<| lal_truckee |> did write on 14Jul2004 at 2:02:27 AM
Post by lal_truckeeWord form the states: Your Oz businessmen are ripping you off. (There's
such a discrepancy in price I had to look up the exchange rate - I
thought maybe the Oz dollar had dropped to HK Dollar value or something.)
Decent everyday chains go for about US$25 in the Sierra of California -
top price imported chains for $50-$70 or so; but really there's no
reason to buy them - they are no better. So somebody is making an
indecent amount of profit off you guys, even if there's no local source
and all chains are hand-imported for resale by Aussies returning from tour.
I'd protest the next time I saw those inflated prices. But I suppose as
a practical matter you're stuck - screwed by the system.
Interesting take on the matter - but I'd be hesitant to call it a system:-)
The scam goes like this.
USA is a BIG market.
Aus is a SMALL market.
Ergo we have to pay more for 'stuff' than Yankees do, in, say - peanuts per
item (using the peanut currency avoids exchange rate shenanigans, since
both places grow them). And then there's import duties. AKA tariff AKA Tax
GovCo gouging. (Hell, we even pay Taxes on Taxes when we import stuff -
like 'Duty' on freight and the local GST as our special bonus. By
legislation, no less.
The reason it's a scam is that the BIG market has more suppliers of stuff
than the SMALL market, and the number of customers per supplier of stuff is
in all probability not a hell of a lot different.
eg, 4 Major Aus banks, and 20 odd thousand US Banks, for instance.
Of course, the conglomeration principle of business acquisitions may be at
work against Aus consumers and there are probably issues with economy of
scale in production.
But remember, what you saw in the pricing of chains was at the 'retail'
level. And 'retailers' here would be paying well less for their Yankee
origin stuff than mere wood-ducks in Aus would pay to buy then cold from
Yankee sources.
There is an issue here that Hatteras 52 yachts are really meant for Yankee
businessmen to desport themselves in. But Aus businessmen aspire to that
blessed state as well instead of say, a Haines 5 metre skid-boat more
befitting their proper station in life.
Another issue if CEO pillaging of companies. Here, they expect to be able
to rape a company extent, and with the same return on their efforts as
their Yankee brothers in crime. In fact, several of the more sparkling
examples of new-age corporate criminals here have been Yankees.
This of course makes things a tad awkward in a SMALL market. But they
somehow manage.
Of course, it's probably a truth of the first order that a more than
reasonable proportion of Aus business people are simply greedy cunts.
--
Toby
quidquid latine dictum
sit, altum viditur
Warning: All posts to be treated with a grain of salt.
By Order
K.K.
