Has the cost of HiFi gotten a bit too much?

Has the cost of HiFi gotten a bit too much?

A "bit too much" for what?  The USA and most other countries represented on this site practice free enterprise.  In the absence of monopolies and other nefarious/illegal practices, merchants set their pricing based on what the market will bear and based on their desired business model.  Within legal boundaries, there is no rule that the pricing of home hi-fi equipment must stay below the level of inflation.  Buyers decide what they like and vote with their wallets.  Businesses thrive or die based on the outcome. What would you change?

As someone else pointed out, with luxury items, not everyone can afford everything.  That fact really has not changed over time, but maybe the expectation has.  At least most people have the opportunity to change their circumstance, and while socio-economic factors and luck can influence the outcome, the combination of hard work, education, and living within your means usually go a long way toward improving one's condition.

@mahgister - When you click on "Add your response" and begin posting your response in a thread, you will see a header just above where you are typing that provides options such as Bold, Italicized, Underlined...etc.  Proceed to the right and just right of the Emoji option you will see what appears to be a chain link.  Follow these steps:

• Copy the web address (i.e., URL) of the article, post, video clip, etc. that you wish to share
• Highlight a word or phrase within your post that you want to use to link the web address 
• Click on the chain link symbol shown in the header 
• Within the dialog box that opens, paste the URL in the box titled "URL" and click "OK"
• The word or phrase you previously highlighted can then by toggled by readers to take them to the link you uploaded

I hope this helps.

@mahgister

Please let me know if I can help you with the link feature they improved when Audiogon updated this site. IMO, linking long articles is a better option than loading up the thread pages with inserted articles. For example, here is a link to the Central Bank article you posted. Best regards.