Listen you young whipper snappers, back my day a horse cost ten bob, and it was fourpence halfpenny a week to feed! I've got no time for those newfangled horseless carriages of yours, running around at over 20 mph, its outrages! The king and kaiser should put the war aside and do something about it, I'm dammed tooten'! Next thing you know you fellas will want to fly in the sky!

ALTRAV,

"When you compare 4.7% to what I believe our base rate of tax is, what around 28%?
If anyone could enlighten me.
The point is, no matter what the true base rate is, it's going to be significantly more than 4.7%"

Depends how much you earn; if it's $18,200 or less then the rate is ZERO.
If you earn the minimum wage the tax rate is about 4.5%, which is less.

Paul,

A horse at 10/- in 1914 represents a real bargain but fhe normal prices varied between L20/-/- and L100 and the minimum wage was L130/annum

At that price it must have been a stolen horse Paul, & you know what we do to horse thieves, or receivers of same. My first horse bought with my paperboy run cost me 12 pounds, [$24] in 1951.

Any horse bought today that you would allow your grand kids to ride will cost you more than a fairly good used Holden.

As for feeding, a bale of lucerne hay today will cost you $26 each, even out here in the bush. You'll need a couple a week if you want to ride your horse to work. That will buy you enough petrol to drive that used Holden about 350 kilometers. Not worth steeling horses today.

Hasbeen,

That was one and a 1/2 weeks at the minimum wage which in comparison with today's wage equals $1,125.

http://historydaily.org/rare-discoveries-that-show-a-different-side-to-history-than-we-already-know/7

On the link above is a photo of the Holterman Nugget (reef gold)
which weighed 630 pounds and was worth L12,000, which would commonly be transcribed as $24,000, however 630 pounds of gold is worth $US1,036,350 at today's price, or in $A 1,563,716.22 (to be exact at this moment).

An online article from The Australian headed "Unions at the root of Holden death spin" spells out in detail the appalling behaviour of unions, the weakness of management caving into them, and the government's failure to monitor the use of the $2 billion of taxpayers' money that disappeared along with what looks to have been the worst company to ever operate in Australia - and the worst union.