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The UK currency has recovered a fair bit recently, but does this mean imported products are getting cheaper?
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The UK currency has recovered a fair bit recently, but does this mean imported products are getting cheaper?
Just shows that we get ripped off all the time.
The problem is its us as customers that let this happen. If we didn't by a product because it was priced to high and waited, then the price would have to drop much more quickly so that the E-Tailer could sell there stock off.
1) we pay way to much vat on some thing before it hits our hands
2) Import Duty is stupid
3) To many hands in to many pockets.
4) Loss leaders still going on !!!! though it was supposed to be illegal.
Alternatively we must feel that the products are worth what we're paying for them - these are luxuries for personal use after all. For business use just pass the cost onto your customer.Quote:
Originally Posted by mayhem
Our VAT is the joint lowest in Europe, and not paid by businesses at this point anyway.Quote:
1) we pay way to much vat on some thing before it hits our hands
Agreed, but it doesn't apply to every product and is an incentive to manufacture in Britain.Quote:
2) Import Duty is stupid
Sounds kinky, but I'm not sure what you mean.Quote:
3) To many hands in to many pockets.
I thought you were complaining that we're being ripped off - a loss leader can't be a rip off. And there's nothing illegal about them.Quote:
4) Loss leaders still going on !!!! though it was supposed to be illegal.
At the end of the day the pound still isn't *that* strong, and the comparison that has the most effect is with Asian currencies rather than the Euro or Dollar.
+1. The pound is just about ok, but I wouldn't say strong. I need to buy a whole load of travel money dollars and I can't decided whether it's best to hold out longer or buy now.Quote:
Originally Posted by kalniel
Indeed. Last time I went to America we were getting practical $2 to the £. Last time I bought Euros I got around 1.50 to the £. So the current exchange rate is nothing to write home about.Quote:
Originally Posted by GheeTsar
If you're actually going to America (rather than talking dollars to use in other countries that accept them) don't bother. Pay on your card or draw money from cash machines while you're there. Banks give you mid market rates, and even if you pay card charges you'll still get a better deal than paying tourist rates, either at home or abroad.Quote:
Originally Posted by GheeTsar
Er, no it doesn't. The hard drive's US price is the equivalent of £85 but you can get it from Scan for £76.75.Quote:
Originally Posted by mayhem
its about time those scumbags at apple brought their prices back down, bloody thieves
Well, the issue with the amount if VAT is a complex one.Quote:
Originally Posted by mayhem
Point 1 - government tax revenue has to come from somewhere. You have two main sources of tax revenue on the public - direct and indirect. Direct taxes come straight out of your pay packet before you ever get to see the money i.e. PAYE and NI. Indirect taxes come from expenditure.
Point 2 - VAT is not uniformly 15% (and going back up to 17.5% or perhaps more in 6 months). Some items are zero-rated, and some are exempt, which is technically different in terms or reporting and analysis, but has the same effect on price, which is none. Most items, bar "essentials" are 15% (currently). An exception or two are in-between, like 5% (IIRC) on domestic energy.
If you put 15% on luxury items, like high tech gear, and 0% on food and basic clothing, you are building in a tax break for the poorest. The logic is obvious - we all, rich or poor, have to eat, clothe ourselves and put a roof over our heads. So, if the government get their tax from direct taxes, it comes off the top and takes no account of expenditure patterns, of what you would spend that money on according to your disposable income. Few people will buy computer parts if it means they don't eat or sleep in a cardboard box under a bridge.
Then there's the other side of the coin. Governments have to raise money before they can spend it. This brings up a fundamental political point, and one we're currently watching being argued about by the numpties at the despatch box in Prime Minister';s Question Time ..... when is a government spending "cut" not a cut but a "re-prioritisation"?
Governments have to spend money. If they don't, we have :-
- no health service
- no schools
- no social services
- no benefits system
- no road system
- no rail system ...... and so on.
So the question is ..... how much do they spend, and that's a bone of political contention. And having settled on how much to spend, the next point is the strategy you use to raise what you spend. essentially, governments can either raise it in tax, or raise it in borrowing. And if you raise it in borrowing, then just like you or me, sooner or later it has to be paid back with interest. So, government borrowing really just projects the impact on taxes into the future, and adds the lender's profit margin, because sooner or later, the taxpayer gets the bill for government borrowing.
Andthat is the real issue in national politics right now. Gordon Brown has, for some years as Chancellor, and MUCH more in the last year or two, built up absolutely vast levels of borrowing. And all that borrowing is not free money. It's going to cost, and it's going to be me, you and everyone else out there that pays tax that gets the bill. And, given current levels of debt, it's probably going to be your children, even if you don't have any yet, that pay it ..... in the level of VAT, among others, they pay.
So, if you think we pay too much VAT, then you either have to come up with some other way of raising tax, because it gets raised one way or the other and may other ways are less fair, or you have to decide which health services to cut, which hospitals to close, how long you want waiting lists to be, which roads don't get repaired or bypasses built ? Of course, there are some large and easy wins .... cancel the ID card system, scrap vastly expensive and unnecessary (and often intrusive) public IT projects, don't replace trident, cancel hugely over-budget aircraft carriers as unnecessary and hugely expensive toys for the military .... and doing so might actually stop us pretending we're still a world power and invading other countries, usually in the Middle East.
One final point. We pay 15% VAT, and the US pays sales tax, often around 6-8% and at state level. Makes it look like we're getting ripped off. But .... you can't conclude that just by looking at VAT and sales tax. You have to look at the overall level of the tax regime and you have to look at the social impact of how it bites. For instance, we pay 0% on basic foodstuffs, but does that US 6% get added to everything, including basic foodstuffs? If so, there's a social decision in deciding to levy 15% on luxuries and 0% on essentials, as opposed to 6% on everything including essentials. And it'll be the poorest that benefit from 0% on essentials.
Secondly, services like the NHS are, in many ways, superb services. There could be improvements IMHO, like more money towards front-line services and capital projects and equipment, and less towards layers of management and bean counters. But overall, we get a very good level of health care free at point of delivery. The US, by contrast, delivers an exemplary levels of health care, and among the best equipped services in the world .... providing you are wealthy or have good (and expensive) health care. So, we pay for the NHS via NI and the taxation system, and the US pays for a much less equally delivered system, largely via insurance levied on those that can afford it.
So you have to decide what levels of state provision of such essential services we all want, and the model we useto determine how it's paid for. VAT, as a levey on consumption, is actually one of the fairer models, because you self-determine how much tax you pay by how much you spend, and on what. Spend less, and spend it on essentials rather than luxuries and you pay little or no VAT. You can live, and provide for basics, and have virtually no VAT bill at all. But if you have the disposable income to pay for luxuries,then you pay more in tax to contribute towards services we all enjoy.
What sort of society do we want? I'm all right jack, 'cos I'm wealthy, and "devil take the hindmost"? Or one where we provide a basic level of cover, health care, etc, for the poorest and weakest? And to those that don't see why they should pay for "wasters and scroungers", I invite you to remember that not all poor people are wasters or scroungers, nor even all benefit claimants. People can find themselves out of work because their employer went bust, or they can find themselves in dire trouble because of sickness or accident. I know a guy that spend £150,000 on a classic Ferrari, and ended up selling it for under £50,000 less than a year later, because he ran a building company, the economy crashed and he ended uo bankrupt. Lost his home too. Don't think that because you have money now, you necessarily will in year, or 20 year's time. You just might end up as one of those "wasters and scroungers", and through no real fault of your own.
And yeah, I know this is a bit of a rant from a simple claim that we pay too much VAT, (and actually, I agree ..... IMHO, we do, largely because Brown's been spending far too much, and often, hugely inefficiently), but my point is that it's a VERY complex equation that rests on how much we should be spending, and the social impact of how we go about raising it. One of our main problems right now is that we've been spending too much, borrowing too much and relying on crude economic growth figures to pay for it, which is perhaps okay while growth continues on expected patterns. Trouble is, it didn't. Our beloved PM believed his own hype ... boom and bust had been abolished. If that had been correct, our spending and borrowing, with little in the way of reserves for a rainy day, might have made sense.But it blew up in his, and our, face when it turned out that far from abolishing busts, he was actually, directly by his policies, directly stoking the fires for the granddaddy of all busts.
I agree with the 'not always' (that's the issue with making black and white statement). But it's fair to say 'most', at least compared to the US :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Nelviticus
(I believe that Australians get an even tougher deal)
I've noticed the Q9550 has come down alot in price - I was thinking of getting one at some point, but will hold off and wait for 32nm Quads. Hopefully the pound will get stronger, so we can get cheaper PC parts!
Blimey! Must buy stuff from US now and ask ppl in US to send it to me as a gift!
There's a series of limitations on that "gift" provision, including a fairly modest value limit (£130-ish, IIRC) and a stipulation that it MUST NOT involve any commercial element. If you can get someone you know on the US to buy it and send it to you as a gift, you'll probably be okay. But if it comes direct from a commercial body, then just declaring "gift" on it isn't enough and if that item gets checked you'll likely get a bill anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by OilSheikh
and good luck with any returns issuesQuote:
Originally Posted by Saracen