Bicycles Became 68 Percent More Abundant In Two Years

The more we make the faster we learn.

In 2020 Walmart was selling a basic bicycle for $98. Today you can buy a significantly upgraded model for the same price. The new model has 21 speeds, disk brakes, and a front shock. This new model was selling for over $150 just two years ago. The nominal price has dropped by 35 percent.

During this same period unskilled hourly compensation increased by 10 percent. Two years ago it would have taken 10.5 hours to earn the money to buy this bike. Today it takes 6.2. The time price has fallen by over 40 percent. For the time it took to buy one of these bikes two years ago, you would get 1.68 bikes today. This means bicycle abundance has increased by 68 percent. As Jordan Peterson would say, we’re 68 percent smarter.

Learning curves and large markets yield new knowledge. This illustrates the power of George Gilder’s three foundation principles: Wealth is knowledge, growth is learning, and money is time. Our growth in knowledge can be measured in time.

You can learn more about how to measure our standard of living with time prices in our new book, Superabundance, available at Amazon. George Will calls time prices a marvelous historical economic measure.

Gale Pooley is a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute and a board member at Human Progress.