The Economy.. will hi end audio mfgs lower prices?

Predictions are always difficult. Having said that, I think there will always be a high end, wealthy consumers will always exist. Big ticket items also have higher margins than the lower priced spread, they can lower the prices, continue to make a good profit, ie. remain viable.

I can't see how there wouldn't be some shake-out, less purchasers means less sales, some have to suffer. I would thing this would be more in the mid and mid high end, however, the less wealthy are more affected by downturns in the economy.

I do think the long run will see lower prices generally, supply and demand rules. We've lived in an over leveraged bubble economy for far too long, its going to take some time to pay down our debts and get right side up.

Every response thus far has had at least a grain of truth in it.

As for gvt. spending, gvt. spending has in truth gottten us out of depression, WWII, the biggest gvt. spending program in the history of the world, 42-44% of GDP, depending on whose statistics you believe.

On the other hand, gvt. spending will have major costs down the road, inflation and debt are only the beginning.

And then you can have little or no gvt. spending, let the market speak, a lot of suffering will occur his way as well. Debts need to be paid down, 30 years of a go-go economy will take a long time to recover from. And then can you say, unemployment, watch out, gvt. will be spending big time again to support the unemployed, perhaps a deflationary spiral with no end in sight.

And then we have the middle way, middling amount of spending, middling amount of recovery. Many are going to suffer, gvt. will only save the middling few. I suspect this is the path we'll follow, ideologies count for everything today, people won't put up with doing nothing or doing everything (the conservative vs. socialist agendas). Still, perhaps this is the best path.

And so the middling path and audio. Audio spending will be down long term, some are going to suffer, others will continue.

Any discussion of the future of our economy is pure speculation at this point. We have never been in this position before, what works will only be determined by the facts of what happen. I think we'll have a better idea sometime late this year.

Some good points Andr. I agree there sometimes is too much model turnover, and I don't doubt much of it is market driven. Still, rapid model turnover can be of benefit to the listeners, real sonic improvements are often realized over time, model turnover keeps the manufacturer motivated.

As for my present audio purchases, I wouldn't even consider any purchases that didn't give at least 20% off retail, lots of options these days. I wonder if we'll soon see 30%,even 40% discounts.

I also took my money out of stocks and invested in gold about 3 years ago, this based on advice of economists predicting this very debacle. It was so easy to see, any of these financial service wizards could have told you if they had the guts. Always keep in mind these guys have no incentive to tell you the truth, it would undermine their livelihood. Can you imagine all these wizards advising their clients to get out of stocks, the stock market would tank, the golden goose would be cooked. I bet a lot of these guys got their money out, left their clients in.

Another post-modern era has just passed us by, LOL. Humans will continue to make mistakes till the end of time. I can already see another post-modern era coming, you can bet the world improvers already doing their planning.

Privatization was the delusion of ideologs, they truly believed they were honest geniuses, a superior race leading us into material utopia. And then there were the liars and scammers to pick up from the delusional. Can you imagine if we had privatized the social security system! History will definitely be LOL!

And then, I can't imagine a less efficient means of redistributing wealth, the financial sector has created so many derivatives and investment vehicles, money gets turned over dozens of times, each entity gets their fee/cut of that original investment. I would suggest the whole thing is a Ponzi scheme gone wrong with the gvt. (us) holding the bag! I would even suggest many of these guys could forsee a collapse and gvt. bailouts, they would make off with millions and leave us holding the bag. Otherwise they're just plain idiots.

What happened to a time when a local bank loaned you the money for your house, held the note for the life of the loan. I know, the financial gurus will tell you that is a slow way to accumulate wealth, we need to have a huge credit market so people can have everything they want today. Well, you see where that's gotten us.

And then, can we trust gvt? Aren't these the geniuses who allowed Madoffs and credit default swaps! And so, who can we trust?

Demand should be dropping, ie. prices should follow. I can't imagine anyone wanting to pay retail in this economic climate. I look at present retail prices as set for a bubble market, retail should absolutely be reset for a depreciated market, they are behind the curve. I would look at present and past retail prices before making any purchasing decisions.

I can understand exclusivity with some of these upmarket products, does that insulate them from market realities, it absolutely shouldn't. But who am I to know, enough may be willing to pay bubble prices in a deflated market, prices may remain high.