colcool007 wrote:It's a false analogy as 1p in 1973 bought you a fair whack of sweets, whereas 50p today and you are lucky to get one. You seem to forget that spending power per pound diminishes over time and it is why I could get 4 Commandos in 1975 for 20p, whereas today it would cost me £8.
You are presenting a case based on your presumption that a 50p rise in 2013 is a bigger rise than 1p back in 1973 and it is just not being backed up with anything more than vague supposition on your part.
And as to hostility, I am concerned that you feel that way about Andy. Perhaps you could counsel us as to where we are being hostile towards you?
Kid Robson wrote:It's not a false analogy, Col, 'though it's a far from perfect one (the nature of analogies, alas). However, it does its job in illustrating that your own use of statistics was very far from presenting a full and entirely accurate picture. And I can buy a Mars Bar in Farmfoods for 49p. (Used to be 39p 'til around last year.) Could never buy one for 1p or 2p at any time in my life. And I would hardly say that 1p ever bought a 'fair whack of sweets' in 1973. Even penny caramels went up to 2p, did they not?
As for hostility, I just seem to be detecting an increased aggressiveness in the tone of some of the posting. Much in line with what the anonymous commenter was suggesting on my blog. Jump back a bit - I added them to an earlier post. However, if you're telling me there's no animosity on your or Andy's part (as there isn't on mine), then I'm quite happy to accept that.
colcool007 wrote:In 1973, we still had penny bags of sweets. Even up to 1979, we still had them in our local newsagent.
Well, never having been a purchaser of bags of penny sweets, I must've missed them.
colcool007 wrote:I stil don't get how your analogy is not a false one as in 1973, I remember my dad's outrage when petrol hit 50p a gallon, but when petrol went from gallons to litres, he was blase about each change in price as I have done so since beginning to drive. And how my analogy is false as all I did was present facts to demonstrate that your statement about the price rise was false throws me.
That's your take on things, Col. The price rise was unusual, in that it had been ages since any obviously comparable price hike had taken place. And I don't believe you have demonstrated what you claim. Things are so different now that it's practically impossible to make any direct comparisons with anything. Mars Bars are smaller and have thinner chocolate, The Beano now has twice the pages, is in full-colour and doesn't sell as many. Today, I can buy four Mars Bars from Farmfoods for £2 and get change. Less than The Beano. Back in 1973, four Mars Bars would have cost 8p, which was more than The Beano cost, but it was a different Beano. Unless we know the relative costs of production on a 1973 Beano and a 2013 Beano and make adjustments for different formats, sizes, paper used, etc., any comparison between prices is an inexact science.
However, in my estimation, parents buying a Beano for their kids which suddenly cost 50p more with no noticeable compensation in size or strips included, would have considered it a far greater leap than other rises which, percentage-wise, may have been greater, but wouldn't have seemed such a huge jump at the time. That's because, in former days, The Beano was regarded as everyone as being
cheap, which it
isn't regarded as today. (And that's an important distinction.) Also, with former rises, there was usually some compensating factor along with the increase, unlike the recent one. In that way, because of the way a 50p rise would have been
perceived, it was unprecedented - certainly in the impression it would have created.
colcool007 wrote:I am blase about comic price hikes as I will either buy or not buy the comic based on content, not on price.
Nice to be so well-paid that price isn't an obstacle.
colcool007 wrote:Regarding hostility, if you think that a reasoned debate is hostile, then there is little I can do to convince you otherwise. Andy and I are here to just keep it all ticking over and enjoy discussing comics. We are not here to make friends, but we are not here to make enemies either. For both of us, a great night on here means that we learn something new about the comics we enjoy.
Reasoned debate I can deal with and my views are certainly up for discussion, so it wasn't the points you were trying to make that I found hostile, but the tone in which you made some of them. Of all my observations, it seemed to be the most minor ones that garnered a disproportionate degree of attention from you and Andy. Almost as if you were both determined to rubbish my views at any cost.
colcool007 wrote:Anything that happens elsewhere in internet-land, we are not bothered about it on here unless someone deliberately brings that unpleasantness over.
I addressed this in my previous response so I'll not repeat myserlf.