[TenTec] The Eagle inflation costs, etc.

[Art Trampler]

One needs to remember that the surge in American prosprity, post WW2, was largly because with the possible exception of Argentina, the US had the only sizable industrial/manufacturing infratstructure left in the world. Bombs took care of the rest.Peron took care of Argentina.
 
So for 25 years the only place one could turn for halfway decent to good consumder goods was the US; and for another 15 years, the only place to go for decent capital goods was the US.
 
Under that system wages and benefits grew considerably as there was little (price) elasticity of demand for US made products, as substitutes were largely unavailable.
 
This is no longer the case and said change, coupled with comparative advantages in labor and tax rates (and in many countries regulatory costs), makes the US goods relatively mroe expensive worldwide, even without an artificially devalued yuan. Of course productivity benefits used to offset the wage differential, but that gap is closing too.

I think we need to recall the state of the world's industrial base post WW2 to understand the arc that we are on.
 
Art, KØRO
 
PS: I'd happily own an Orion II and maybe an Eagle (let's hope it does not turn out to be a screaming chicken). There aren't many rigs for which I'd give up my Omni VI.
 
PPS: Good thing this is not another reflector concerned more with vertically oriented implements of steel and aluminium; we'd have been warned to find a more suitable venue by now!

--- On Mon, 9/27/10, Kris Merschrod <Kris at merschrod.net> wrote:


From: Kris Merschrod <Kris at merschrod.net>
Subject: Re: [TenTec] The Eagle inflation costs, etc.
To: "Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment" <tentec at contesting.com>
Date: Monday, September 27, 2010, 12:48 PM


I, too have been drawn into the QSO here.  If you use the US currancy 
inflater at :

http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

Then at $700 in 1978  the Titon would be $2,343 today.  So T-T is running at 
the inflation rate.  Unfortunately, the competition started off way below 
our wage rates and is still way below - hence the low cost of imported 
radios.

Our blind faith in free-market ideology has kept us from looking around to 
see what is happening (or what was happening to other countries when we had 
the comparative advantage).  Balanced trade would have been a better 
strategy, but, heck, when you are sitting at the card table and the chips 
are flowing your way, who would want to change the game?

I wonder why the house keeps giving us more chips to play with when it is 
obvious that our luck has run out?  Actually, the answer to that question is 
in a great book called "1421"  It is about the Chinese navagation advances, 
but also about their trading policies way back then.

We are playing checkers and they are playing Go.

Moral of the story?  Buy Tentec!

Kris KM2KM


Merschrod
123 Warren Road
Ithaca, NY 14850
www.merschrod.net
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Pumbaa" <pinkertontommrs at bellsouth.net>
To: "Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment" <tentec at contesting.com>
Sent: Monday, September 27, 2010 12:47 PM
Subject: Re: [TenTec] The Eagle


>A lot of people did not have their income increase some 285% from 1978 to
> today.  That is the problem as companies can't sell as many ham radio sets
> as they do large LCD TV sets. HTs now seem very cheap especially a certain
> brand made in China. If your income has equaled the inflation rate then
> today's radios are probably cheaper than those of 1978,
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "mike bryce" <prosolar at sssnet.com>
> To: "Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment" <tentec at contesting.com>
> Sent: Monday, September 27, 2010 10:52 AM
> Subject: Re: [TenTec] The Eagle
>
>
> This has been an interesting thread. It got me out of the shadows.
>
> I haven't looked it up but in 1978 the triton was someplace around $700
> stripped with no noise blanker or cw filters, analog version.
>
> today that's about over two grand.
> <Clip>
>
> Mike, WB8VGE
> SunLight Energy Systems
> The Heathkit Shop
> http://www.theheathkitshop.com/
> J e e p
> o|||||||o
> Note: No trees were killed in the sending of this message, but a large
> number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> TenTec mailing list
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