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Street Level Economics |
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Geographic Area: Hawaii (Hilo) Reporter: Alexandra I live in Waikiki which is in Honolulu County on the island of Oahu. To make it simple, if you've heard of it, it's here on this island. Prices are dropping constantly. Up the street from here, I can buy new t-shirts for $2 each. That's much cheaper than Goodwill, for new shirts. Macadamia nuts, one of our local products, are wavering between $8 and $9 a pound, mostly $8 lately. Rents are low, and this building has had a "For Rent" sign up for weeks now, amazing in a supposedly thriving real estate market. Living costs are only slightly above the national median anyway, but are falling constantly as the overall economy sags. Word up at the local Volvo dealer is, after Greenspan gave his "54 words" speech, everything has started heading downward. I tried looking up that speech, supposedly only given a week or so ago, and it's been "disappeared" already. Down the Memory Hole. The flip side of the low cost of living here is, it's hard to make a living. A drummer I know makes $50 a night playing in a band at a bowling alley, that's considered really good pay around here. Panhandling can work, but that entails constant fear of the cops. The best-paid people I've seen are the ones doing quickie portraits of people for $10-$20, a good one of those can make $100 a day/night, and that's incredible money here.
Added:
Island paradise it is indeed IF you have some money in the bank so you don't have to work. A lot of retirees are in exactly this position, and that's why lots come here to live. Or, if you're a "local" with a large extended family who engages in the anti-American practice of actually helping each other out, sharing what wealth you're able to generate as a family according to each member's needs etc. Then it's a fine place to live. It rewards those who either took part in the hyper-competitive, uber-individualistic American way of life and saved up plenty of that green, or those who live in fact like the vast majority of the world lives, oriented towards thrift instead of "I want it all and I want it NOW". Who will NOT find it a tropical paradise are your typical Americans, conditioned from birth to spend, spend, spend, judge themselves by what they have rather than who they are, and who are very deeply conditioned to believe that "family" means nothing and in fact is something evil and Communistic. Those are the exact folks I see coming here, hating it, and leaving within months, good riddance! Alex.
Reporter: Mike
I live in Hilo, Hawaii. At our local stores, I
see attempts to disguise price increases by varying (slighty) the
packaging.
As an example, products that were sold 6 months
ago in one gallon containers (128ozs) are now sold in 96oz containers.
The price is the same and frankly the bottles are so produced as to look
very much the same size as their forerunners.
I've noticed that this occurs very often with fluids such as orange
juice, milk, etc.
Also, often I see that canned or dry goods are sold in what are billed
as "value packs" such as "3 cans for a $7". When I divide the number of
ounces into the "special" price, I often find that the cost per ounce of
the "special pack" is greater than buying one can alone.
Apparently the mere marking of the product with the words "special" is
enough to cause the consumer to choose the higher priced product.
Mike
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