The economy is back on the rise...

[Steve Bellayr]

The world economy is on a fragile rise. Much of the stability depends on the implementation of the Dodd-Frank bill in the US. Besides the US Stock Market indicators you can look at the exchange rate of the Euro & Pound, both have been rising. Another positive indicator of the economy is the price of gold which has been falling, a good indicator. Still another indicator is the housing market. Prices have stabilized and foreclosures are down. With all that said the economy is still fragile. Raising of the US Debt Ceiling will be a key issue. Should the debt ceiling not be raised the World's Economy could spiral downwards.

 

[gb hill]

Cameras in this type of niche are more or less "luxury" items that will always, more or less, be expensive as their demand is insulated from macro-economic conditions.

I don't think it's gonna be the economy, but technology of smartphone camera's with 41 mp's & the use of available apps one can use with these phones. People wont need a bulky camera to tag along. 2 years ago who thought digital SLR's would be threatened so badly. Times are changing fast.

Maybe Leica, Canon, & Nikon need to get into the smartphone business.😉

 

[MikeL]

It's sad to see conservative Americans becomes such whiny little bitches. These (the whiny little bitches) are not the people my Uncle and Father fought for....

 

[zauhar]

Since the "rising" economy is only benefitting the top 1% or so (source: http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/15/news/economy/income-inequality-obama/index.html ), while everyone else is having the life sucked out of them to feed these parasites, your used camera will only be gaining values if some ultra-rich guy wants it. What do you think the chances of that are? I'm saying the chaces are about even with the American people waking up, realizing they've been had, and doing something about it.

Well put. Although there used to be a lot of Asian rich guys who liked old cameras, at least for a while.

 

[David Murphy]

Here in California we just had a Summer of recovery (take five please). The unemployment rate just ticked up to 8.9%. We're still yearning for all those thousands of promised "green jobs" - hah!

Even though we are a single party Democrat-run state, we all know full well these problems are a result of those wicked Republicans like George Bush!

 

[MikeL]

Black and white is so much easier for the certain-minded.

 

[Al Patterson]

It's sad to see conservative Americans becomes such whiny little bitches. These (the whiny little bitches) are not the people my Uncle and Father fought for....

Typical, when you can't defeat the argument, some folks go right to name calling.

Mods?

 

[gb hill]

Typical, when you can't defeat the argument, some folks go right to name calling.

Mods?

This thread was doomed from the begining 😀

 

[MikeL]

What argument Al?

I stopped blaming others for my problems when I was like, 8.

Edit: I see now, when you went called for the mods, you thought the name calling was directed at specific members?

 

[Roger Hicks]

Here in California we just had a Summer of recovery (take five please). The unemployment rate just ticked up to 8.9%. We're still yearning for all those thousands of promised "green jobs" - hah!

Even though we are a single party Democrat-run state, we all know full well these problems are a result of those wicked Republicans like George Bush!

Well, an equally valid interpretation would be that with Republicans in charge, the unemployment rate would be a lot higher, and income equality would be even higher. This is a matter of conviction, bordering on theology, rather than logic. After all, all counter-factual conditionals are true.

Cheers,

R.

 

[colyn]

These (the whiny little bitches) are not the people my Uncle and Father fought for....

You are so wrong.....

 

[Al Patterson]

What argument Al?

I stopped blaming others for my problems when I was like, 8.

Yes, but calling people whiny bitches makes you sound like you are still 8....

The argument is the typical economic argument that these threads descend into, Keynes vs Hayek and all that...

And I'm betting you are not a fan of Hayek.

 

[Major Tom]

It's sad to see conservative Americans becomes such whiny little bitches. These (the whiny little bitches) are not the people my Uncle and Father fought for....

It's been really bizarre how the conservative half of the country has taken it's turn for the past decade. Where there was once William F. Buckley and Pat Buchanan there are Glenn Beck and Ron Paul. Whiny, ahistorical, paranoid, incurious and prepared to commit political and institutional suicide. A sort of calm, reserved, stoic traditionalism has given way to a frantic sensationalism, because everything that doesn't go their way is an unmitigated disaster.

But old cameras are still cool, at least.

 

[MikeL]

It's been really bizarre how the conservative half of the country has taken it's turn for the past decade. Where there was once William F. Buckley and Pat Buchanan there are Glenn Beck and Ron Paul. Whiny, ahistorical, paranoid, incurious and prepared to commit political and institutional suicide. A sort of calm, reserved, stoic traditionalism has given way to a frantic sensationalism, because everything that doesn't go their way is an unmitigated disaster.

But old cameras are still cool, at least.

Exactly. Buckley cautioned about this happening. As a fiscal conservative, it has been hard for me to watch the loss of dialogue.

 

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

Well, the view from over here on Airstrip One, is that things are slowly getting better. House prices are rising, which is generally a good thing in our Property Owning Democracy. Unemployment is down by 0.1% and inflation has also dropped by 0.1%. these numbers are not impressive in themselves but they're better than otherwise.

Of course, this could all just be a dead cat bounce (I did look round, to make sure our ginger tom is not in the room, before writing that) but I prefer to look on the bright side.

 

[Roger Hicks]

One of the basic problems of economics is that the theories are ALWAYS out of date even when they are formulated, because they are based on past experience. Then they are adopted by second-rate professors. This is clearly true of (let us say) Marx and Keynes, no matter how brilliant they were when they first published. J.K Galbraith, being rather more recent, is correspondingly more relevant and still well worth reading. Jaron Lanier ("Who owns the Future", published I think in 2013) is fascinating.

Cheers,

R.

 

[daveleo]

This thread was doomed from the begining 😀

😉 so true . . .

 

[gb hill]

But old cameras are still cool, at least.

Exactally. & thats why film camera's will survive as an artistic medium, though in a small way, while big digital DSLR's (sports & wildlife photography the exception). P&S as well as the rest like 4/3 will be killed off by camera phones.

 

[David Murphy]

Any way, to address the original topic of the thread (regardless of the economy) I don't know about digital cameras, but film camera prices are certainly softer than they were a few years ago - even when digital was well established. I attribute this to the closing of most 1 hour photo labs which have all but vanished in the USA at least - I think interest in film was still rather strong and perhaps even growing before this. Film is certainly still viable, but not a casual thing to do easily any longer since one is faced with a much less convenient processing problem.

BTW if anyone knows of such a working reasonably priced snap-shot oriented shooter lab in the Southern California area please let me know!! I was using Target until they stopped doing film -- Walmart sends it out now and keeps the negatives (keeping negatives is a show stopper for me). I am gearing up to process my own.

 

[Ronald M]

Since the "rising" economy is only benefitting the top 1% or so (source: http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/15/news/economy/income-inequality-obama/index.html ), while everyone else is having the life sucked out of them to feed these parasites, your used camera will only be gaining values if some ultra-rich guy wants it. What do you think the chances of that are? I'm saying the chaces are about even with the American people waking up, realizing they've been had, and doing something about it.

I thought we were had in 2008, 2012 proved it.

Now the problem is the very top do well regardless and the bottom get subsistence welfare. Remember when Romney said this?? The people willing to work can vote and overcome the 1%, but the bottom keep voting for the same thing and getting the same result. Maybe they are happy, I don`t know.

The major problem is big money has bought the government for campaign contributions, free airplane rides, etc in return for favorable tax laws, ignoring antimonopoly laws, repeal of Glass Stegal which had separated investment banks from commercial so the banksters now are allowed to gamble with public money, and the list goes on and on. That is the deal of the century. They get all the profits and the losses are spread over the population. I want in on that. Do you know 40% of QE3 is funneled to the banksters? 34 billion a month in free money. No wonder they panic at the word taper.

Do you feel nobody is representing the middle class which is having to scratch for a living and not be able to save suitable money?

This will change when enough people want it to change. It might be tea party, might be Rand Paul libertarian, time will tell. The public has to wake up.