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Crazy Stevie's iPhone Prices are Insaaane!
theodp writes "Slate takes a look at the alarming lesson of the iPhone price cut and ponders the long-term effects of a Fire-Sale Nation mentality, especially when companies go all Crazy Eddie slashing prices on products like homes and cars that have active secondary markets. 'High-profile price-chopping tends to occur whenever companies freak out about the vicious combination of a slowing consumer economy and the prospect of getting stuck with big inventories of unsold goods. The tactic often works in the short term. The hype over insanely low prices functions as a form of free advertising, and the lower prices tend to attract buyers. Apple announced on Sept. 10 that it had sold its 1 millionth iPhone.'"
Priceless: Israel asks U.S. foreign aid be paid in EUROS, and Secreatry Rice says "We need to place our Israeli obligations at the top of our national priority list. Israel should not suffer any inconvenience due to currency fluctuations":
http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/3689
Our economy is screwed - the longer we hyper-accelerate the virtual money printing presses, the worse it will be in the long run.
I have to ask: how did we get in this financial position?
From the linked article:
(Israeli) "Foreign Minister Levni cited the rapidly declining dollar
and it's disfavor as a world currency as reasons for the request."
An off-topic with a double-self-reply ...
:-(
I'd criticize that, but the link depressed me too much.
I don't think it's the falling dollar per se that bothers me, but the fact that usurers like me aren't getting compensated with higher interest rates
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Another non-news worthy story. What exactly is the point of this, companies lower the price on product because they think they are not selling enough and are not meeting sales goals? Wow, please fill is in on some other great insight, oh great and wise masters of the economically obvious. What other revelations will be allowed to discover today for your great book of technology industry insight? That you can use Eclipse to develop Java applications on the Mac? Wow, I had no idea that it was possible and the news is so timely, its only been going on for years. Perhaps we should have a "news" article that Visual Studio makes C# development easy on Windows, or that Linux is an operating system that is PC compatible and could run on your own PC?
If you've been following the real estate market lately (we're patiently waiting it out for a reasonably priced first home), the sales of new homes were ALREADY being significantly discounted in many markets. But they didn't appear that way because developers were including fancy schmancy upgrades as opposed to price drops. So the price of the house/condo stays the same, but the new owner gets upwards of tens of thousands of dollars in extras. Yes, a 25% drop in price will impact the neighborhood values, but I would suspect that the areas where they discounted at 25% are due for a major dose of reality anyway. It's just a difference of keeping the price the same and adding extras vs. dropping the price and (I'm guessing) not offering extras.
:)
Upset neighbors who bought a month ago? A lot of people buying right now need to buy for some reason or another, so while they're probably upset, they didn't have much of a choice. Anyone who can help it (in the declining markets) is waiting it out.
In short, in some markets a 25% "fire-sale" might only be a correction to the market value of the home! Yep, we'll keep sitting it out. Note to the vast majority of people: don't count on real estate investments to pay for retirement! Historically, long term gains in the stock market are far better than real estate! Plus it only costs $10 or so to dump a loser and you don't have to deal with a real estate agent!