Things built in huge quantities, like computers and TVs, drop rapidly in price.
Mostly true True in substance, wrong in a detail.
Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?
Said for an organisation they lead or work for; it counts on both records.
What would count as true or false
Judged as of 2020-04-18. The claim is a general economic statement that mass-produced goods such as computers and TVs fall quickly in price. True: price indices (for example the US CPI for televisions and for personal computers) show steep falls in real or quality-adjusted prices over the years before 2020, and the economic evidence broadly supports falling prices for goods made in very large quantities. Mostly true: TVs and computers clearly fell steeply in price, but the generalization to all goods built in huge quantities holds only broadly. Mixed: the named examples fell in price, but many other high-volume goods did not, so the general statement holds only about half the time. Mostly false: the declines are mostly quality-adjusted measures while nominal prices were flat, or the cited examples are exceptions stated as a general rule. False: computer and TV prices did not fall over that period.
Set before the research began.
Evidence (4)
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E1 Long-term price trends for computers, TVs, and related items U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (The Economics Daily) · 13 October 2015
“From December 1997 to August 2015, the Consumer Price Index for personal computers and peripheral equipment declined 96 percent. Most of the decline in this index occurred between 1998 and 2003.”
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E2 Long-term price trends for computers, TVs, and related items U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (The Economics Daily) · 13 October 2015
“The price index for TVs decreased 94 percent from December 1997 to August 2015. This decline was more gradual than the decline in the price index for personal computers.”
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E3 Long-term price trends for computers, TVs, and related items U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (The Economics Daily) · 13 October 2015
“These data are from the Consumer Price Index (CPI) program. The CPI adjusts prices to account for changes in the quality of consumer electronics and other items.”
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E4 Lettuce prices up 15 percent, TV prices down 17 percent over the year ending February 2019 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (The Economics Daily) · 18 March 2019
“From February 2018 to February 2019, the price of lettuce increased 14.5 percent while television prices decreased 16.8 percent. This compared to an increase of 1.5 percent for all consumer items over that period.”
Reasoning
BLS data show the CPI for personal computers and peripherals fell 96 percent and the CPI for TVs fell 94 percent from December 1997 to August 2015 (E1, E2). TV prices also fell 16.8 percent in the year to February 2019 (E4). The BLS notes these are quality-adjusted indices (E3), but no evidence shows that nominal prices stayed flat. The evidence supports the named examples, but it does not test the wider claim about all goods made in huge quantities, so the generalization holds only broadly.
Cite this claim
Marc Andreessen, “Things built in huge quantities, like computers and TVs, drop rapidly in price.” (said 18 April 2020). Verdict: mostly true. Reliability API, claim c_e85fcb28ce96, method 0.1.0+c876030c, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_e85fcb28ce96
This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.
Reply to this claim
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Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.