Michaels HiFi
Well-known member
That sounds about right - trying to keep up with inflation as best as possible in real-time.
Magico Pricing
- Thread starter Mr Peabody
- Start date
- Status
That sounds about right - trying to keep up with inflation as best as possible in real-time.
steve59
Member
Thats 12% a year while my job is 2.5-3% so it just leaves me 0 room for error
Michaels HiFi
Well-known member
Yup. That's why people have effectively been going backwards in real wages the last 2.5 years - their raises can't keep up with the inflation.
Good news is you can do well in the used market. I just sold a bicycle I bought 3 years ago for exactly what I paid for it as it now sells for $1500 more than when I bought it.
Has anyone for half a second stopped to think of things a different way with respect to the new S3?
The reality is, the new S3 is FAR closer to an M3 than it’s predecessor. Diamond coated beryllium tweeter, far heavier speaker with higher grade aluminum structure, graphene cones, neodymium under-hang motors, the best Mundorf crossover parts and more.
Maybe if this speaker was called the T3, people would be focusing on the real trickle down from the M series instead of comparing it to the old S3, which in reality, there is no comparison.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
The reality is, the new S3 is FAR closer to an M3 than it’s predecessor. Diamond coated beryllium tweeter, far heavier speaker with higher grade aluminum structure, graphene cones, neodymium under-hang motors, the best Mundorf crossover parts and more.
Maybe if this speaker was called the T3, people would be focusing on the real trickle down from the M series instead of comparing it to the old S3, which in reality, there is no comparison.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
Inflation is everywhere. Just today I went to a local Macy’s store to kill some time while waiting for a movie in the theater next door. Was floored to see the Polo polos that used to be $59 for $110!
Sadly, the elevated prices are here to stay unless the economy crashes.
Had the chance to audition the Magico S3 2023 last Friday. Peter Mackay was on hand to moderate. Set up with Boulder electronics (1110 preamp, 2160 amp, 812 DAC), Nordost Odin 2 cables and the new Nordost QBase Reference power distribution system. While I know the S3 had a bit to go with regard to break in, it was extraordinarily musical and engaging. The speakers disappeared in the room, with unfettered dynamics, and surprisingly extended bass considering their size. The soundstage was simultaneously wide and tall extending to the limits of the room. Depth of imaging was a bit shallow but I attribute that in part to the electronics but primarily to the need for additional break in. I will return for another listen when the speakers have another 100 hours or so of run-in but as Mike suggests, the new S3 is a significant leap forward from its predecessor. This sort of achievement does not come without significant investments in research and development, testing, materials technology, industrial design, etc, the list goes on and on.
IMO, considering the performance envelope of the S3, it will stand up to comparison with speakers well beyond its price point. Whether it is fairly priced or not is an individual decision. Having heard it first hand I think it is.
Really Mike?
What is the inflation rate in the US last 10 years?
US monthly inflation rate: 2012 – 2023
The average inflation rate for the past 10 years is 2.65%. The Federal Reserve sets target inflation at 2% for medium term economic stability.
A 10 year average has nothing to do with current realities, or in this case, the past 24 months. The past two years inflation has gone from 1.5% to 8%. The CPI average has risen nearly 13% in the past 2 years. Butter and Eggs have risen 51% and 54% respectively. Bread is up 23%. Must be all those greedy farmers huh? They’re in cahoots with those audio manufacturers. Bread, butter, eggs and speakers!
All raw material costs, including aluminum has sky rocketed. Add to this wage increases. Admittedly, they are lagging inflation as a whole, but we were seeing 8% increases in wages, something unheard of 2, 5 or 10 years ago.
The bright side? I think inflation fears are beginning to ease as its meteoric rise has begun to ease. But the Skelton lurking in the closet is interest rates. It has literally halted housing sales. We need interest rates back down around 4% or a wee bit lower.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
Michaels HiFi
Well-known member
Wow. You can't use an average like that. We hade REAL inflation rate (not the picking and choosing from the federal reserve) of about 2% under the previous administration. The Real Inflation rate (which takes into account things the FR ignores but is a part of every day life) under the current administration has been about 30%
The average American while making gains in real wages under the previous administration has been loosing about $10K per year under the current administration. The average food bill for the average American Family as reported by the Wall Street Journal has increased under the current administration by over $500 PER MONTH.
So while I'm not here to talk politics, when you as a non US resident spout off info that is completely false it needs to be corrected. I respectfully suggest you don't tell us about the economic disaster of the last several years we are trying to navigate through while you sit abroad.
Here is the government inflation rate numbers which means they are lower than actual real world numbers as they only account for a small sample of prices, but since you wanted to quote, here you go:
"Since President Biden took office, prices have increased cumulatively by 17.4 percent, while hourly wages have increased only 13 percent. In looking at the past seven presidents, only Jimmy Carter had a bigger inflation rate, 26.2 percent, at a similar point in his presidency."
August 2023 Using CBO numbers:
Inflation is up more than 15 percent.
The cost of groceries for Americans has risen approximately 50 percent.
U.S. gas prices are up nearly 62 percent.
Natural gas prices are up more than 40 percent.
Interest rates highest since 1985. Home mortgages were at 2.7% three years ago and are 8% now making home buying unaffordable
THIS IS NOT ABOUT POLITICS OR A PARTICULAR PARTY BUT INSTEAD ABOUT REAL INFLATION HITTING US ALL
SCAudiophile
Active member
Excellent post, maps to daily reality.
Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk
Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk
steve59
Member
I think we all can say we expected some inflation after the US government handed out so much money during covid,. I'm as politically ignorant as possible for my own personal mental health, but could see inflation coming. On the + side a year ago my MM acct was paying nothing on $100k and now is paying around $500 a month. I'm sure it's not keeping up with inflation, but it does cover the difference in groceries, lol
Mr Peabody
Well-known member
- Thread Author
- #93
puroagave
Active member
During the Carter administration I recall one could earn 12% or more on CDs and about the same on a MM but we had runaway inflation too.
still-one
Active member
If you don't think that some of the Inflation numbers are being driven by fat bottom lines then you aren't paying attention to Wall Streets numbers. Airlines, Big Banks, Oil Companies, and even the auto companies are at or near record profits.
Oil companies (the big ones) all recorded record profits in 2022 and after higher returns in the first quarter of 2023 raised this years forecast.
The Banking Industry seems to love these interest rates and lower default rates as they recorded record first quarter profits of $80bn up 30% year over year. The Big Six US Banks earned a Trillion dollars in the last decade and that is after the billions in penalties they were fined.
The airlines are a bit harder to figure out but they doubled their second quarter profits year over year on fewer flights. Funny that aviation fuel costs are down while everyone seems to be complaining about gasoline prices.
Big Three auto industry profits have been in the $30B range the last few years. 2022 was an odd year. Great profits yet US auto sales of 13.7 million were the lowest since 2011. Those numbers should increase by at least 10% as supply chain issues lessen.
Again in the food industry you see record profits from companies like Con-Agra up over 50%, Kraft-Heinz up from $255m to $887m or 448% and Cal-Main up from $40m to $323 or 718%. Is it possible that the food and agriculture industry has become so concentrated that there is little incentive to gain market share by competing on price?
When you have an economy that has virtually no unemployment, where we have twice the number of open positions than the number of unemployed workers, you will have labor cost pressures. Getting work permits to fill open positions in the hotel and agriculture industries could help a bit. There is hardly a business in our ara that doesn't have a help wanted sign on the door.
In summary, yes commodity costs have increased significantly since the pandemic. Labor cost are rising. The impact of tariffs has been passed to the consumer. Companies have used inflation to pad their bottom lines. (No, I do not have the answer as to what if any value is too much profit. )I can tell you that the average consumer does not benefit from stock dividends generated by these profits. Fortunately those of us on these forums often do.
Oil companies (the big ones) all recorded record profits in 2022 and after higher returns in the first quarter of 2023 raised this years forecast.
The Banking Industry seems to love these interest rates and lower default rates as they recorded record first quarter profits of $80bn up 30% year over year. The Big Six US Banks earned a Trillion dollars in the last decade and that is after the billions in penalties they were fined.
The airlines are a bit harder to figure out but they doubled their second quarter profits year over year on fewer flights. Funny that aviation fuel costs are down while everyone seems to be complaining about gasoline prices.
Big Three auto industry profits have been in the $30B range the last few years. 2022 was an odd year. Great profits yet US auto sales of 13.7 million were the lowest since 2011. Those numbers should increase by at least 10% as supply chain issues lessen.
Again in the food industry you see record profits from companies like Con-Agra up over 50%, Kraft-Heinz up from $255m to $887m or 448% and Cal-Main up from $40m to $323 or 718%. Is it possible that the food and agriculture industry has become so concentrated that there is little incentive to gain market share by competing on price?
When you have an economy that has virtually no unemployment, where we have twice the number of open positions than the number of unemployed workers, you will have labor cost pressures. Getting work permits to fill open positions in the hotel and agriculture industries could help a bit. There is hardly a business in our ara that doesn't have a help wanted sign on the door.
In summary, yes commodity costs have increased significantly since the pandemic. Labor cost are rising. The impact of tariffs has been passed to the consumer. Companies have used inflation to pad their bottom lines. (No, I do not have the answer as to what if any value is too much profit. )I can tell you that the average consumer does not benefit from stock dividends generated by these profits. Fortunately those of us on these forums often do.
Michaels HiFi
Well-known member
After being shut down (you can decide on another forum if legally or illegally by the government) for two years, where virtually every company lost money, prices went up due to almost no supply nor shipping ability. Of course the companies are now making profits due to the artificial meddling in the market economy. and recouping there losses.
And you are 100% wrong - EVERY average consumer who has a 401K or a pension is benefiting from these profits and stock splits.
You can't have artificial manipulate of a market on the scale we did to first destroy hundreds of thousands of business (NYC alone lost over 40.000 companies that will never come back) that have closed forever, and then complain the survivors are benefiting.
And we have low unemployment due to the fact that - as reported by CBO (a non partisan budget office) people have STOPPED LOOKING TO WORK (they are not counted in the unemployment figures) due to unemployment and covid benefits still being paid in many states for people to not work AND they CHANGED how they calculated unemployment recently to make the numbers look better. They have also vastly expanded those who qualify for unemployment undoing the Clinton era reforms to rein in fraud and laziness. Massachusetts as an example was paying $70,000 a year in unemployment (as reported by WBZ). Who would be crazy enough to get a job with that amount?
So adding more visa's isn't the answer, and stop paying people to NOT work is.
Again, this is a very simple issue that only those who don't like the results of their actions claim is complicated. Every half intelligent economist was warning for years this was going to happen with the actions taken with the trillions wasted. We were told they were lying. And now it's all come true.
still-one
Active member
I am not wrong, only 60% of the country is invested in the stock market and that includes those 401k's. Around 78% of Americans have less than $50k saved for retirement. With few companies still offering defined pension plans those who are going to have to live off Social Security and their 401k's will be hurting.
Yes every intelligent economist has warned for years that tax cuts and artificially low interest rates were not good for the long run.
I am not going to argue that unemployment benefit programs should not be overhauled. In many cases they are a dis-insensitive to work. We need those people back paying taxes and receiving benefits, not just being offered enough hours to keep them below the benefit threshold.
Raising the cap of H-2B visas has allowed many seasonal jobs to be filled. There were over 130k requests for the 33k summer allocation. The temporary increase of ~66k visas for 2023 has helped. Still in many hotels you have to almost beg to get your sheets changed daily or fresh towels delivered automatically.
Those hot Texas temperatures having you drinking the Kool-Aid.
Michaels HiFi
Well-known member
Let me fix this for you - from the Bureau of Labor: "As of March 2022, 69 percent of private industry workers had access to retirement benefits (either defined benefit or defined contribution plans), while 92 percent of state and local government workers had access."
Yeah - blame the high-on-cocaine trillions spending spree and inflation of the last 2.5 years on tax cuts. Oh and tax cuts are definitely the reason they don't have savings. LOL
I see you are a reader and follower of Saul Alinsky.
kzhtoo
Active member
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2014
- Messages
- 1,615
Exactly!
kzhtoo
Active member
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2014
- Messages
- 1,615
It’s very simple yet so complex for some to grasp because tax cuts and low interest rates mean “free money”, never mind the artificial nature. And in the long run, it costs many times more.
- Status