The real thing

Stamps just went up 2 cents. Cigarettes will be going up 44 cents a pack. Gas goes up every day. What's the saying -- being "nickeled and dimed to death"? Oh, for the good, old days, when the price of a Coke stayed a nickel for more than 70 years. There were many reasons for this, among them:

Part of Coke's problem was the cost of replacing vending machines that accepted only nickels—and the fact that the alternative, dimes, represented a 100 percent price hike. (The boss of Coca-Cola wrote to his friend President Eisenhower in 1953 to suggest, in all seriousness, a 7-and-a-half-cent coin.)

One of the technological innovations (let's not call it an "advance" ) we've seen in recent years are vending machines on which the prices of specific items can be changed increased at will.