In the wake of Game 4, though, those comparisons are less flattering than they've ever been.
One new force on the block, Appinions, provides contextual analysis, focusing more on topic-based comparisons, and less on creating an individual score.
Since the rand strengthened during the year, the home-currency comparisons look even less favorable, whereas 2002, with a weak rand, showed up better by that standard.
The Case-Shiller index reached a bottom last March, which means the year-over-year comparisons could begin to show less dramatic growth in the months ahead.
Of interest though is that people in poorer countries who make downward social comparisons (comparing oneself to those who have even less vs. those who have more) are more satisfied with their lives than individuals making upward social comparisons.
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Against that backdrop, retail chains are reporting their same store sales for July today, and so far they are less than stellar, particularly considering the comparisons are to July of last year when chain store sales fell an average of 5%.
While it makes sense for The Economist to compute a Big Mac Index for a product that is basically the same wherever it is sold, price comparisons of services that are highly differentiated across countries are less revealing.
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The results are likely to make companies less likely to support head-to-head comparisons.
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Superficial cost comparisons can become even more skewed if that one service requirement is permitted to be revised so as to make it less exacting after the design that meets the more demanding specification has been set for the multi-purpose airplane.
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