Exchange rate pain

[Callum Finlayson]

It seems that the imploding economy and the movement of the Pound towards parity with the Zimbabwean dollar are starting to hit the price of imports.

Wandered over to my FLGS to pick up PF14, Gods & Avatars, and Hungry are the Dead and found that the prices of imports from the US have gone through the roof; according to the owner the distributer's having to put stuff up by about 20-30%; PFS14 was GBP13.99. Ouch!

Now the value of my apartment falling by 20% and most of my invetments being wiped out are one thing -- but +25% to the price of my gaming gear? This economy-thingumy is getting serious!

[Illessa]

I feel your pain, the amount I'm paying for my subscriptions is really getting wince-inducing, I've thought about canceling a several times now :(. I just paid a touch over £30 for AP14, Into the Darklands and Pact-Stone Pyramid, so a pretty standard shipment. Fortunately I got a 2k payrise this month, so I figure I can set half of the 1.5k-odd I'll be getting post-tax aside as my Paizo fund, hell, I don't need to save or anything... not like we're living in dire financial times... hohum...

[NPC Dave]

There was a flight to the US dollar as a result of the financial crisis. This demand for dollars drove the value of the dollar up.

However, fundamentals are still against the dollar, and the Federal Reserve has been creating new money like crazy. We have monetary inflation, but it isn't showing up yet.

When that happens the trend will reverse, and Americans are going to feel the pinch as prices rise. Right now though assets and commodities are falling in price.

At least gas is affordable now! If the oil companies and speculators really could manipulate prices, we wouldn't have seen such massive drops in the price of gas.