Money Masters

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Of course the high end stuff is expensive - however, a new graphics card today is both cheaper and also thousands of times more powerful than a card ten years ago.

And the price of computers has gone down a lot when you include how much better they've gotten.

[Husar]

Well, the production of those cards is cheaper today as well, or at least it should be.
If you go by more power = higher price, then one day you will pay 10,000EUR for a new highend card because "well, it's so much more powerful than those old cards".

[Papewaio]

So something that costs less of a proportion of your money and is more powerful then the older version is more expensive?

I think the problem here is they are not comparing the same hardware and also more importantly not factoring in buying power increase alongside inflation.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

So something that costs less of a proportion of your money and is more powerful then the older version is more expensive?

I think the problem here is they are not comparing the same hardware and also more importantly not factoring in buying power increase alongside inflation.

His point is:

If the high end card back then had a unit cost to the manufacturer of 500 1990 Euros, and they sold it for 1000; but today's high end card costs 450 1990-equiv Euros to make, they should reduce the price to 950 instead of charging the 1000 cost that the market has demonstrated it will bear.

I disagree.

[Husar]

No, my point was a different one.
My point was that prices sometimes rise faster than wages and that basically makes people poorer.
The point of the documentary was that national banks don't really want a stable currency because a stable currency doesn't help their private owners to become even richer.

[Papewaio]

I'm not going to play a violin for those people who feel poor because they can't buy the latest set of graphics card in quad configuration.

Overall PCs have dropped in price and improved in capacity. What the market will pay for luxury goods (such as prestige entertainment pieces) which high end graphics cards are, is not an accurate way of showing the increase in the cost of living.

Its like saying that sashimi is really expensive therefore all fish is expensive.

And national banks do want a stable (not necessarily fixed currency) as the way to get a better credit rating (and hence more investments) is to have a stable, growing economy.

=][=

Look at China and the low wages there. Now it makes sense to build stuff in China and sell it overseas. But what a lot of companies are drooling over is an expanding market where Chinese have more surplus wages to buy their goods. As the Chinese economy takes off, more and more luxuaries can be sold to them... the standard of living is going up and more people are making a profit.

In short slaves make poor consumers, capitalists need wealthy customers.

[ShadeHonestus]

In short slaves make poor consumers, capitalists need wealthy customers.

I find it increasingly difficult to convert my slaves to wealthy clerks. This is even after I make full citizenship a staple of my government. Can I make them into military units and DoW the nation next to me thereby eliminating them entirely or are they stuck as slave PoP's?




Victoria! pre-patch

[Husar]

I'm not going to play a violin for those people who feel poor because they can't buy the latest set of graphics card in quad configuration.

Overall PCs have dropped in price and improved in capacity. What the market will pay for luxury goods (such as prestige entertainment pieces) which high end graphics cards are, is not an accurate way of showing the increase in the cost of living.

Its like saying that sashimi is really expensive therefore all fish is expensive.

I chose computer parts as an example because I know the prices.
I was thinking about food, but I don't like adding a "say my parents", "according to my parents" etc into every sentence. Let's just say according to them and many others, the price of food has increased as well, but I cannot give you an example since I didn't use to buy my own food back then.

Maybe I chose the wrong example with computer parts, but originally I wasn't serious anyway, shouldn't have sticked with it, my fault.