The end of hong kong or the start of low prices everywhere?

[WillyChang]

I worked out once at Uni in business studies that about 80% of your earnings ends up as Tax if you spend it all by the time it's passed through the hands of whoever you spend it with and they've spend it too.  A bit depressing really - if you extend the graph far enough, it ends up that 90%+ is tax since each time it goes through another person or company a bit more is grabbed by the government...

Its like playing a pokie slot machine... []

If you feed $100 through it but withdraw all your "winnings" as soon as you win it, you might have $65 left.

But if you keep recycling (reinvesting?) all your winnings back into the machine, you'll have $0 eventually.

 

[mud4fun]

Ignoring the 'support the local hobby store' thing for a minute (50% of my R/C spend goes there so I have no guilt) but instead looking at globalisation of prices - how exactly can this work? We have different currencies and exchange rates that change daily. Each country also has a different cost of living and accordingly have items priced according to what that market is perceived to be able to afford and partially based on average salary and take home pay.

For example in the UK we earn an average of say 25K UK pounds but that is not worth the same as 25K US dollars either in terms of exchange or in terms of what a person in each country could expect to purchase with that money. Hence there will always be countries that are selling items at what we consider to be 'cheap' prices but in reality in their own countries where average wages may be only the equivalent of say 12K UK pounds that price would be deemed expensive.

Tamiya couldn't insist that a new model is sold for say the equivalent of 150 UKP in ALL countries because most people in the poorer countries of the world would never be able to afford one and they'd just lose a big market place. Also Tamiya competitors could then very easily steal their customers by selling at more reasonable market rates adjust to suit economic climate in each country....

 

[DJTheo]

Mud4fun, Tamiya isn't a non-profit organization, also Tamiyas aren't first need items so that rich countries would subsizide poor ones, with this logic Tamiyas should be sold in some African countries for pennies. Prices are dictated by demand and supply and not how wealthy a country is. USA is one of the richest countries in the world and has some of the cheapest prices, much cheaper then Europe. Of course there are price differences in shop keeping and taxation, some companies adjust then desired price differences between countries but some try to put an equal level to avoid imports, either choice is feasible but fluctuations of exchange rates aren't that big anymore and prices are anyway adjusted yearly or more often. Actually all companies adjust the prices according to currency of their production origin, so anyway if for example YEN value drops all other prices need to be adjusted.

Cheers