Why vinyl?

I'm curious, does anyone (who was around at the time) believe that $8.99 equals $30.99, regardless of what an academic estimate of money is?

It doesn't seem the same to me at all, and I used to buy a lot of records. Let's not deal with the 1980s LP inflation due to the cost they wanted to ring out of us as they introduced the cash-cow CD format...

Gregg

Thanks for the responses, I don't begrudge 180 gram LPs selling at $30.00 a pop (so to speak) - that's the nature of the business today. I would like it to be less, but that's true for a lot in audio, I'd rather it was healthy and viable rather than cheap.

I just questioned the justification that $8.00 = $30.00, given how buying three records in 1978 felt and contrasting that with what buying three records does to the wallet now. I like the Bank of Canada number more, but I get in trouble when I start talking about "feelings" and currency value, but so be it.

As someone who collects mono records, I'm beginning to think I'd pay a premium for undamaged, clean 50's classical LPs (forget Jazz, my income would have to increase exponentially). I also have a hard time spending $18-20 for CDs.

Gregg