Compared to 30 and 40 years ago taxes are very low and our dollar buys far more than it ever did. My first computer cost me $3500 and it was rubbish, but the best on the market at the time. Dot matrix printer - just rubbish but it cost $1000 through a close friend who worked for IBM. A basic car was a years wages for me then - amazing prices.
Things have never been cheaper on balance.
I don't value 'things' (well not those sorts of things) greatly I guess.
So yep, I march to the beat of a different drum - Off into the distance ...
A Professional Demographer to an amateur demographer:"negative natural increase will never outweigh the positive net migration"
I don't value 'things' (well not those sorts of things) greatly I guess.
So yep, I march to the beat of a different drum - Off into the distance ...
Computers mattered a lot to me, I was running a full on business and I was an early adopter of computer systems to manage hundreds of accounts and thousands of invoices daily. I'm not a gamer.
Any expressed market opinion is my own and is not to be taken as financial advice
Hasn't YOUR car rego bill increased? - By what percent did it decrease? Hasn't YOUR home and contents insurance bill increased? - By what percent did it decrease? Hasn't YOUR electricity bill increased? - By what percent did it decrease? Hasn't YOUR council rates bill increased? - By what percent did it decrease? Hasn't YOUR water bill increased? - By what percent did it decrease? Etc ...
Though your debt bill (ie interest on borrowed money) has decreased I fully expect. But what else has actually gone down apart from your debt bill? - And by what percent did it decrease?
The fact is, inflation on basic living expenses are high and been climbing fast for years.
This is what happens when the government has to much control and their hand in the pot on all these things , weather it be comapny taxes or gst .
Peter what to tell us his computer is much better and cheaper than ten years ago, as will be your phone and also your car. This is competeion in the free world, where things will get better and cheaper,and more so now thanks to cheap asian labour.
But when the government controls things or has there hand in the til, the service just gets worse but more expensive.
But lets look at basic living costs, Housing wheather it be purchase or renting, although rents are now dropping in some places, but they have risen hard over the last three to five years in most places. Electricity has doubled over a few years, home gas just increased 17% in July, what about water and insurance . Petrol and food still seem ok, but a lower dollar will change that.
While I know some of you consider a laptop, phone and car a basic living necessity, it is not. Many prople live with out any. But the essential, rent, power , water , gas , insurances and all risen greatly.
That old pensioner can get by without a laptop, without a mobile phone and without a car, but he cannot get buy without power and water and gas, and now he has less food because everything else is so expensive, including the rent.
So if we discard what you clowns think are basic living needs, and look at inflation on REAL living needs, inflation is through the roof.
Don't kid yourself you know all there is about inflation peter, I'll try not to remind you about Interest rates, the direction of the economy , the extent of job losses. Just remember, our dollar may get forced down for one reason or another, this would force inflation up, and this is the reason we may need to raise rates independently of the US.
This is hard to asses peter but you cannot discard it, the possibility of this happening is now looking more likely than it was a while ago, especially as our roller was near $1.15 at one stage, we are touchin on 92 cents now. So while the US may be able to cover inflation on some things by diluting them with others or discarding them altogether as has been the practice over the years, if our dollar was to fall down or drop some way, we won't be able to hide it like they can.
So yes, we are seeing some deflation of some products but not basic living needs, the deflation that we are seeing is really just our strong dollar against cheap asian labour products, compared to our once more expensive home grown or western import product before Chinese products overpowered.
Go and see the rises over the years on these basic living costs, not 2-3% rises, 50% over two or three years on power alone, what is that peter, not inflation......
Compared to 30 and 40 years ago taxes are very low and our dollar buys far more than it ever did. My first computer cost me $3500 and it was rubbish, but the best on the market at the time. Dot matrix printer - just rubbish but it cost $1000 through a close friend who worked for IBM. A basic car was a years wages for me then - amazing prices.
Things have never been cheaper on balance.
And yet the price of houses seems to double every 10 years while everything else gets cheaper.
Pretty much sums up the difference between capitalism and socialism.
------------------------------ " ... which is that all-too-familiar dynamic in Irish life where people tell lies, cover them up and create all sorts of collateral damage, sometimes spread out over decades, and never take responsibility." - Alan Glynn
And yet the price of houses seems to double every 10 years while everything else gets cheaper.
Pretty much sums up the difference between capitalism and socialism.
I never said that houses were cheap.
We have had a couple of decades when house prices rose at 7% per annum which means they have doubled every 10 years, but we have had decades in the past where they haven't done anything, so don't count on house prices maintaining that rate of increase.
What I would like to see is a graph of household income less taxation less the cost of living for a family less the cost of a median mortgage payment plus government entitlements expressed in todays dollars over the period from 1955 until now. I think that would settle a few arguments.
The current method of comparing house prices from different eras is simplistic and dishonest
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