Inflation Negation
Inflation is an economic phenomenon that any good economy will understand and at least try to control, certainly not rocket surgery. However, some people would rather clutch onto their old values. The Grumpy Old Man will rant on that in his day, you could buy a loaf of bread, see a film, spend the night with a nice Thai lady, and still have change left over. An old lady may flat out forget/deny the value of a dollar, and pay you 30 cents for mowing her lawn. Old people in particular are portrayed as susceptible to this trope.
Board Games
- Classic Monopoly still uses the same dollar values as it did when it was made in 1935.
Film
- Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery is almost the Trope Codifier, with Dr. Evil's ransom demand of one million dollars.
- In Blank Check, Preston's father gives him a single buck to spend at an amusement park. He finds only one (lame) ride that costs that little. Later, at the movie's climax, the Big Bad irately demands to know how Preston could spend $1 million in a week...despite having just chased Preston through his private castle and around the private amusement park he had installed throughout it.
- Especially since Preston had actually bought the house right from under the Big Bad's nose, with the latter knowing exactly how much he paid.
Literature
- Conversed about in The Daily Show: The Book. It appeals to elderly by reminding them of the time when bread, while it may have cost more than a nickel, was certainly not as much as it is now.
- In Terry Pratchett's Johnny and The Bomb, when old Mrs. Tachyon finds an old coin, she remembers when you could buy a good portion of fish and chips with it, and goes back in time to do just that.
- In Bloodcircle, Jack first becomes suspicious that the woman who took a cab from the estate wasn't Maureen, because she'd given the driver a ridiculously-high tip, rather than tipping in pennies as was the custom when Maureen grew up.
Live Action TV
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Martin: Well, I got my black coffee - of course, it was more expensive than a whole meal used to be. Time was, you could get two eggs, potatoes, choice of breakfast meats- |
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- An episode of Just Shoot Me had a landlady who was apparently so far behind the times that she charged ridiculously low prices for her apartments, resulting in her tenants doing all her shopping for her to prevent her from catching on to the real value of the modern dollar. At the end, it turned out she has been aware of the worth of her apartments the entire time, but enjoys the small community she has built with the people who live there.
- Another episode has Elliot returning a Six Million Dollar Man action figure he stole from a toy store when he was a kid. Dennis then buys it for himself, knowing it's a valuable collectors item, and the elderly owner
naivelyuncaringly sells it for the original sticker price.
- Another episode has Elliot returning a Six Million Dollar Man action figure he stole from a toy store when he was a kid. Dennis then buys it for himself, knowing it's a valuable collectors item, and the elderly owner
- On The Wonder Years, Kevin does chores around the house as suggested by his dad to earn money to go out with his friends. Kevin's dad is a stickler though, and for all his effort he gets a dollar from his dad's wallet. There are sound effects of a safe opening and closing when his dad opens his wallet too. Great scene.
- Angel, while physically in his mid-twenties, is over two hundred years old. Invoked when at one point he defends his spending habits by claiming that he's not cheap, just old, and reminiscing about how much you used to be able to buy for so little money.
Stand Up Comedy
- Bill Cosby has a stand-up routine in which he says that grandparents will give you money; all that you have to do is listen to a story about how much the money used to be worth. He quotes his grandfather saying that he once had fifty cents and bought, "A house... and a car... and put seventeen cents in the bank."
Video Games
- Chrono Trigger provides an in-universe example. No matter the era, the price for tonic is exactly the same.
Western Animation
- The Simpsons:
- In "Three Men and a Comic Book", Bart tries to earn money by doing chores for some old lady, ends up battered and bleeding from all the chores, and at the end of the week is paid the princely sum of 50 cents. When he complains to Homer:
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Homer: When I was your age, fifty cents was a lot of money. |
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- Mr. Burns is a veritable dumping ground for these kinds of tropes.
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Mr. Burns: "Don't poo-poo a nickel, Lisa! A nickel can buy you a steak and kidney pie, a cup of coffee, a slice of cheesecake, and a newsreel with enough change left over to ride the trolley from Battery Park to the Polo Grounds!" |
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- Of course, this is Rule of Funny, as newsreels have never cost less than a nickel in their entire existence. Neither have trolleys.
Other
- Old joke: "Five pounds! Why, when I was a lad you could take a girl to a nice restaurant, have a slap-up meal with all the trimmings, take her to the cinema, buy her an ice cream, take her boating in the moonlight and... and... and she still wouldn't."