Oswald's $13.87
Peter Fokes
Considering the average was was about $4396 in 1963 (and Oswald earned
considerably less), this $13.87 equalled about 3% of a normal worker's
average wages!
Today, if someone was carrying 3% of their average wage when arrested
..... he would have $1,300 in his pocket!
Now if he had just purchased a ticket to the movie theatre instead of
sneaking in, he probably could have watched the whole movie!
I hear he was frugal.
Peter Fokes,
Toronto
WhiskyJoe
> Didn't Oswald have $13.87 in his pocket when
> arrested?
> Considering the average was was about $4396 in
> 1963 (and Oswald earned considerably less),
> this $13.87 equaled about 3% of a normal
> worker's average wages!
> Today, if someone was carrying 3% of their
> average wage when arrested ..... he would
> have $1,300 in his pocket!
Actually, that would be 0.3% of a normal worker's wage. Or equivalent
to $ 130.00 in today's money.
> Now if he had just purchased a ticket to the movie
> theatre instead of sneaking in, he probably could
> have watched the whole movie!
> I hear he was frugal.
I think the idea was to get out of the street as
fast as he could, not save money on a movie ticket.
He likely believed the police may have had a
description of him, either from the TSBD workers
or the witnesses to the Tippit's murder. He ducked
into the shoe store to avoid being seen by the
police. He ducked into the theater to avoid being
seen by the police.
Peter Fokes
>
>> Didn't Oswald have $13.87 in his pocket when
>> arrested?
>
>> Considering the average was was about $4396 in
>> 1963 (and Oswald earned considerably less),
>> this $13.87 equaled about 3% of a normal
>> worker's average wages!
>
>> Today, if someone was carrying 3% of their
>> average wage when arrested ..... he would
>> have $1,300 in his pocket!
>
>Actually, that would be 0.3% of a normal worker's wage. Or equivalent
>to $ 130.00 in today's money.
>
>
>> Now if he had just purchased a ticket to the movie
>> theatre instead of sneaking in, he probably could
>> have watched the whole movie!
>
>> I hear he was frugal.
>
>I think the idea was to get out of the street as
>fast as he could, not save money on a movie ticket.
Yes. I know.
The "frugal" bit was a humour.
>He likely believed the police may have had a
>description of him, either from the TSBD workers
>or the witnesses to the Tippit's murder.
Likely.
However instead of acting suspicious, he should have acted as if
nothing was wrong, and hope the one person in the box office was not
questioned immediately.
> He ducked
>into the shoe store to avoid being seen by the
>police.
No. He did not go into the shoe store.
>He ducked into the theater to avoid being
>seen by the police.
Yes, he did.
PF
Jerry Logan
Anthony Marsh
Buying a ticket makes it likely that the ticket seller could identify him.
> I hear he was frugal.
>
He left $179 for Marina. He could have flown to Europe for that probably.
> Peter Fokes,
> Toronto
Peter Fokes
You are correct.
Oops.
I doubt Oswald earned $4396. In fact, he only earned $2276.84
including unemployment insurance in the preceding 12 months (including
Nov. 63)
So the $13.87 would equal about 13.87/2276.84 x 100 = 0.60917% of
his most recent 12 months earnings.
So if we consider around $50,000 as an average wage now in US, Oswald
was carryiing about $304.59.
0.60917% of 50,000 =
(Not $1,300 as my sleepy head estimated last night)
Still $304 a tidy little sum for Oswald.
Peter Fokes,
Toronto
Peter Fokes,
Toronto
Peter Fokes
Peter Fokes
<anthon...@comcast.net> wrote:
Ya.
He probably would have preferred Cuba ... but what the heck.
Oswald's net income for the 12 months up to the assassination was
$2276.84.
So the $13.87 would equal about 13.87/2276.84 x 100 = 0.60917% of
his earnings.
However ...... (revision forthcoming ....lol)
If we consider around $50,000 as an average wage now in US, Oswald
was carryiing about $304.59.
Of course that assumption is based on the idea the average wage in
1963 was only $2276.84 ..... but we know it was higher ... around
$4400 .... soooo ....
13.87/4400 x 100 = 0.31522% or 157.61.
Whatever ... it was a time when pennies mattered!
Peter Fokes,
Toronto
>
>0.60917% of 50,000 =
>
>> Peter Fokes,
>> Toronto
>
Peter Fokes
wrote:
>On 24 Sep 2010 09:01:16 -0400, Anthony Marsh
><anthon...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>>On 9/23/2010 10:52 PM, Peter Fokes wrote:
>>> Didn't Oswald have $13.87 in his pocket when arrested?
>>He left $179 for Marina. He could have flown to Europe for that probably.
By the way, a bus ticket from Dallas to New Orleans was
$13.85.
See
http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/appendix-14.html
PF
Jerry Logan
jer...@gmail.com says...
13.87 is 3/1000 of 4396. So Oswald wasn't carrying 3% he was carrying
3/10th of 1%. So if the rest of Peter's assumptions are correct (and it
seems like a good idea to check them) then he was carrying the equal of
$130.
Jerry Logan
pfo...@rogers.com says...
No problem on the decimal place - they all blend together late at night!
I think a greater source of confusion is a distinction between
savings/walking around money. Oswald distributed his life savings on the
morning of 11/22. So while it may be unusal to carry that much money
around generally, it may not be so odd if you put it into the larger
context of a final distribution of assets.
On your $2276 figure Oswald had saved $183. That's about 8% which is
perfectly consistant with the average US personal savings rate in the
late 50's early 60's of 7.8 to 9%.
The morning of the 22nd Oswald left his wife $170 and kept $13 for
himself. Using the CPI to convert to 2010 dollars here's the situation.
On a salary of $16,000 he managed to save $1300. On the morning of the
22nd he left $1200 for his wife and took $100 with him - that doesn't
seem like an unusally large amount to me. If you just happen to be
splitting up your saving on the day the President is assassinated in
front of the building where you work. :>)
Anthony Marsh
You seem to be an expert on money from 1963. I assume you already know
what he paid for his rent then and how that compares to today. But how
much was the Coke machine and how much would his lunches cost? How much
did a typical lunch cost at the shop most TSBD workers went to?
How much did the movie cost?
Anthony Marsh
> On 24 Sep 2010 09:00:42 -0400, Jerry Logan<jer...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> In article<ht3o961cknj62l7ef...@4ax.com>,
>> pfo...@rogers.com says...
>>> Didn't Oswald have $13.87 in his pocket when arrested?
>>>
>>> Considering the average was was about $4396 in 1963 (and Oswald earned
>>> considerably less), this $13.87 equalled about 3% of a normal worker's
>>> average wages!
>>>
>>> Today, if someone was carrying 3% of their average wage when arrested
>>> ..... he would have $1,300 in his pocket!
>>>
>>> Now if he had just purchased a ticket to the movie theatre instead of
>>> sneaking in, he probably could have watched the whole movie!
>>>
>>> I hear he was frugal.
>>>
>>> Peter Fokes,
>>> Toronto
>>>
>> oops!
>
> You are correct.
>
> Oops.
>
> I doubt Oswald earned $4396. In fact, he only earned $2276.84
> including unemployment insurance in the preceding 12 months (including
> Nov. 63)
>
But that's not full time employment. Unemployment should be only about
half of full employment.
Anthony Marsh
He only ducked into the theater because a shoe salesman spotted him
acting suspiciously outside.
Anthony Marsh
>
>> Didn't Oswald have $13.87 in his pocket when
>> arrested?
>
>> Considering the average was was about $4396 in
>> 1963 (and Oswald earned considerably less),
>> this $13.87 equaled about 3% of a normal
>> worker's average wages!
>
>> Today, if someone was carrying 3% of their
>> average wage when arrested ..... he would
>> have $1,300 in his pocket!
>
> Actually, that would be 0.3% of a normal worker's wage. Or equivalent
> to $ 130.00 in today's money.
>
>
>> Now if he had just purchased a ticket to the movie
>> theatre instead of sneaking in, he probably could
>> have watched the whole movie!
>
>> I hear he was frugal.
>
> I think the idea was to get out of the street as
> fast as he could, not save money on a movie ticket.
No, he moved around a lot and walked quite a bit on the street. He did
not immediately try to hide anywhere.
> He likely believed the police may have had a
> description of him, either from the TSBD workers
> or the witnesses to the Tippit's murder. He ducked
> into the shoe store to avoid being seen by the
Maybe someone followed him from the Tippit murder or at least saw which
way he was running.
Anthony Marsh
You point to only the $170 from that day. What you don't try to find out
is how much he regularly gave to Marina before that.
David Von Pein
An observation concerning Lee Harvey Oswald's "cash on hand" on
November 22nd, 1963:
Oswald actually started out the day on November 22 with more than
$13.87 in his pocket, because we know he paid out $1.23 for bus and
taxi fares just after the assassination, and it's also very likely
that he purchased a Coca-Cola from the second-floor vending machine at
approximately 12:32 PM. (And a Coke cost a nickel back then, right? Or
was it ten cents?)
Anyway, that means when Oswald left the Paine house on 11/22/63, he
had at least $15.15 in his pocket.
I've always wondered why he had to pay such an odd amount for his bus
fare (23 cents) on Cecil McWatters' bus on November 22nd?
We know that Oswald gave cab driver Bill Whaley exactly $1.00 for his
95-cent taxi drive to Oak Cliff. So that accounts for $1.00 of the
$1.23 that is listed in the Warren Report (on Page 745):
http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wr/html/WCReport_0385a.htm
So that means LHO spent 23 cents on his short bus trip.
A few years ago, this topic came up at the acj newsgroup, and Bud had
suggested that perhaps the bus transfer that Oswald got from McWatters
cost a certain amount of money to obtain. I think Bud said that in his
home city of Philadelphia, a bus transfer did, indeed, cost some cash--
about 8 cents I think Bud said.
Does anyone know if the Dallas city bus lines charged 3 cents per
transfer? Maybe Oswald's fare was 20 cents and the transfer was 3
cents???
~shrug~
Anyhow, this isn't really important at all, but we can know that
Oswald certainly had at least $15.15 with him when he left for work on
November 22, 1963. And if he purchased more than one beverage from
either one of the two soft-drink machines inside the Texas School Book
Depository on that day, then he would have started out the day with
even more than $15.15.
David Von Pein
BUS FARE ADDENDUM:
I now see that Cecil McWatters, in his Warren Commission testimony
(shown below), said that Oswald's 11/22/63 bus fare cost 23 cents
(which still seems to me like a very strange amount to charge for any
bus fare; but apparently it wasn't). McWatters doesn't say anything in
his testimony about the transfer costing any additional amount of
money:
JOE BALL -- "You let [Oswald] him on the bus, and he paid his fare,
how much is that fare?"
CECIL J. McWATTERS -- "It is 23 cents."
MR. BALL -- "23 cents, and you went about down almost to Poydras."
MR. McWATTERS -- "Almost, between Poydras and Lamar."
Peter Fokes
wrote:
I was surprised the bus fare to New Orleans from Dallas cost $13.85.
See:
Lee Harvey Oswald Receipts and Expenditures
June 13, 1962, to Nov. 22, 1963
Scroll down to April 1963
Bus fare from Dallas to New Orleans 13.85
http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/appendix-14.html
Return bus fare from Dallas to Fort Worth was $4.60
See Nov. 1962
Bus fare, Dallas to Fort Worth and return 4.60
As for the Dallas bus fare of 0.23 cents, it might seem strange now
but back then a penny mattered!
Peter Fokes,
Toronto
dshar...@yahoo.com
> On 25 Sep 2010 00:42:08 -0400, David Von Pein <davevonp...@aol.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >BUS FARE ADDENDUM:
>
> >I now see that Cecil McWatters, in his Warren Commission testimony
> >(shown below), said that Oswald's 11/22/63 bus fare cost 23 cents
> >(which still seems to me like a very strange amount to charge for any
> >bus fare; but apparently it wasn't). McWatters doesn't say anything in
> >his testimony about the transfer costing any additional amount of
> >money:
>
> >JOE BALL -- "You let [Oswald] him on the bus, and he paid his fare,
> >how much is that fare?"
>
> >CECIL J. McWATTERS -- "It is 23 cents."
>
> >MR. BALL -- "23 cents, and you went about down almost to Poydras."
>
> >MR. McWATTERS -- "Almost, between Poydras and Lamar."
>
> >http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/mcwatters.htm
>
> I was surprised the bus fare to New Orleans from Dallas cost $13.85.
>
> See:
>
> Lee Harvey Oswald Receipts and Expenditures
> June 13, 1962, to Nov. 22, 1963
>
> Scroll down to April 1963
>
> Bus fare from Dallas to New Orleans 13.85
>
>
> Return bus fare from Dallas to Fort Worth was $4.60
>
> See Nov. 1962
>
> Bus fare, Dallas to Fort Worth and return 4.60
>
> As for the Dallas bus fare of 0.23 cents, it might seem strange now
> but back then a penny mattered!
>
> Peter Fokes,
> Toronto
made me look....http://www.jfklancer.com/LNE/taxcode.html
bit about IRS hanging on to Oswald's social security records...and no
answer to my musing, just what sort of employment did Oswald ever
really have?