I feel that the usual interpretation of the Big Mac index is a bit misleading... it is better to
interpret it as how much the US dollar is overvalued against the focal currency
rather than how much a focal currency is undervalued against the US dollar... A
Big Mac is more like a rich man's food in India. A poor man's breakfast – let’s
say a plate of 2 Idlis and a Vada – in a true Indian city fast food outlet
would cost only about Rs 30 - i.e., about 50 US cents... A Big Mac on the other
hand costs three to four times that... So it certainly is not a poor man's
food, as it is in the US. Yet, a Big Mac in India costs less than 50% of what
it costs in the US. To me, it says that a poor man in the US has to pay twice
as much as a rich Indian does to get a meal. So I would say the US dollar is
overvalued... an American can buy a lot more (two burgers from India - i.e.,
two portions of a rich man's food) with one US dollar in the international
market than he or she would in the domestic market. Perhaps it is time to
revalue the US currency. It might reduce wastage in the US substantially given
that most US good are imported. I have seen good quality plastic cutlery (imported,
let me add) thrown into trash cans after one use or many times even unused. I
often see that a lot of food (with a lot of imported raw materials) wasted in US
restaurants… people order a lot more than what they can eat and fast food chains
tempt people into buying food that they don’t need. The same goes with toys and
clothing… most of which is also imported. When one of my friends from China visited
Philadelphia he wanted to buy a souvenir to take home and he decided on a miniature
replica of the liberty bell that he saw at a souvenir shop. Though he liked it,
he found it pricey. Nonetheless, he picked one up and got into a long queue in
the souvenir shop to pay for it. Just then he noticed that it was “Made in China”.
He got out of the que right away and said, ‘I can go home and buy one of these for
a tenth of that price’. If the US dollar were to the rightly revalued, there
wouldn’t be as much wastage and as much consumption of unwanted stuff… I even
think that the US economy may truly recover.
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