History can be silly.

It's 1789 and George Washington has just been elected as the first President of the newly organized United States. He wants to write a letter to the new Congress explaining some of his positions and what he hopes to get done by working with them. Unhappy with the first few drafts, he turns to his good friend and future President, James Madison, to write the letter for him. Madison writes the letter, Washington approves it, signs it, and sends it to Congress.
Congress gets the letter and while they mostly approve of the contents, there are a few points of disagreement so they form a committee to pen a response to the President. They turn to James Madison, who with some help from others pens a letter to George Washington explaining their differences.
President Washington receives the letter, jots down some notes, pens the first draft, and sends them to James Madison, asking him to flesh them out and pen a letter detailing why Washington is opposed to some of Congress's ideas.
Congress gets the second letter and authorizes James Madison to write their response.
At this point, Congress and Washington agree to meet and hash out their differences. Rather than meet with 300 plus people, the President asks Congress to appoint one man to represent them. Congress agrees and they select James Madison to meet with George and hammer out their differences.
Madison, evidently, could hold his cards very close to his vest and it wasn't until years after his death that historians realized he was the author of all four letters.

Really stupid.

My favorite Washington story was that, in the Continental Army's infancy, they were trying to figure out what General Washington's salary should be. Washington magnanimously said "Don't pay me a salary, just cover my expenses." One problem: Washington had a bit of an expensive lifestyle. In 1783 alone, he reported over $160,000 in expenses.

When it came time to decide what the President's salary should be, Washington once again said "Don't pay me a salary, just cover my...", and Congress said "Ohhhhh no you don't!"

Quote: Deucekies

One problem: Washington had a bit of an expensive lifestyle. In 1783 alone, he reported over $160,000 in expenses.
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$160,000 in 1783 is worth $4,174,928.30 today

That’s according to https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1783?amount=160000

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Quote: Deucekies

One problem: Washington had a bit of an expensive lifestyle. In 1783 alone, he reported over $160,000 in expenses.
link to original post

$160,000 in 1783 is worth $4,174,928.30 today

That’s according to https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1783?amount=160000
link to original post

Shit, that’s cheap.

Really interesting.

Washington was given lots of land for his service. In Washington county, south of Pittsburgh, he was given a Patent Grant* of over 2,000 acres. Most all the others are 130-200. No idea how they came about the shape as they are all different shapes and sizes, which would not happen in lands in the west as Jefferson loved perfect squares.

Anyhow, when we did land research sometimes Washington, Jefferson, or other prominents of the day would show up in your chain of title. Talking to a girl on my team and Washington comes up.

"I hate him!"
"He founded your country!"
"I still hate him."

See, what happened was he was in the chain of title she was working and any time his name came up in the Grantor Books** she had to check it out completely to verify it was not the parcel of land she was working to complete the chain of title. Took her twice as long as usual.

* Patent Grants are original grants of land from the Federal Government and considered where chain of title starts as nobody owned the land before this.
** Grantor Books are a record of anyone who ever sold land to anyone else ever. Besides land they sometimes have slave emancipation records.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Quote: Deucekies

One problem: Washington had a bit of an expensive lifestyle. In 1783 alone, he reported over $160,000 in expenses.
link to original post

$160,000 in 1783 is worth $4,174,928.30 today

That’s according to https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1783?amount=160000
link to original post

I was interested to see that the calculator will accept dates prior to 1913, which https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl will not.

I've assumed that estimates about earlier inflation were too unreliable, but they note they are using estimates "prior to 1913 ... by Dr. Robert Sahr of Oregon State University"

Some interesting charts there. This one shows periods of wild US inflation in the more speculative years, but also periods of great deflation as well, for a sort of balance. From 1950 on, no more deflation of significance.

I believe those green deflations are crashes.

Quote: ChumpChange

I believe those green deflations are crashes.
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Before 1913 there were plenty of "panics" usually every few years.