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I got the 8% number from a book on sales I read quite a bit ago. It talked about how how a customer on the phone or in hand was almost impossible to recover once they were out of sight and used #'s from the auto sales industry. I don't remember the title of the book though.
Yes the salesman agreed to 17K verbally then went to get the paperwork and reappeared with the price increased. There was no "advertised" price on the car so I made an offer at the start of negotiations and the salesman left to get approval for the price and on this second return, the price had all these other pieces added to it.
The interest rate being higher does not just indicate higher inflation, it also indicates higher risk of default. If most of the workers in a country are at risk of unemployment or being replaced, you have to factor that into the interest rate as well.
@Aganju That your club and HOA don't have a means for electronic payments perpetuates checks being used. But no, the # of checks used for bill payments has been on the decline for the last 15 years. There are fewer places (bank lockboxes) that process those checks now. I managed to not write a single check for nearly 5 years in America. Before that, the only check I wrote was to pay the maid that came once a week.
