adrianpglover wrote
That kind of rate sounds like the financing you can get on purchases at Walmart through Affirm.
My view on this is that the initial price of a new MV or M7 leads this tool that seems to be priced for those who have quite a bit of disposable income to put into a hobby, while it is marketed at people who have very little space, which usually goes hand in hand with someone who doesn't have much disposable income (i.e. smaller house, no garage/basement space they're willing to devote to the hobby, etc). To me, this dichotomy makes this tool a very niche market tool and can't really be compared to Sawstop, Jet, Powermatic, Grizzly, or others. The other, more traditional tool vendors, are mostly designed, priced, and marketed towards the larger market, i.e. contractors, home builders, small to larger professional shops, etc.
On the pricing of parts, I think a lot of the points brought up previously can all be partially attributed to the recent rise in prices, but I think it's more telling that in an earlier post someone mentioned that the new owner stated in an interview that when he first joined the company no one could tell him what their cost was on specific parts. It seems to me, that since he made that comment, it matters to him. As such, they probably went through an analysis of their individual part and product costs. From there, the natural next step would be to adjust the pricing strategy such that each part and product at non-sales pricing will generate at least a small amount of profit.
On the subject of inflation and higher prices, unless we see deflation, we will not see pricing going down. You have to compound the inflation rates each month (for they are generated on a per month basis, by the CPI data) and then multiply by your prior price point. As for individual company profits, many companies are going to raise their prices less often than the CPI data gets updated, so they might update the price less often, initially have higher profits, and later let the continuing inflation eat into their profits. Also, we're in a free market economy, which means that the downward pricing pressure normally doesn't come from deflation, but rather from competition taking away market share through lower pricing and through lower demand due to your higher price. It takes a while for this to happen though, so if you think prices are high on a given product that has a competitive alternative in the market, then you'll likely just have to wait for the downward pressure to lower the price, or wait for your own salary to increase along with the market to be able to more easily afford it. All this being said, I in no way am making an argument in justification of higher profits for a given company, but just trying to throw in my 2 cents from what I remember about the first week or two of high school economic class. I do understand that the salary increasing tends to not happen, especially if you work at a company like I do here at big blue, but did have to mention it.
Acknowledging the risk of getting in the middle of a forum flame war here:
@RFGuy/@dusty - I for one am glad that you are both here on the forum. Your insights and constant involvement in seemingly all threads here is welcome and highly sought after. You each bring unique viewpoints to the conversations at hand. However, there is no need for disparaging comments.
If you ever feel like posting one, please, for the sake of others who haven't been here that long or haven't been involved very much in the forums, take at least a moment or two to see if you really need to post that reply. Seeing forum members, especially long time members with high post counts, in a flame war or throwing barbs back and forth tends to lead people away from the forum altogether. I'm not asking "can everyone just get along", but rather for you to think of the larger consequences of your post before clicking submit.
Yes, I agree that rates of 15% seem high, but that seems more like an entry level financing plan offered by companies who don't really care about offering financing. It would be nice if they offered something like a 0% 12-month financing if paid in full at a 29.99% rate if not paid in full, like I've gotten in the past on mattresses, tires, furniture, etc, but those were all offered by large retail chains with a lot of sales on those promotional rates. On such a small niche product like this, I don't see the credit card companies looking at it as a very good deal.
