Ha ha, I posted a while ago how Maccas prices here have gone silly. But how about another tale from the Dark Bogan side?
I like to tinker when it comes to my car, because I mistrust mechanics. Currently attempting to repair an old school radiator that has copper tanks soldered to the aluminium core. This needs some Tin/lead solder wire, so I popped along to the new Total Tools store in Ipswich for the first time. A very big tool shop, supermarket style, big aisles, music, and brightly lit, bristling with staff. Must cost a motza to run.
I enquired and was offered this, lol, they want $40 for 85G of solder! That might be enough to do the top tank, not the bottom one though. Id need two for $80. The last time I bought a roll of 250Gm was for ~$6 about 14 years ago.So at 1/3 the weight, and 5x the price, its effectively more than 15x as expensive as it was in 2010. Who do they think they are fooling? Anyone stupid enough to pay these prices is pourng money down the toilet, as I could get a brand new radiator off Ebay for $175. ITs not cost effective to even repair stuff yourself sourcing materials in Australia. (Hello AliExpress)
And what about SUL? I remember when Supercheap started out, they were dingy little shops packed to the rafters with stuff, it was great, I used to enjoy going there and getting a bargain. Today, they have morphed into the same thing as Total Tools - "a very big shop, supermarket style, big aisles, music, and brightly lit, bristling with staff.." The prices there are insane, it must cost a small fortune to run a car now. Five litres of brake fluid $80. (I paid $25 last time I got it, again, a long time ago probably in the noughties).they have to charge huge markups to pay to cover their running costs. A friggin 6 cyl car cost $1000+ p.a. to register in Qld! .
So hows SUL's earnings? Meh, not crash hot, kind of flat. I think people will slack off on car repairs and cut down on their BCFing fun, given the price of things now. I believe AMA said their business is declining because people are deferring car repairs.
No doubt consumers are resilient (still), but there has to come a breaking point. A single person needs to be earning 6 figures these days to have parity to purchasing power in the 90s. Its just a question of how long this charade can go on, and that includes these insane house price increases. It gonna be bad when the crash comes to put a stop to all this rot.
(20min delay)