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http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/

-0.4%, as in half a percent of deflation.

So it lost most of that as, get this, a non-fiat currency. So, why all the whining about "fiat."

Actually, it lost most of its value since 1971, as a fiat currency.

Looking at http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/, we find the following:

From 1913 to 1971, inflation was 309.1% over those 58 years.
From 1971 to 2010, inflation was 437.4% over those 39 years.

Total inflation from 1913 to 2010 is 2098.3%.

Inflation in part depends upon where you are and speaking purely from the stand point of the United States, the national average was -0.4% for FY2009; however, for FY2010 we are already sitting at 2.35% so any nominal raises have already been overtaken by inflation [Source].

Man that would be one expensive pr0n habit.

300 Megabit/sec Single Access (Ku band) TDRSS service was priced at USD$180 per minute in 1997. Adjusting for inflation, that would be over $240 in 2009, not accounting for likely price increases due to the growth in demand for satellite communications bandwidth during the GWOT.

I won't even mention the rather odious web content filtering that NASA uses these days...

I used this: http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

I'm presuming it has the annual inflation rate for each year from 1913 to 2009 though it doesn't say in detail. I entered 1 dollar in 1995 and it showed 40 some percent inflation through 2009.

As the other person wrote, the problem is that Government figures for inflation are based on diddled statistics. For example, they regularly leave certain items out of the "basket" of goods they use to measure inflation, on various thin "justifications", in order to manipulate the outcome. Not conspiracy theory, just fact.

This article, while a few years old, explains some of the methodology behind the "official" Consumer Price Index.

What's worse, is that the way the Bureau of Labor Statistics (the agency that calculates Consumer Price Index) does those calculations is utterly bizarre. For example, we know that when times get tough, people tighten their belts. Say you are used to buying extra-lean ground beef for $3.00 a pound. Last year, prices went up and now you can only afford the regular ground beef (with three times as much fat), for the same $3.00. According to the BLS, there is no price increase because you can still buy an "acceptable substitute" for $3.00 a pound. (No, I am not joking, that is one of the ways they adjust their figures.)

There are so many other "adjustments" they make, I could not begin to list them here, and they almost invariably are "adjusted" in ways that make inflation appear to be lower than it actually is.

This link describes some of the other ways in which CPI figures are distorted by government. And even that is hardly comprehensive description.

And it should be noted that Moore's Law does not apply to celery or gasoline, or for that matter most other things. My grocery bill, based on the basic foods *I* buy, went up by probably about 50% last year. That's a pretty big jump. Gasoline was up, and so many other things. My costs went WAY up (as well as costs to most, if not all, people with whom I have discussed this). And yet, the the government's figures for inflation in the year 2008 comes to approximately 3.8%.

And that's BULLSHIT, even if you factor in the drops in housing prices.

The same old idiotic and baseless talking point, straight out of the right-wing think-tanks.

I guess in all of of those years of education noone taught you logical fallacies

There's this little thing called INFLATION. Sure, in the 1890s, teachers would be ecstatic to get $1/hour. These days, that's peanuts.

Hmm. Quick search. From 1980 to 2008 the rate of inflation was 161% The government spending on education went up 551%

Did you go to a private college? If so, I bet you paid a hell of a LOT more than $12,000 per year.

I thought we were talking about public education here?

Maybe if you had halfway decent teachers, you'd know that by now.

I had excellent teachers. That is why I know what an Ad hominem attack is. Once again, attacking the positions of the teachers union is not the same as attacking the teachers. One can disagree with dismissal policies and not "hate all teachers".