Presented by Drew von Hasselbach
90-Minute Enhanced Presentation (All)
Drew von Hasselbach’s great-great-granduncle bought a property in Ontario for 17 pounds and 10 shillings in 1837. But how much is that in today’s money? Drew was a reporter at the Financial Post for 20 years, and he’ll show you how to figure that out.
- Money talks, but what does it tell us? The challenge is context. We need to develop some concepts that capture the meaning of wealth in different times.
- The easy solution: Inflation calculators. These are simple tools that can quickly translate historic values to current ones. While these are easy to use, they aren’t always available for every time frame or place, so we learn their limitations.
- The fancier solutions: Land and gold. These have always been valuable to people, and the historical records are detailed, particularly for gold. We look at how to grab some of that historic data and use it to translate values in situations where inflation calculators aren’t available.
