Though I would love to livein France, the piss water beer there would notbe a reason. British Ales > * (Czech beer is close!)
WTF? I dont get it, every time a meet a french guy he's starts with the "quality not quantity" concept . to make it short, he says a camembert chesse is better than 20 pounds of cheetos, which I've to agree. So basically, I thought food in france was good but fucking expensive...
They're probably talking about servings. Servings in the US are huge, from what I remember. Food and alcohol in France are really cheap, unless you're in the center of Paris or something.
Yeah it maybe only 360 pounds but when you think that this is Japan were gaming is cheaper anyway it's a stupid price ! I'd never spend that much on a console here (if I lived in the UK I would since everything cost alot so it wouldn't seem so bad). To me 75'000 yen or 60'000 yen is an awful lot of cash. Let's see, I could buy a Wii with say 4 games (total 43'000 yen) and still have enough money left to buy a whole months worth of food ! Sony are taking the piss with the PS3 price everywhere. Yakumo
Why is that? I was always under the impression that discretionary income in the UK was harder to come by, generally, than the US, and much more so than in Japan. I mean, the UK is taxed into oblivion and the wages, generally, don't seem to be relatively higher than anywhere else. If anything, they seem relatively lower. I used to work in the accounting department of a company (CoStar, Inc) that owned a *very* profitable, successful UK Subsidiary (Property Intelligence). Those employees made peanuts compared to their US conterparts when adjusted for FX (but were considered decently compensated over there), but they pay higher prices for everything on TOP of paying *much* higher taxes. So what gives?
It's true. The only thing cheaper in the UK than compared directly with the USA is food (from supermarkets), in my experience. Electronics, clothing, entertainment etc. is much higher. Basically it costs more to have fun in the UK.
For a start UK taxes are high compared to the US, but compared to the rest of europe they are either average or slightly below. Look around and you can find 20%+ VAT (Basically sales tax). Here it is 17.5%. You also have to consider public services - for a start the NHS - free healthcare costs a lot of money. Beyond that I really can't explain it, but I wish we'd switch over to the euro, then at least we could easily see how much we were being ripped off.
I've been saying this for years. And nobody ever listens. They just keep... supporting... Sony... and... complaining... about them... and I... don't... know... why!
No, it's 60,000 yen, and "open". They don't sell anything for dollars in Japan. Only most places. There are a few places (NY for one) that require City tax AND state tax (on top of all the other bullshit). Effectively, taxes are in the upper 40 percentile, even for poor people. A few other cities might have this, but not that I'm aware of. You're right for the most part - you get fucked in the UK.
TWENTY PERCENT sales tax? That is farking preposterous. It's 5% here, and in some states it's zero. Are continental european taxes really even higher? That's got to be approaching a 50%+ income tax....which is insane. I guess it is the trade-off for public services, but I'm a private-sector kinda guy, lol. Born capitalist.
Japan is 5% VAT. It used to be 4.5 a few years back. Still, we have to pay allsorts of shit from city tax, health tax (by law !), land tax, pension (by law) and probably other crap that I'm not aware of and yes we have to pay 30% of hospital fees as well. Oh and we have to pay to use the motorway plus bloody road tax ! That's one thing in the UK which is taken for granted or at least I did. Yakumo
Americans like things cheap, trying to stretch the dollar as far as it will go. Maybe that's why my comments about the PS3 price focused on the other bundle of goods that I can get for the same price in the US. I remember a Japanese person who worked for TOTO asking me if Americans would spend $500 for a washlet toilet. My unscientific response was no since we can get an entire weekend in Vegas for the same price, whereas you barely get your plane ticket and hotel room for 2 days in Tokyo for that amount. Gas is cheaper, electronics are cheaper, housing is cheaper, transportation is cheaper, taxes are lower, etc. For me a round trip ticket from Tucson to LA or Vegas was $90. It's about an hour in the air. In Japan to get to Tokyo or Osaka it's 3 times as much for the same distance, unless you have a birthday every month. Computers are about 40% less in the US than Japan, a taxi starts at $2.50, even a simple soda is about half as much. When you convert Japanese yen to US dollar it seems like you can double it based on real buying power. So when you ask an American to pay $600 for a game console you're asking him to give up a lot more than in Japan, and I'm guessing it's the same for Europe. That's how I usually compare things, but then again I do a lot of drugs so you never can tell what I'm going to say next.
If you're willing to spend $600 on retro Sega games, I can sell you a Saturn console and about 400 games for that price. Just a comparison...
Sony needs to employ a new sales strategy in which they employ thugs to beat people over the head until they fall unconcious and then proceed to steal their wallets and replace them with a PS3. That's the only way they're going to get one into my house.
As mentioned somewhere previously, I am buying a new laptop. If I get one from Dell when I head out to the US in 5 weeks, I can get a dual core 1.6HZ, 1GB RAM, 256MB X1400 blah blah for around $910 w/ NJ state tax. That works out at about £485. If I tried to buy the same machine here, directly from Dell in the UK, it would cost me almost £1000. Thank goodness I can live in both countries!
Minus those fucked up tolls for roads, it's better than the UK though, isn't it? VAT was 3% not that long ago (8 years or so ago). Land tax is paid pretty much everywhere, isn't it? Called property tax in the states...something I don't have to deal with as I never think I'm going to live anywhere long enough to buy a house. I believe inheritance tax is what kills everyone in Japan. Land is quite valuable, so it often passes the 40 (or is it 60) million yen tax-exempt barrier. The health insurance (it's not really tax although it looks like it) is a bit weird. It's kind of a hybrid of the US and UK systems. As you said, it only covers 70% if you're on National health insurance. You should do some research. From what I understand, there is no way out of it, but you can legally not start it if you get some other form of shakai houken (private insurance). Some coverages are better, some are worse. Unless you think you're going to live there until you die, you should look into getting some type of international coverage. That is unless of course UK health insurance will cover you if you are terminally ill abroad and move home (sounds like it would but you never know). Us yanks are fucked in such a situation. You live in outside of the US and get cancer, then move back to the US. Guess what? You die unless you're loaded. One last thing about the quarky insurance -- I was always told it was retro-active (sort of). My old boss told me to stay off it as long as possible, then if I got sick, just tell the doctor to hang onto the bill until you sign up for the insurance. I know, crazy. They apparently don't look for insurance fraud. An uninsured friend of mine got a lung infection and was hospitalized for 2 weeks. He took his roommates insurance card (without even telling him).
Alaska, Delaware, New Hampshire, Montana, and Oregon. Seven other states also have zero state income tax: -Alaska -Florida -Nevada -South Dakota -Texas -Washington -Wyoming
400 Saturn games for $600 huh? Hmmm... I may be inquiring about this Saturn bundle in the near future. I would have almost 1000 Saturn games... God knows how many duplicates though.
