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Soup Dumpling Index: How prices compare around the world

36 points by ecliptik 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
bobthepanda 2y ago
At some point I will need to make a trip to Din Tai Fung’s Taiwan or Hong Kong locations. At least some of the hype is that a Hong Kong location earned a Michelin star, but the Seattle branch is strictly okay.
not_your_vase 2y ago
I'm still not sure what's the point, what value does it bring, if any at all. Even the article mentions that it shows pretty much the same as the BigMac index.
- edgineer 2y ago
  McDonald's heavily discounts its items nowadays, but only through deals in their phone app. In my mind that makes the last few years of the Big Mac index unreliable.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- bobthepanda 2y ago
  always good to validate existing metrics with new ones that should be broadly similar.
dang 2y ago
I guess this is probably related: Big Macs and the Cost of Living Crisis - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41169538 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41169538 - Aug 2024 (62 comments)
jakupovic 2y ago
You must pay to read, will not pay or register. Boo.
andrewstuart 2y ago
All economic indicators should be measured in pork xiao long bao. Nothing else is so universal.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
NalNezumi 2y ago
Big max index is a fun thing. First time I read about it, it felt like a more intuitive and connected to the real world metric. Compared to other economic metrics that is. Then you live in the real world and realize it's not as good metric as you think it is. Recently when returning to Europe, after the start of the Ukraine war (+ inflation) a lot of my friends asked if food prices had also went up in Japan. I said yes but not as much as Europe. Price of wheat surely went up but everyone eats rice there, so except for bakeries (not many of them) most people didn't feel much. Bigmac index is not made or supposed to catch the difference in those details, but it seems like one of those economic metrics that are too often misused. When the "happiness" index said Finland was a the happiest place, the first one to burst out laughing about how silly it is was my dad, a Finnish guy. The legitimacy of an academic/scientific field can be somewhat roughly measured by how rigorous their measurement instruments and units are, and the conclusions the scientist try to make out of it.
- gruez 2y ago
  >Then you live in the real world and realize it's not as good metric as you think it is. >Recently when returning to Europe, after the start of the Ukraine war (+ inflation) a lot of my friends asked if food prices had also went up in Japan. I said yes but not as much as Europe. Price of wheat surely went up but everyone eats rice there, so except for bakeries (not many of them) most people didn't feel much. While it's true that europeans/americans eat wheat and asians eat rice, it's at best an incomplete explanation for why inflation was lower in japan than in the US. In the BLS CPI basket, "Cereals and bakery products" (not just wheat) only make up about 1/8th of the food category. The cost of flour is going to be a further fraction of that. >The legitimacy of an academic/scientific field can be somewhat roughly measured by how rigorous their measurement instruments and units are, and the conclusions the scientist try to make out of it. I'm not sure what you're trying to get at here. Are you trying to imply economics isn't rigorous? All the indices you mentioned are at best, are used informally. The world bank or the federal reserve isn't trying to measure inflation using big macs, for instance.
  - NalNezumi 2y ago
    Maybe I should've been more clear by saying subfield? But yeah those metrics mentioned are at best used informally, yet I'm sure there's stilly subfields in economics that uses those to make silly conclusions, and publish it taking advantage of the prestige slamming "economics" on to it cause. Doesn't mean the entire field should be tarnished, but nonetheless it's a sign that there's a certain reluctance to enforce rigor that should be reflected on the field as a whole. Just mentioning that how they handle measuring can tell you a lot of the scientific field. Not every academic field deploy same rigor in the measurement, and stuff like that can cause funny example such as dead salmon fMRI study. When subfield that uses shoddy measurement start to take a bigger proportion of the published literature in that field, one ought to increase one's scepticism proportionally (such as certain subfields of psychology.)

36 points by ecliptik 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

At some point I will need to make a trip to Din Tai Fung’s Taiwan or Hong Kong locations. At least some of the hype is that a Hong Kong location earned a Michelin star, but the Seattle branch is strictly okay.

not_your_vase 2y ago

I'm still not sure what's the point, what value does it bring, if any at all. Even the article mentions that it shows pretty much the same as the BigMac index.

edgineer 2y ago
McDonald's heavily discounts its items nowadays, but only through deals in their phone app. In my mind that makes the last few years of the Big Mac index unreliable.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
bobthepanda 2y ago
always good to validate existing metrics with new ones that should be broadly similar.

dang 2y ago

I guess this is probably related: Big Macs and the Cost of Living Crisis - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41169538 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41169538 - Aug 2024 (62 comments)

jakupovic 2y ago

You must pay to read, will not pay or register. Boo.

andrewstuart 2y ago

All economic indicators should be measured in pork xiao long bao. Nothing else is so universal.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

NalNezumi 2y ago

Big max index is a fun thing. First time I read about it, it felt like a more intuitive and connected to the real world metric. Compared to other economic metrics that is. Then you live in the real world and realize it's not as good metric as you think it is. Recently when returning to Europe, after the start of the Ukraine war (+ inflation) a lot of my friends asked if food prices had also went up in Japan. I said yes but not as much as Europe. Price of wheat surely went up but everyone eats rice there, so except for bakeries (not many of them) most people didn't feel much. Bigmac index is not made or supposed to catch the difference in those details, but it seems like one of those economic metrics that are too often misused. When the "happiness" index said Finland was a the happiest place, the first one to burst out laughing about how silly it is was my dad, a Finnish guy. The legitimacy of an academic/scientific field can be somewhat roughly measured by how rigorous their measurement instruments and units are, and the conclusions the scientist try to make out of it.

gruez 2y ago
>Then you live in the real world and realize it's not as good metric as you think it is. >Recently when returning to Europe, after the start of the Ukraine war (+ inflation) a lot of my friends asked if food prices had also went up in Japan. I said yes but not as much as Europe. Price of wheat surely went up but everyone eats rice there, so except for bakeries (not many of them) most people didn't feel much. While it's true that europeans/americans eat wheat and asians eat rice, it's at best an incomplete explanation for why inflation was lower in japan than in the US. In the BLS CPI basket, "Cereals and bakery products" (not just wheat) only make up about 1/8th of the food category. The cost of flour is going to be a further fraction of that. >The legitimacy of an academic/scientific field can be somewhat roughly measured by how rigorous their measurement instruments and units are, and the conclusions the scientist try to make out of it. I'm not sure what you're trying to get at here. Are you trying to imply economics isn't rigorous? All the indices you mentioned are at best, are used informally. The world bank or the federal reserve isn't trying to measure inflation using big macs, for instance.
- NalNezumi 2y ago
  Maybe I should've been more clear by saying subfield? But yeah those metrics mentioned are at best used informally, yet I'm sure there's stilly subfields in economics that uses those to make silly conclusions, and publish it taking advantage of the prestige slamming "economics" on to it cause. Doesn't mean the entire field should be tarnished, but nonetheless it's a sign that there's a certain reluctance to enforce rigor that should be reflected on the field as a whole. Just mentioning that how they handle measuring can tell you a lot of the scientific field. Not every academic field deploy same rigor in the measurement, and stuff like that can cause funny example such as dead salmon fMRI study. When subfield that uses shoddy measurement start to take a bigger proportion of the published literature in that field, one ought to increase one's scepticism proportionally (such as certain subfields of psychology.)