ummm... since i don't eat at ronalds, how much is this bigmac in question???
Posted on 08/15/2006 2:21:13 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
Little has changed in world purchasing power since 2003, with the exception of perennially expensive U.S. cities like New York and Chicago falling from the top, largely as a result of a weaker dollar, according to Swiss banking giant UBS.
Using the Big Mac index, the authors found it takes an average of 35 minutes of work to buy the burger globally, but disparities are huge:
** In Nairobi, 1 1/2 hours of work are needed to buy the burger with the net hourly wage there.
** In the U.S. cities of Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Miami, a maximum of 13 minutes' labor is needed, with Los Angeles having the most purchasing power.
** In Tokyo, it takes a mere 10 minutes; Bogotá, Colombia, came in last among the 70 cities surveyed at 97 minutes.
The UBS survey also rated the most expensive city based on the cost of a basket of 122 goods and services, excluding rent. Researchers found:
** Oslo, Norway, was the most expensive, followed by London, Copenhagen, Denmark, Zurich, Tokyo, Geneva and New York.
** The least expensive cities were Manila, Delhi, Buenos Aires and Bombay.
The bank also compared wages, using New York -- in fifth place -- as the base with an index of 100.
**Copenhagen was first, with an index of 118.2, followed by Oslo, Zurich and Geneva; London was in sixth, followed by Chicago, Dublin, Frankfurt and Brussels.
** At the other end was Delhi with an index of 6.1.
Source: Alexander G. Higgins, "A Tokyo paycheck buys the most," Houston Chronicle, August 15, 2006
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Where are you buying Bread at? I can buy two and an half loaves for that.
I love Big Macs. I don't get many of them now that I'm not fat, but I still have a couple a month.
52 pages! ! Good thing I have DSL. I like the NCPA outline.
yitbos
It's better than Cahtuh's Misery Index.
yitbos
It never looks as good as the picture.
It always was. It only contains 3.2oz of meat while a small home-made burger is double that. What makes it "big" is all that bread in the middle.
Interesting question. Yes. And why a big mac? Why not, with all that goes into making it and selling it, it is a commodity the attributes of which remain reasonably constant over time. Obseriving it rise in price is actually watching the money fall in price. It is the same burger. It is the money that is different. A lot also goes into producing an ounce of gold, say a Krugerrand. The mining, the smelting, the refining, the stamping, the marketing, the delivery. It is a different process, but all the same economic resources have to go into producing an ounce of gold. Whereas the burger is consumed, and another is needed to replace it, the gold is not consumed but can become something in industry, or sit around in a vault as a bullion coin. I submit gold makes a fine index as well. The same people who would laud the Big Mac index would, out of prejudice, slam using gold as a measure of value, or a currency. Yet as gold and the big max index reveal equally well, our paper currency, which is debt, loses about 90% of its purchasing power every generation. Some of you worry about islamofascists taking over, but not to notice your state of financial dhimmitude under the Federal Reserve, the IRS, debt mongers in general, and this regime of socialist paper money which you can ill afford to use to store your wealth, is to strain at gnats while not noticing the camel they rode in on. The abuses the public suffers at every episode of depreciation, every IRS audit, every raid, every April 15, and the sheeple hardly notice. But then get all excited about a group of muslims half-way around the planet who want to take over the world. People, we have already been taken over. I assure you of that. It just wasn't the muslims that time.
I was wondering (pun intended) if somebody was going to catch that.
Wal Mart here has THEIR brand on sale for 99 cents/ loaf but (here is the pun) wonder bread 1 1/2 lb loaf is $2.50. I was comparing wonder bread sandwich loaf, since that is all Mom packed in our lunches while going to school. Wish I could remember what they paid for bologna.
What's funny is I have never seen a Big Mac that looked like that in my life.
(Shades of "Falling Down").
I like the Ultimate
I wonder what they'll use for the Big Mac Index when Joh Banzhaf gets the Big Mac sued into extinction. You know it's gonna happen...one activist judge will rule in favor of the Food Nazis, and the floodgates will be wide open. The end result? McDonald and the other fast food places will be as demonized as "Big Tobacco".
In-N-Out
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, to the burgers we got as kids, T. And the hot dogs. And potato salad. And the deviled eggs. Etc, etc, etc. Our memories are to be cherished, aren't they?
Depending where I shop I can get Sunbeam bread for 1.00 or the Walmart brand and we always had sunbeam growing up. The convenience store down from my house sells all its bread high and low quality for 2.50. When I lived near Valdese (Waldensian Bakeries) I could get bread for next to nothing.
Yeah, but you get the Supersized Coke for mere pennies.
ummm... since i don't eat at ronalds, how much is this bigmac in question???
Except in San Francisco, where it takes 7 hours and 15 minutes.
I can. It was one of my early math lessons. My mother used to send me to the store with a quarter to buy bologna for our lunch. I asked her if I should ask for a quarter's worth or a quarter pound. She just said it didn't matter.
It didn't. Bologna was 98 cents/lb.
Jason,
That was a 'Whopper' of a post. Indeed, there is little or no angst about our 'fake money' system. I do believe, as you said, that we had been 'taken over. Interesting point: all the posts, prior to me starting to post to you, were still chatting about the Big Mac.
Money based on nothing but 'faith' is doomed to failure. FDR effectively motgaged the entire country. We are slowly sinking in loss of buying power.
We are indeed wrapped in dhimmitude to the FedGov and the IRS. Work till May or even June just to be able to pay Uncle Sugar. Spit
What was the name of that country that still bases its currency on gold, or tuna, or whatever?
There are quite a few that base their currency on the greenback, though.
yitbos
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