Still, both mean and median incomes for US households are considerably higher than for european countries. But, the numbers do not reflect the generally more polarised distribution of wealth in the US though - very few people actually earn the US median income, most earn much more or much less.
Again, unless you take into account the relative burdens upon the household of US and Euro societies the average income number is meaningless. How much of the household income does the average american have to spend on healthcare and social services which the average european pays for via taxation? There is a calculation which takes some of these things into account, called Purchasing Power Parity. It is still flawed in some respects, but if you want to compare countries and value it is definitely better than ticket prices or median income.
Lars Johnsson wrote:
The average wage in Europe is a lot below the average wage in the USA. Most of the Western Europen countries and US have pretty similar wages. But 50% of Europe are countries like Albania, Russia, Romania, Ukraina, Belarus, Moldova and so on..........There are a lot of people that earn less than $ 5 a day
15Bit wrote:
There is a calculation which takes some of these things into account, called Purchasing Power Parity. It is still flawed in some respects, but if you want to compare countries and value it is definitely better than ticket prices or median income.
...or the cost of camera equipment.
Nov 02, 2009 at 12:31 PM
Lars Johnsson Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
Still, both mean and median incomes for US households are considerably higher than for european countries. But, the numbers do not reflect the generally more polarised distribution of wealth in the US though - very few people actually earn the US median income, most earn much more or much less.
Again, unless you take into account the relative burdens upon the household of US and Euro societies the average income number is meaningless. How much of the household income does the average american have to spend on healthcare and social services which the average european pays for via taxation? There is a calculation which takes some of these things into account, called Purchasing Power Parity. It is still flawed in some respects, but if you want to compare countries and value it is definitely better than ticket prices or median income.
Are there also other business costs for Canon in Europe such as import duties paid by canon directly? Certainly there are overhead marketing costs for different languages, paying off different reviewers etc :-)
It is interesting to note that Nikon is more cost competitive in Europe than Canon.
According to B&H Nikon D3s is USD5200 and Canon 1dmkIV USD 5000. Both sell here for exactly the same price of USD7630.
Canon and Nikon run at around 1.5 the US price here. Leica M9 is a relative bargain at around 1.3x US price. This could be due to lower logistical costs getting the cameras from Germany.
Lars Johnsson wrote:
Many European countries & people has even less healthcare and social services than the average American. Some don't have any at all.
That is very true, though for the purposes of this thread it is probably more appropriate to consider the more mature european countries. Including the former eastern bloc states does not give a very accurate comparison as many of them are newly formed (and in some cases still unstable) states that are attempting the unlikely feat of going from nothing to euro living quality in the matter of a couple of years. The US states have remained stable for some time, so should be accordingly compared to the more mature european countries.
Perhaps a reasonable measure would be the Eurozone, as it excludes both the poorer nations and the relatively wealthy scandinavian countries and the UK.
Nov 02, 2009 at 02:02 PM
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Mirek Elsner wrote:
That's some 3750 euros without tax compared to $5000 in B&H in the US. So, is Canon in Europe really more expensive than in US these days?
Yes Europe is more expensive because 3750 Euro is more than 5000 US dollars
Lars Johnsson wrote:
The average wage in Europe is a lot below the average wage in the USA. Most of the Western Europen countries and US have pretty similar wages. But 50% of Europe are countries like Albania, Russia, Romania, Ukraina, Belarus, Moldova and so on..........There are a lot of people that earn less than $ 5 a day
And $5 can be considered a lot of money if the cost of living is very low. A friend of mine makes $25k more than me, but lives in LA. Because the cost of living in LA Is astronomical, we have about the same standard of living.
Nick Baker wrote:
That being said, yes there are plenty of self-centered dummies here, but many do not have the advantage of living in close quarters with other languages, cultures, countries that Europeans have.
It may not seem like a lot to the people with L fever, but traveling abroad can be very expensive. I make a decent living and I find it difficult to afford going to places in the US for a vacation, let alone flying internationally. I'm sure that many other people in the US feel the same way. I'm sort of stuck here without saving a bunch of cash to fly internationally and, as such, US stuff is basically all I know.
Nov 02, 2009 at 02:33 PM
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kakomu wrote:
And $5 can be considered a lot of money if the cost of living is very low. A friend of mine makes $25k more than me, but lives in LA. Because the cost of living in LA Is astronomical, we have about the same standard of living.
It may not seem like a lot to the people with L fever, but traveling abroad can be very expensive. I make a decent living and I find it difficult to afford going to places in the US for a vacation, let alone flying internationally. I'm sure that many other people in the US feel the same way. I'm sort of stuck here without saving a bunch of cash to fly internationally and, as such, US stuff is basically all I know....Show more →
So tell us any place in Europe (you can choose any city, country or place) where the cost of living is so low that less than $ 5 in daily salary, is a lot of money. And makes the living standard nice
Lars Johnsson wrote:
So tell us any place in Europe (you can choose any city, country or place) where the cost of living is so low that less than $ 5 in daily salary, is a lot of money. And makes the living standard nice
If you read the last paragraph (which indicates that I cannot actually get to Europe because it's expensive) you'll understand that it's rather difficult for me to do so. Moreover, you'll note that I stated "if the cost of living is low". I never stated that there is a location that has a cost of living that low. The point being that merely discussing a person's wage without any reference to where they live is dubious, to say the least. Such as mine and my friend's relative salaries. We have a fairly vast difference between our salaries, but the cost of living in our respective areas makes the standard of living between us rather comparable.
In the US, $41.65 per day is considered below the poverty level. However, I was used to making ~$30 or less per day in wages when I was working crap jobs during school (and immediately afterward). This proves SQUAT. Why not ask a bum how much they make per day? If you're going to tell me that a country, as a whole, has an average wage of $5 per day, then we can discuss cost of living and what $5 a day actually means. Otherwise, you're just pointing to outliers as though they mean anything.
Nov 02, 2009 at 02:49 PM
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Moldova one of the poorest Europen countries has that low average income. And 21% of the population are under the absolute poverty line and registered an income lower than US $ 2.15 (PPP) per day.
My local dealer in Belgium is officially selling the MkIV for 3999 euro's TAV included.
And beiing not so active in posting here was I wondering can I post his website adress or is this not done on FM ?
People can always sent a PM for info
But, the numbers do not reflect the generally more polarised distribution of wealth in the US though - very few people actually earn the US median income, most earn much more or much less.
I have one nit with this assessment. Certainly the US is more "polarised" than individual European countries (due mostly to the higher level of homogeneity within an individual European country's borders), but I doubt the US income distribution is much more "polarised" than Europe as a whole - when you take into account the contrast between the Norways and the Moldovas.
Quite true, but at risk of repeating the obvious - "Europe" is not a country. Despite much of the discussion here, "Europe" does not warrant comparison with the US. The population of "Europe" is 800 million plus, the population of the US is about 300 million. Some European countries are only a few years old, and some of these are struggling to survive as independent entities. You also point out a further distinction that, in terms of demographics, the poverty we are discussing is more country-based in Europe, and more homogeneously distributed in the US (not to say there aren't poor states, but i doubt any of them can rival todays Moldovan example of grinding poverty). So comparing "Europe" in this sense with the US is simply ridiculous.
Just to remind everyone, we are discussing the relative costs of expensive consumer luxury items, so whilst i agree with Lars' observations that much of Europe is (sadly) poor, the 5 dollar a day Moldovans are unlikely to be much of a market to Canon anyway and do not really enter this discussion.
So again, if you want a reasonably fair comparison, the Euro-currency countries are probably the best. A population in the 300-350 million range which can boast some sort of federalised monetary policy and open trade borders. They can also boast reasonably homogeneous laws too, along with a similarly broad range of cultures as the US. You could even argue that this choice leaves out the statistical outliers - the insanely poor countries (moldova) and the insanely rich ones (Monaco), as well as the most extremely socialist (scandinavia) and probably the most capitalist (the UK). However, in the context of the original topic of discussion here, i must admit that the eurozone choice is still a bit of an over simplification.
python2000 wrote:
I have one nit with this assessment. Certainly the US is more "polarised" than individual European countries (due mostly to the higher level of homogeneity within an individual European country's borders), but I doubt the US income distribution is much more "polarised" than Europe as a whole - when you take into account the contrast between the Norways and the Moldovas.
Nov 02, 2009 at 04:30 PM
Lars Johnsson Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
My local dealer in Belgium is officially selling the MkIV for 3999 euro's TAV included.
And beiing not so active in posting here was I wondering can I post his website adress or is this not done on FM ?
People can always sent a PM for info
Of course we like to have the link to the website Please post it
Above I compared the US to "Europe" because many of the previous posters who live in or near the continent known as Europe were discussing pricing and using the term "in Europe". I'm not sure that there is a single American who thinks that Europe is a country, as Lars has suggested.
A Brit mentioned Europe, an American asked a question about it, and the American got accused of lacking good geographical skills.
I agree that comparing the US to Europe is ridiculous, but it seems to happen all the time here, and I'm not really sure why. We all know Australia is the best place on Earth and we are all just jealous and take it out on each other.
Don't worry, if the (blanks) that are now running Washington get their way we'll be right up there with you sooner than you can say VAT.
I'd be willing to take odds that we will have a VAT tax sooner than anyone over here wants one. The groundwork has already been laid with the Trillions of dollars they have already thrown down the hole in Washington with a few more trillion they still want to throw away on the near horizon.
Nov 02, 2009 at 05:36 PM
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