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(lol) The price of an apple 2 computer, with no monitor, was $1300. You can get a 21 inch imac for $1100 today. 18% nominal deflation! Apple must be absolut
by carsongross 12y ago
(lol)
The price of an apple 2 computer, with no monitor, was $1300. You can get a 21 inch imac for $1100 today. 18% nominal deflation! Apple must be absolutely broke!
Look, I know. I went to the same "inflation is necessary" schools you did, and listened to Cal Econ professors patiently explain to me how without it we'd all be rooting around in the dirt, eating grubs. At some point I just stopped believing that.
- hga 12y agoThat's with only 4KiB of DRAM; per Wikipedia, $2,638 for 48KiB (and it was indeed very expensive back then). And using tape cassette for storage like other computers of that era. Add quite a bit for 1 or 2 floppies, and I found a reference to a 10 MiB (true MiB! :-) Covrus hard disk that went for $5,350 in apparently 1980.
- brc 12y agoI stopped believing when nobody could provide me with an economy that collapsed due to deflationary spiral, but dead economies from inflationary spirals happen several times per century, right up until the current day. There is, however, evidence of periods in the Roman Empire where price stability lasted for spans of several emperors (the ones that didn't debase the currency). But when emperors decided to debase the currency, those long periods of price stability were destroyed in the blink of an eye. Many economists tie themselves in knots trying to explain how inflation has complex causes, but it is 'always and everywhere a monetary phenomonen'
- altcognito 12y agoDeflationary economies are far more rare, and relatively difficult to achieve. Deflation isn't achieved by a lack of confidence in a market, and that's the key distinction and why you'll never find a "deflationary spiral" that leads to the collapse of a country. All you'll find is stunted growth and unemployment.