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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mishedlo who wrote (56479)	3/22/2006 12:40:49 PM
From: TimbaBear	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110194

Mish, you are still not reading what you write: It is absurd to say the cheapest cars of 30 years ago are "comparable" to cars of 30 years ago. The cars are not comparable at all. Who knows, perhaps this sentence makes sense to you? And Mish? Your concentrating on the word "if" is like Clinton focusing on the word "is". In your case, you still exhibit gross ignorance of comparable pricing when you state that buying some other vehicle will lower your inflation, which is what you say in that sentence. If a new car is a new car then buy a Hundai for $11,000 and your cost just went way down. All the rest is Fluff? OK for the sake of argument I agree you are 100% correct. So Buy a Hundai or a Toyota, pay less and your price dropped. Please note that I never cut out your infamous "if". You do not seem to understand the word IF and you do not seem to understand the word COMPARABLE either. I understand both. Comparable does not mean exact. Apparently it does to you when you want to stay confused. Look at the art of real estate appraisal for instruction if you must. There an appraiser will take four houses (the subject and three comparables, adjust for differences in square footage, land size, effective age of home, etc and arrive at an estimation of fair value. Yet not one of the houses is likely to be the exact same age. Hedonically he does the unthinkable in that he says fair market flooring is fair market flooring whether that flooring be tile, linoleum, carpet, wood or whatever. He can compare a 30 year old house with a 10 year old house, etc. The art of using comparables is more of a science than an art but there is a whole body of work specifically designed to evaluate "comparables". That you choose to focus on the "exact" may allow you to think you are more pure in your approach but it is an illusion. It is illusory for the reason I stated in a previous post, there are no "exact" situations when taken to the most basic level and that is taken to the molecular level. Your chicken to chicken or tomato to tomato are not "exact" comparison but they are "comparable". The question comes down to what level of "comparable" suits the evaluator. To you it is one thing that you proudly hold as a banner. To others a looser criteria may still serve to give a close enough approximation. Your approach eliminates being able to compare most things and narrows the focus down to just a few, mostly non-mechanical, non-complex items. Since inflation in the economy impacts all categories, I maintain that this narrow focus of yours is virtually useless. I think you adopt it because it is virtually useless and therefore you can redirect the focus back to monetary policies. Mish, your arguments about hedonics are not presented (IMO) to further the cause of the righteousness of hedonics, but to lay the foundation for why prices can't be compared and thus inflation can't be measured by price comparisons. If I am right in this opinion, then it explains a lot of your stretching and twisting. It also explains a lot of your anger. It has been an interesting "debate", but I feel that nothing further can be gained by continuing it. You have stated your case, and I have stated mine. You have all the answers you need (apparently) and I still am searching for a better fit. Timba