Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/11/10/the-price-of-a-latte-around-th.html
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What about Luanda?
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Minis are a global product that, unlike Big Macs, can move quickly and cheaply around the world.
Yeah, but that measures something a little different than a Big Mac index then. Including the local materials, labor and other production costs of making a standardized product involves more variables in the final figure than simply looking at the retail price of a made-in-China durable shipped around the world.
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What about Hotdogastan?
We’re #1! We’re #1!
Oh, wait…
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All Starbucks are not equal; this mightn’t be a reliable index of the price of lattes more generally.
One would need to factor in the perception of the company’s coffee shops in different markets. In some, Starbucks might be seen as prestigious and hence able to charge more, whereas Starbucks might have to compete a bit harder in other territories.
[Haven’t read the (paywalled) article; apologies if it covers this.]
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Like in its hometown where it is to be avoided if at all possible and sometimes it isn’t. Seriously if I count the in store franchise kiosks I can walk to 6 of them.
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We’ve only got one Starbucks in a town of 360,000 people, so quite easy to avoid.
There were two of then a couple of years ago, but the other one lasted less than a year.
Then again, we somehow managed to drive out Wallmart, and they had their national headquarter for our country here.
And it also does cause an issue with monopolies, as in my neck of the woods the importing of technical goods is a near-monopoly which makes the local prices of consumer goods horrifying. As in more than twice the price, on occasion.
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Also does not seem to take tariffs & taxes into account (nod to @8080256256)
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My newest place of employment is in a Starbucks desert surprisingly. There are two Japanese equivalent chains right as I get out of the subway but as far as I know the nearest Starbucks is one subway stop away in any direction. Very unusual for that part of Tokyo.
Yes! The whole point of the Big Mac is that they’re prepared within the economy they are ‘measuring’.
There’s a reason the Mini-Mac link specifically mentions the common theory that China has intentionally kept their currency depressed, and that’s because the Mini-Mac Index is nothing but economic propaganda. No shit your new index shows that the Yuan isn’t undervalued when all it does is measure the existing broad exchange rate, and then on top of that you add the costs of importing the good to every single country except China.
and yet it still comes out undervalued!
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