A LETTER FROM AN OLD MAN

Dear Uncle Wisdom:

The papers keep telling us that the economy is in wonderful shape. Maybe it is. But if you measure things according to the well-being of the dollar, things don't look so rosy to me.

I paid $18,000 for my house in 1956. It was pretty fancy. A low-slung ranch with three bedrooms, floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room, and an attached two-car garage. It was an energy-efficient house with a two-foot overhang, which kept the sun out in the summer but invited King Sol in during the winter. So much sun came in during Chicago's icy winters that the furnace never had to burn oil 'til the sun set. The utility room was ten by twelve, fully finished, and located just off the kitchen. The hot outer shell of the furnace heated the utility room, making it a perfect place for the baby's bassinet. And oil heat was so clean and convenient compared with the coal furnaces I was raised with.

We raised three kids with only one bathroom and thought nothing of it even, though most of our younger friends tend to say, "You had only one bath for five people?! My God, that's absolutely primitive." (In my day, "primitive" meant sloshing through the snow in winter to a stinky outhouse.)

All this is preamble to the idea that at one time $18,000 could buy a piece of heaven.

Now what does $18,000 buy?

My first economic shock was about 1985, when the average price of a new car reached $20,000. It was shocking to realize that my beloved $18,000 home could equal only a car. This set off a national moan of "I had to pay more for my new car than my first house!"

But cars were only the first offenders. Many more were to come.

I went to a fancy-shmancy private college where the tuition was $540 a year. Today it is $24,000 -- or 33 percent more than my first house.

My urologist recommended a procedure for hammering my kidney stones into small, voidable pieces. When I asked how much this fancy machine cost, he reluctantly said that the use of the equipment for a one-hour procedure was $22,000. I was shocked. I had worked many years to pay off a $14,000 mortgage, but this guy was going to burn Medicare for $22,000, just for using a machine for one hour? It didn't even include his fee.

The drug companies have become so greedy that I have trouble buying at my local drugstores. After years of being a model citizen and faithfully obeying all laws, I have been forced in my old age to become a drug smuggler (and a pretty sophisticated one at that). I get my Plavix from Canada, but to evade the feds, I have it transshipped through various islands in the Caribbean. (According to recent history books, I have learned that over 50 percent of our founding fathers were rum and whiskey smugglers, which makes me feel better about smuggling Plavix. Under similar economic conditions, I assure you that I would never have attempted to smuggle Old Grand Dad into the country.)

Everybody said Social Security was a good thing. At it was (and mostly still is). But my aged mother needs so many drugs that her monthly bill runs around $1,200 a month while her Social Security checks are just $854. Seniors complain that they have to choose between meds and food. But my mother doesn't even have that choice. Fortunately, her savings and investments are enough to let her live through the decline of the dollar even though her meds now cost over $14,000 a year -- the amount of my first mortgage.

I recently asked a contractor how much it would cost to add a sunporch to my current house. His estimate was $32,000 -- or 90% more than the entire cost of my first house. We decided to save the money and take Vitamin D instead.

In 1958, I had a business trip to Hamburg, Germany. I took my wife and stayed in one of the fanciest hotels in Europe, the Four Seasons. The bill was $22. Now I see that the hotel's room rates start at more than $400 a night. Why? Well, in 1958 the dollar was strong and could buy four German marks. Now the dollar has become so weak that it can buy only four-fifths of a mark. If the dollar had stayed strong, you could stay for about $100 a night.

I opened the New York Times last week to find it filled with all kinds of Christmas ads, even before we had a chance to watch It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. (I think there's a competition between the merchants and pro football to see who can expand their seasons to a full year first.) My big shock was seeing advertisements for Rolex watches listed at prices over $20,000. The top price was $26,000. My strong 1956 dollar, which could buy a dreamy house, has become so weak it can't even command a fancy watch. I closed the paper and decided to stick with my Big Ben pocket watch, which cost only one dollar when it was given to me in 1941.

We know who is attacking and weakening the dollar: Those bums in Washington who say "Deficits don't matter." Between the record trade and budget deficits, it's no wonder that foreign governments are now starting to buy Euros instead of dollars. Republicans used to stand for conservative policies and a sound dollar. But now the G.O.P. in Washington have caught the spending disease of the Democrats. Which makes me worry that the dollar is going to get weaker and weaker.

There used to be an expression used by most doctors. After a successful physical examination, the doctor would smile and say, "You're as sound as a dollar."

If a doctor said that to me today, I'd probably have a panic attack.

Yours truly,

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