When a dollar bought you more...

[bpossel]

Thought y'all would get a kick out of this .... 

Bob 

[mdsalemi]

...and good old Henry paid his workers $5 a day.  So a day's wages for body parts....

[JamesL]

That was actually $12 a day if you include benefits, medical and future pension costs

[al_lieffring]

When the model A came out, Henry Ford discovered that there were so many model T's on road that it was deterring sales of new cars, so he would pay his Ford dealers a bounty of $25 each to take the T model trade-ins and destroy them instead of reselling them. My father found a pit on the Missouri river near St. Joseph, MO where a dealer had smashed with a bulldozer and buried dozens of model T's. My dad salvaged enough parts to make several complete cars back in the 1950's.

[mdsalemi]

Tosh said: That was actually $12 a day if you include benefits, medical and future pension costs

Nice try Tosh.  None of that came until organized labor at Henry's place in 1937 (The T and the $5 a day wage were gone by then) and most "benefits" as people call them were a consequence of wage controls during WWII; you know, that time when we saved those islands off the coast of Europe??

(N.B.  Sorry couldn't resist...)

[JamesL]

That's OK

Lend Lease bankrupted us and cost us numerous technological gains such as the jet engine.

Bitter, moi? Not when we're all driving German cars

[mdsalemi]

By Jove, I think you are on to something...

If the world isn't pining for German cars, it's Japanese cars, right?  What a twist of irony...

[waqas]

If the world isn't pining for German cars, it's Japanese cars, right?  What a twist of irony...

Yes, and the Japanese are still imitating German designs....

[Faust]

When the model A came out, Henry Ford discovered that there were so many model T's on road that it was deterring sales of new cars, so he would pay his Ford dealers a bounty of $25 each to take the T model trade-ins and destroy them instead of reselling them. My father found a pit on the Missouri river near St. Joseph, MO where a dealer had smashed with a bulldozer and buried dozens of model T's. My dad salvaged enough parts to make several complete cars back in the 1950's.

More recently, the 70's, IBM still required that you "trade in" your old Selectric typewriter in order to get a new one. In the 70's a Selectric was $1200.00. IBM destroyed them to prevent an "aftermarket". Consider how much "word processing" $1200 will buy you today. In time Xerox brought out a "Clone" Selectric for $600.00, that will also buy a lot of "word processing" today. Come to think of it, my first "word processor" was close to $2,000. My first laser printer was about the same.

Old Henry had a lot of ties on the $5.00 a day, including church attendence.