ore out of the Masabi Range in 1960 for $100, but today it would cost $1100, is that inflation? No, because the cost has gone up sharply due to factors besides the national money-supply, i.e. the Range became depleted. If I could buy a base-equipped Ford Maverick in 1969 for $1995, but to buy a base-level 2018 Ford Focus would require $19000, is that purely an effect of the growth of the national money supply? One could certainly argue that it did have an impact, but there are many more factors such as the incorporation of multiple iterations of technology, off-shore manufacturing, manufacturing-automation, etc.

The term "inflation", as I learned it, referred to the growth of the money supply. It boiled down to the notion that if the entire money supply of the U. S. was 100 one-dollar bills, and the government decided to print and distribute an additional ten one-dollar bills, the government had effectively "inflated" the money supply by 10%. If the GDP of the country went unchanged, a one-dollar bill was now only worth ninety-one cents in the marketplace (more dollars chasing the same amount of goods/services).

Following the 2008-2009 economic melt-down/financial crisis, the Federal Reserve printed/distributed trillions of dollars to maintain liquidity in the financial markets (quantitative easing). But why didn't we see an immediate inflationary effect back in 2010-2011? Some of the effect was offset by the economic recovery and growth of GDP in the years following the fiasco, some was offset by the change in the marketplace as more retail and wholesale business moved online and away from brick-n-mortar (something which put an extraordinary amount of pricing power in the hands of large retailers such as Amazon, eBay, Walmart). But as the those changes were absorbed and the field levelled, the remaining tens of trillions of dollars washing around started to bite (aggravated by the upheaval of the pandemic). There certainly is an element of inflation going on today, but it's much more complicated.

People tend to attribute price increases to "inflation", regardless of the root cause. Prices going up are "inflated". I get it, but there are many factors (not the least of which being good old-fashioned gouging, i.e. charging what the market will bear). It's capitalism, the system we beat our chest on preserving, except when it's ugly. But it's way more complicated than that, IMHO.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

People tend to attribute price increases to "inflation", regardless of the root cause. ....................

But it's way more complicated than that, IMHO.

[robert.]

I notice Model Builder (a Lionel publication) cost $0.10 in 1939.

We have not had "Fun With Math" for a long time on MTJ. Let us have some fun.

Inflation Rate = ((B-A)/A) x 100
Where A = Starting Cost
and B = Ending Cost

Example 1:
A, 1939--a model railroad magazine (Model Builder) costs $0.10.
B, 2022--an equivalent magazine (O Scale Trains) costs $6.67.
Inflation Rate = ((B-A)/A) x 100 = ((6.67-0.10)/0.10) x 100 = 6,570% inflation.

Example 2:
A, 1939--a model railroad magazine (Model Builder) costs $0.10.
B, 2022--an equvalent magazine (The O Scale Resouce) costs $0.00.
Inflation Rate = ((B-A)/A) x 100 = ((0.00-0.10)/0.10) x 100 = -100% inflation.

Example 3:
A, 1939--a Lionel Scale Hudson costs $75.00.
B, 2022--a used 1939 Lionel Scale Hudson* costs $3,150.99.
Inflation Rate = ((B-A)/A) x 100 = ((3150.99-75)/75) x 100 = 4,101.32% inflation.

*Reference: https://www.ebay.com/p/1000822639

Forget inflation. Lets try stupidity . Who can buy more Hudsons . 1939 Yankee’s all star buying $75.00. Or 2022 Yankee’s all star buying @ $3,000?

[webenda]

Dictionary Definitions from Oxford Languages
in·fla·tion
1. the action of inflating something or the condition of being inflated.
"the inflation of a balloon"

...but it's much more complicated... ....it's way more complicated than that, IMHO.

What is complicated about inflating a balloon or price of a magazine?



I have more 10's than Rufus.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Forget inflation. Lets try stupidity .

I think that's already been tried....

[robert.]

Yankeés Joe Dimaggion played for a salary of $25,000 in 39. He could purchase 3,333 Hudsons for $75.00. Yankeés all stat Giancarlo Stranton had a $29,000,000 salary in 2023. He can buy 8,753,395 Hudsons priced @ $ 3,313.