From: Patrick Wilken (patrickw@klab.caltech.edu)
Date: Tue Dec 25 2001 - 01:06:51 MST
From: Randall Randall
>This seems like an odd way to view things. If you get twice as many
>Australian dollars, but the Australian dollars are only worth half as
>much as US Dollars (which must mean that you can only buy half
>as much with an Australian dollar as with a US Dollar, all else being
>equal), then you're making the same as you would in the US, right?
I agree it doesn't seem to make much sense, but the equivalent
non-imported are in general cheaper in Australia. An espresso in
Australia and the US costs about the same number of dollars
(approximately $A2 in Melbourne, approximately $US2 in Starbucks here
in Pasadena). Imported cars, televisions, books etc reflect the
prices of their country of origin. Non-imported goods don't seem to:
so I used to pay $A40 for a haircut in Melbourne, now pay $US35,
likewise food and locally made clothes are equivalent; my earlier
rent in Australia for a one-bedroom place was about $A800, I am now
paying $825 for an approximately equivalent place. Even a bottle of
beer at a bar is about $A3 or $US3.
The great flexibility in the Australian dollar has been major factor
in our being able to weather the economic meltdown in Asia, and more
lately the general global economic downturn.
I am not an economist. I would be most interested in hearing a more
detailed explanation of this. I would have thought that if our dollar
was worth half as much we should live twice as poor, but this
certainly is not the case.
best, patrick
--
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Patrick Wilken
Postdoctoral Fellow in Biology, Caltech
Editor: PSYCHE: An International Journal of Research on Consciousness
Board Member: The Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness
http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/ http://assc.caltech.edu/
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