Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

It should not cost this much

Used car prices are kind of insane.

On occasion I like to window browse on Carvana and CarMax. Just to see if anything weird and interesting pop up. Recently there was a 2016 Toyota Corolla with a manual transmission up for sale. It brought me back to my very first car: a 2006 Toyota Corolla, also in stick shift guise. It’s very rare to see the common commuter sedan with a manual gearbox. Good on the owner(s) of the 2016 Corolla to have put over 70,000 miles on it. We like to see cars driven.

What we don’t like to see is ridiculous pricing. The listed price on CarMax for that 2016 Toyota Corolla is $16,000. Keep in mind the original MSRP of the car 10 years ago was $17,300! Even if you account for inflation - $24,155 in today’s dollars - 16 grand for a decade old poverty spec sedan is laughable. Especially when it’s equipped with a manual gearbox that nobody wants. This isn’t some Porsche sports car with a stick.

Even if you account for the CarMax premium for let’s say $2,000, a 2016 Corolla still isn’t a $14,000 car. It’s not even a $10,000 car. A gut-feeling fair price for a 10 year old compact sedan is around the $7,000 mark. $8,000 perhaps if the mileage is sufficiently low. Is this simply the era we are living in? Just like how there are zero new cars available for under $20,000, the reasonably conditioned used car for under $10,000 - that every personal finance guru says is available - has also disappeared into history.

I used to have a 2016 Mazda MX-5. That same model year of Miata in today’s market looks to be hovering near $20,000 for a low mileage sample, which is insanity. A decade old MX-5 should be less than $10,000, no matter the miles. It’s not a rare car; Mazda has produced plenty, and continues to do so to this very year. Used examples should not be encroaching on the price of a new one.

Because then why wouldn’t you throw in the extra thousand for one with zero miles and zero farts on the seats? You’d get better financing terms buying new, too. The lower interest costs might even make the price delta disappear completely.

We're all paying for it

You know RAM prices have truly gone off the deep end when Apple of all companies is raising prices on their products. The same Apple that famously already charges a premium for extra storage and memory. It seems even those fat margins are not enough to swallow the hyper inflation of semiconductor chips due to the supposedly AI revolution. It now costs $1999 for the base MacBook Bro, up from $1699. Kind of insane.

I guess this M1 Max MacBook Pro of mine will solider on until it literally dies.

All eyes now turn to the annual September iPhone event. Will the iPhone get a price bump for the first time in a long time? Place your bets at your prediction market platform of choice.

AI has been cashing checks and making promises (still a solution looking for a problem if you ask me), and yet the downstream negative effects are burdened by everyone. We’re all paying for it, just so Silicon Valley can keep on minting fresh new millionaires and bilionaires. An iPad for grandmother is now $150 more expensive - thanks to AI-caused inflation, even though AI won’t touch her everyday life in the slightest. Our utility bills keep going higher thanks to data centers drawing energy the equivalent of entire cities.

Whether you use Chat-GPT or not, you’re paying for it one way or another. That’s not very fair, is it?

Stay put and wait

With AI companies buying up all the world’s memory chip supply, it’s tough out here for the average Joe buying or building computers. Our combined economies of scale cannot begin to match a batch order from the likes of OpenAI. So of course you have entire chip companies saying they are bowing out of the consumer business altogether. There’s more than enough money serving B2B. Because fuck us, that’s why.

Just today the base model Mac mini is marked as unavailable at the Apple Store. Too many people are buying them to run LLMs locally. Higher tier models with increased memory and storage are backordered for months. Other manufacturers have computers to sell you immediately, but they’ve raised the pricing tremendously in response to the chip shortage.

It’s simply not a good time for the computing enthusiast. First was the GPU pricing squeeze from years back, and now another critical component is seeing highly inflated prices. If the Strait of Hormuz remains closed for an extended period, other components will surely be affected as well. These companies cannot swallow increased logistics costs for very long. Amazon Prime free shipping might go from two days to four.

As I type this out on my 2021 MacBook Pro, I guess numerically speaking I can use an upgrade. But the current aforementioned computing landscape is so constraining that I reckon it’s prudent to keep waiting if possible. Thankfully the first generation of Apple Silicon chips remain eminently powerful and efficient, even some five years later. I have to say it was smart of me to have the foresight to spec for 32 GB of RAM when I bought this laptop. Even as successive macOS releases use more and more resources, this M1 MacBook Pro is still not running out of memory space.

The memory chip shortage is also affecting memory card prices. I’ve been looking to buy higher capacity SD cards for my camera, but the pricing has ballooned 30 to 40% in the past month. I guess I don’t need the additional space anymore! I rather offload the camera more often than pay the inflated pricing.

Staying put and waiting is the play right now.

Under pressure

Mustn’t forget to check your tire pressures periodically! Even the most sealed up wheel and tire combination will lose air overtime. Especially those us driving around in internal combustion cars. In these troubled times of exorbitant gasoline prices, every bit of conservation helps. You are figuratively throwing money away if the car is running lower than optimal tire pressures. Friendly reminder the prescription is on the front driver door jam.

I wonder how many people who can otherwise install chargers at home are kicking themselves right now for not having an electric vehicle. Notorious PG&E shenanigans aside, the likelihood of electricity rates going up 25% over a span of weeks is practically impossible. Not so, as we are seeing with gas prices. Fully electric vehicle owners are sure to be pretty smug right about now.

If this war with Iran goes on for long enough, the paradigm of how the United States view EVs might permanently switch to the positive. The federal EV tax credit expiration was a setback for growth. Those that want an EV probably already bought one. However, consistently elevated gas prices can be incentive enough for those outside the fence to consider opening the gate. Especially those with considerable commutes.

Ride-share and delivery drivers, too. There’s no way the apps are benevolent enough to raise the prices - and therefore the commission for the drivers - to accommodate the sudden spike in gasoline. Nor would customers be cognizant enough to tip more. So the workers will just have to eat the additional, not unsubstantial, variable cost. When the margins are already purported to be minimum wage levels, who’s going to deliver DoorDash to make zero dollars?

Those food delivery drivers already on those zippy electric scooters must also be pretty smug right now. President Trump got rid of the EV tax credit, but his war with Iran just might re-reverse the tide of adoption. The longer the Strait of Hormuz is closed, the more of an accelerant it is for Americans switching to electric motivation.

Price of doing business

I think we’re all so used to free shipping these days (thanks, Amazon) that when we actually do have to ship a package, the actually pricing and be rather alarming. Absolutely nothing is immune to the recent high inflation. Parcel delivery shall not be exempt. It begs the question just how “free” free shipping really is. Surely the cost is baked into the (hefty) margins.

That, or retail giants have such enormous economy of scale that they get a hefty discount from logistic companies. Meanwhile, peasants like us have to pay the full freight.

I erroneously bought a part for my VW GTI. In order to get a refund I needed to pay for shipping back to the seller. Fair enough. Unfortunately, the item weights eight pounds, and I had to send it all the way to the opposite American coast. UPS Ground - the cheapest option - was $55! That is quite insane. If the part wasn’t worth magnitudes more than that shipping fee, I would have simply eaten the cost, or resell it on eBay.

It’s just the cost of doing business.

There may or may not be a solid business reason for coffee chains to sell a cup of drip coffee for nearly $4 these days - I simply don’t care. Paying that much for a plain cup of Joe is inconceivable. Because I’m old enough to remember when it was under $2. $4 was fancy latte territory. Even if I can afford it, my conscious won’t allow me to pay that much for store coffee. Thank god that same $4 can still buy you a hot dog and a slice of pizza at Costco.

My Keurig coffee maker and compostable coffee pods from San Francisco Bay Coffee will suffice nicely until deflation happens. If it happens.

Stop it. Get some help

Headlines are buzzing about the high price of new cars. The average transaction price for new vehicles in America is now over $50,000. The average monthly payment for a new car is nearly $750. As is the wont during these high inflation times (why would Joe Biden do this?), people are grumbling about the ever increasing cost of personal motor transport.

I do not have an ounce of sympathy for this situation. The beauty of the capitalistic system is that it takes two to proverbially tango. Sling all the greed accusations you want against the automakers and dealerships: car buyers still have to sign on the dotted line. The Truth in Lending Act dictates that consumers are given complete information on exactly what sort of loan they are contracting themselves for. No excuses.

The average new car may be selling for over $50,000, but a perfectly fine Toyota Corolla sedan can be had for $22,275 starting. It’s got power everything, and Apple CarPlay. And because it’s a Toyota, it will last forever with minimal maintenance. Now you may say that you need something bigger for your family. That’s a want, not a need. The Corolla is equipped with child seat anchors in the rear. For sure it’s not as convenient as a Toyota Sienna minivan, but do you have $40,120 starting for a Sienna?

New cars aren’t expensive - the cars people want to buy, are. If stretching your wallet for that three-row SUV is going to be financially difficult, then perhaps it’s just not in a cards for you. No one is entitled to a fully-loaded SUV with all the trimmings. Consumers’ unwillingness to purchase within their means isn’t the fault of the banks or the automakers. Let’s not strip agency - and blame - from fully functioning adults.

I will however get on Porsche’s case for raising prices so dramatically over the last year…

Staying ahead

I was disappointed to see the Greek yogurt - my go-to breakfast food of choice - increasing in price at my local Whole Foods. The staples are getting pricier again! At least my staples are. I’m still smarting over the price of coffee jumping 20% thanks to President Trump’s tariffs. Priced out of a coffee? That would take a whole lot.

I don’t expect rich people to have scars from the high inflation of the post-COVID period. Which is why we shouldn’t expect the Trump administration to back down from import tariffs. These people understand fully well that it’s the American customers paying the tax. They’re just all wealthy enough to absorb it without care.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are simply, hopelessly, trying to stay ahead of inflation. Especially during this time of uncertain labor markets (unless you are a genius A.I. engineer). My place of employment is going through a budget contraction. I’m lucky to have a job, never mind any hope of yearly salary increases to keep up with inflation.

That means the purchasing power of my current salary will continue to decrease. To combat it means having to let go of some other spending. The aforementioned pricier Greek Yogurt? Well, I typically buy a can of something to drink whenever I enter Whole Foods. I gave that up soon as I saw the 50 cent increase. I have water at home, thank you.

Similar choices who have to made in the future, so long as inflation continues, and my income remains static. Perhaps Progressive will raise the insurance on my car again. To compensate, the Disney Plus subscription will have to go.