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Undertoad · 07-15-2006, 07:55 AM

I don't know -- but the price has been up for a year now and the economy really is shrugging it off. This isn't future prediction, it's what's been happening.

Two guesses: one, the price is actually still average in historical, inflation-adjusted terms. Two, improvements in shipping and logistics mean that shipping is less of the cost per item, overall.

On other items,

One strange thing to remember about the housing situation is that each individual who makes a deal on a house is bullish about his or her own situation. People make deals like that, which affect their entire financial situation, only if they are optimistic about their own future. Nobody *expects* to be foreclosed on. Mortgage companies are similarly motivated.

The stock market is not the economy. The numbers that are important are GDP, inflation, money supply, unemployment. The stock market is ownership in US blue chip companies, and it sits next to the economy so it is usually affected by it, but it is not a measure of anything IN the economy. Perhaps people are investing more overseas. People are investing more in NASDAQ, which didn't even exist until 1971.

07-15-2006, 07:55 AM	#59
Undertoad Radical Centrist Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Cottage of Prussia Posts: 31,423	I don't know -- but the price has been up for a year now and the economy really is shrugging it off. This isn't future prediction, it's what's been happening. Two guesses: one, the price is actually still average in historical, inflation-adjusted terms. Two, improvements in shipping and logistics mean that shipping is less of the cost per item, overall. On other items, One strange thing to remember about the housing situation is that each individual who makes a deal on a house is bullish about his or her own situation. People make deals like that, which affect their entire financial situation, only if they are optimistic about their own future. Nobody expects to be foreclosed on. Mortgage companies are similarly motivated. The stock market is not the economy. The numbers that are important are GDP, inflation, money supply, unemployment. The stock market is ownership in US blue chip companies, and it sits next to the economy so it is usually affected by it, but it is not a measure of anything IN the economy. Perhaps people are investing more overseas. People are investing more in NASDAQ, which didn't even exist until 1971.