Joho the Blog
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June 15, 2004
1. Perhaps your newspaper's funny pages includes Whatzit, the syndicated daily puzzle that takes some everyday phrase and presents it as a clever arrangement of words. For example, "nv emerald" is "green with envy" and "TTT" is "big tease." Imagine it runs for the next 40 years. That's 14,600 common phrases from now. Whatzit will be down to obscure taglines from the 1950s and hepcat cliches that were last uttered in 1928. 2. When a store makes a commitment to everything costing a dollar, it is guaranteeing that it will lose value precisely at the rate of inflation. Posted
by D. Weinberger at June 15, 2004 09:05 AM
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Comments
Re: the "dollar stores." Not necessarily. The nominal rate of inflation is based on a "shopping basket" of goods and services, including food, home heating, entertainment, clothing, fuel and so forth. It pertains to one country (at a time for a given inflation rate.) The dollar stores count on obtaining a steady stream of inexpensive manufactured items and tchatchkes, as well as job lots of overruns and inventory clearouts. With China now the world's low-cost manufacturing plant, I have noticed an increasing variety of goods, with better quality than, say, ten years ago. A more accurate statement would be that the dollar stores follow the world-wide average rate of inflation more closely; better would be the relative difference in rates (not to mention real earning power) between the manufacturing countries and the consuming countries.
Disclaimer: IAMAE (I am not an economist, but (a) I once stayed in that hotel chain that claims to make you smarter if you stay there - they lied; (b) I play one on blogs; (c) I make this stuff up as I go along. Advice not fit for any purpose whatsoever. :)
Posted by: Mark Federman | June 15, 2004 10:42 AM
Uhmmmm, wouldn't the products it sells change over time?
Posted by: pb | June 15, 2004 06:10 PM