Weird quirky story

[Notarealsignguy]

... now for a mind-trip: If no one ever raised their prices, would there be any inflation?

In theory, if everything held constant then no but that's an impossibility in reality for a million reasons.

 

[chester215]

99% of our business is with realtors.
The other 1% is the pizza guy down the street that we barter signs with for Friday lunches for the office.
Anyway we have found that the cross section of realtors is no different than in other industries.
Some companies don't even question a 10K invoice while others go over their invoice, line by line with someone in the office every month,
even if it is less than $100.
Some try to get 'quantity' discounts on signs when they are purchasing 2 sign panels.
But for the most part we have found that those with little money to spend on signs are either poor planners or forgot to
calculate the expense for signs when setting up their brokerage.

 

[BigNate]

In theory, if everything held constant then no but that's an impossibility in reality for a million reasons.

agreed - impossible, but it helps to understand what exactly inflation is.... similar impossible solution was to the darn Beer Virus - if the entire world population simply isolated for a few days, without exception, then there would have been no pandemic. Human need for personal gain over others seems to drive a lot of poor decisions for the whole. I am not arguing against it... I just think sometimes these things need to be mentioned.

When Artists were rare, design was expensive - then the Mac came out and suddenly everybody was an artist and "beginner newsletter-itus" went rampant and design (albeit poor design) was a dime/dozen hours.... right now sign making stuff if all but available to the consumer, similar to design tools when the mac was introduced. When anyone or their brother can drop less than a month's wages and pickup a BN-20 new, or used almost anything they start to wonder why we charge so much - and they may have a valid point. However, 30+ years of printing experience can be valuable - but only if the end quality is desired. Look at Nation Geographic magazines - before they went digital the pictures were just about the best printing that could be done in a magazine. Then the digital world took over and picture taking went from amorphous grain in an emulsion to a digital sensor and pixels. All the current pics show some level of pixelation that was never present in photos shot with real film. But then the consumer did not seem to care so the better pics went away and we are left with pixelation (some consumers actually liked the pixelation as it was a sign of progress into the digital age....)

 

[Notarealsignguy]

agreed - impossible, but it helps to understand what exactly inflation is.... similar impossible solution was to the darn Beer Virus - if the entire world population simply isolated for a few days, without exception, then there would have been no pandemic. Human need for personal gain over others seems to drive a lot of poor decisions for the whole. I am not arguing against it... I just think sometimes these things need to be mentioned.

When Artists were rare, design was expensive - then the Mac came out and suddenly everybody was an artist and "beginner newsletter-itus" went rampant and design (albeit poor design) was a dime/dozen hours.... right now sign making stuff if all but available to the consumer, similar to design tools when the mac was introduced. When anyone or their brother can drop less than a month's wages and pickup a BN-20 new, or used almost anything they start to wonder why we charge so much - and they may have a valid point. However, 30+ years of printing experience can be valuable - but only if the end quality is desired. Look at Nation Geographic magazines - before they went digital the pictures were just about the best printing that could be done in a magazine. Then the digital world took over and picture taking went from amorphous grain in an emulsion to a digital sensor and pixels. All the current pics show some level of pixelation that was never present in photos shot with real film. But then the consumer did not seem to care so the better pics went away and we are left with pixelation (some consumers actually liked the pixelation as it was a sign of progress into the digital age....)

For sure on the virus. It's emblematic of how human behavior makes your inflation scenario impossible. It's also the reason monopolies are regulated. In the absence of people, there is no issue with a monopoly or oligopoly but just like the virus, human nature makes it impossible.