International Money Difference

S

Samamir360

BioShocker!
I just figured out that if you Americans pay $50 for a game and us Brits pay £40, and the pound is roughly worth twice as much as the dollar, we pay roughly $30 or £15 more than you. Same goes for many things, such as consoles etc.

Your thoughts?
 
The Canadian dollar is worth about 90 cents to the American one, but our games generally retail at $10 more. So a $50 game in America will retail for $60 here, despite the exchange rate accounting for only $5 (or less).

The best part is that in my part of Canada we pay an extra 14% on top of that. :lol
 
I'll take a wild stab at it, and point it to being a difference in economic regulation. The more hoops someone has to jump through to sell something and the more regulations to go through, the more the price for something will be. I'm not positive on it, but that's my closest guess.

It probably won't be that way for long though, seeing as our currency here is rapidly devaluing and will probably fall through, along with our prices increasing due to all the money being pumped into our system. That's a completely difference conversation though.
 
Taxes, import fees, tariffs and the expense of having cartons full of merchandise sitting for weeks waiting to be cleared from customs can have an effect on prices. And being that a lot of games sold in the U.S are made in the U.S can have a positive impact on the retail value.

As far as the value of the U.S dollar goes, the main reason it doesn't bounce up and down in comparison to other currencies is because it's the de facto currency in more countries than just the United States. And since it is tied into more economies, it has the luxury of being valued higher than most.
 
Dart said:
Taxes, import fees, tariffs and the expense of having cartons full of merchandise sitting for weeks waiting to be cleared from customs can have an effect on prices. And being that a lot of games sold in the U.S are made in the U.S can have a positive impact on the retail value.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure how much this affects price though. Games developed in Japan, Europe, or elsewhere out of the U.S are usually no more expensive than those made in the country.
Dart said:
Taxes, import fees, tariffs and the expense of having cartons full of merchandise sitting for weeks waiting to be cleared from customs can have an effect on prices. And being that a lot of games sold in the U.S are made in the U.S can have a positive impact on the retail value.

As far as the value of the U.S dollar goes, the main reason it doesn't bounce up and down in comparison to other currencies is because it's the de facto currency in more countries than just the United States. And since it is tied into more economies, it has the luxury of being valued higher than most.
Click to expand...
Yeah, just like the Euro is.

However, neither is entirely immune to shifts in currency exchanges. For example, the Dollar has lost quite a bit of ground to the yen in recent years....
 
Last I heard, the dollar was around .04 compared to its original value. The problem with the dollar is it is essentially worthless, it's value is all imaginary. The more dollars you pump into the system, the less value it retains and the higher prices you get. Just a few weeks ago our smart central bank pumped more than 500 billion in. Like that isn't going to devalue it. That is what happens when you have a private bank control the money supply of a country.
 
pliknon said:
That is what happens when you have a private bank control the money supply of a country.
Click to expand...

The banking system is somewhat unique in that yes, private banks control the flow of money on a day-to-day basis, but the federal government sets the value, prints the money, etc.

I'm not sure how much this affects price though. Games developed in Japan, Europe, or elsewhere out of the U.S are usually no more expensive than those made in the country.
Click to expand...

The difference is it is easy to import information without running it through customs. What I was speaking about was that no matter where the game software was developed, most games were manufactured in the U.S. As in printed, pressed, etc.
 
The banking system is somewhat unique in that yes, private banks control the flow of money on a day-to-day basis, but the federal government sets the value, prints the money, etc.
Click to expand...
Yes, the Bureau of Engraving prints it, but it doesn't go where it is suppose to. The federal reserve gets it printed for 4 cents (I believe), and then loans it out to our government at face value and then charges interest on it. If they coined their own money like they were suppose to then we wouldn't be paying an interest on our national debt which is at about 9 trillion right now. The interest on that has to be huge. We probably wouldn't even need an income tax if we didn't have all of it. I don't think the revenues from it even matches up to the interest we pay every year. The one time we got completely out of debt in this country was when Andrew Jackson got vetoed the renewed of the old central bank charter.

The federal reserve is suppose to have oversight, but they really haven't been audited since 1913 when it and the income tax was created. My question though is if they control the value then how is the purchasing power of the dollar in the U.S. going so far down? Most families can't even live on single incomes anymore. It seems as if when inflation rises, the purchasing power decreases along with it. Funny thing is, one of their goals was to control inflation at around 2% a year. Before the federal reserve was created and we used actual money, we hardly had any.

The problem still remains that the paper is worthless and not backed by anything. The more you have the less it is worth.
 
The problem still remains that the paper is worthless and not backed by anything. The more you have the less it is worth
Click to expand...

Well, the theory is that the value of all currency is backed by the gold standard. I'm not an economist and don't pretend to know all the complexities of the situation, but from what I understand globalization and international trading and corporations have more or less made mere economic speculation factors to consider when valueing a countries currency. That is to say, if a company like Wal-mart quit advocating the Canadian dollar because they felt our economy was a ticking time bomb, then many other foreign investors would be thinking about pulling out their capital, causing recessions and an economic breakdown. Before the private sector had this much power the gold standard was the most important factor in determining what paper money was worth. Now, this is not the case at all.
 
stealth toilet said:
Well, the theory is that the value of all currency is backed by the gold standard.
Click to expand...
In the U.S, not since the Nixon administration. Essentially, the U.S dollar has nothing to back it. Its just paper, so when you put more in circulation, you essentially devalue the money.
 
In the U.S, not since the Nixon administration. Essentially, the U.S dollar has nothing to back it. Its just paper, so when you put more in circulation, you essentially devalue the money.
Click to expand...
Exactly right, all of our got confiscated and sealed up. There are suppose to be audits every so often to check on it, but that doesn't happen. All of our gold is basically gone as collateral to the federal reserve and gone to the world bank. We have nothing to back our currency by anymore.
 
Homicidal Cherry53 said:
In the U.S, not since the Nixon administration. Essentially, the U.S dollar has nothing to back it. Its just paper, so when you put more in circulation, you essentially devalue the money.
Click to expand...

I'm not going to disagree with you on this, I know very little of the American way of doing things, but printing more paper, when you're not increasing the amount of gold you have, still devalues the currency. I'm not saying I'm right and you're wrong, but that statement doesn't prove or disprove the gold standard. Unless I'm missing something.

I understand the country is running on credit right now, the whole deficit spending deal, but that doesn't mean your currency isn't backed with gold, it just means you're spending money that isn't backed with gold as though it is.

I'm not saying either of you are wrong, but in order to improve my knowledge of this whole debacle I need you guys to disprove those statements and, in a sense, convince me you're right, even though I know you probably are. :lol
 
Today, like the currency of most nations, the dollar is fiat money, unbacked by any physical asset—i.e., a holder of a federal reserve note has no right to demand an asset such as gold or silver from the government in exchange for a note. Instead, the currency is backed by future claims to wealth of American taxpayers and other income sources of the Treasury. [1] Consequently, proponents of the intrinsic theory of value believe that the dollar has little intrinsic value (i.e., none except for the value of the paper) and is only valuable as a medium of exchange.
Click to expand...
It's hard to find any info on this online, suprisingly.. but this is from a wiki under the fiat section
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_dollar

Here's a documentary on the fed that goes thorugh some of the history of it, "The Money Masters." Might not be 100% accurate, but the entire idea behind it really is.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-515319560256183936&q=the+money+masters&total=577&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

And another documentary "Fiat Empire." Shorter than the one above
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5232639329002339531&q=fiat+empire&total=60&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

I'm not going to disagree with you on this, I know very little of the American way of doing things, but printing more paper, when you're not increasing the amount of gold you have, still devalues the currency. I'm not saying I'm right and you're wrong, but that statement doesn't prove or disprove the gold standard. Unless I'm missing something.
Click to expand...
Now for that, from my understanding when you back a currency by a hard asset, the amount of said currency should only represent the intended value upon creation in order to not inflate the money. I believe that is the way they do it in Panama, and as a result have a very nice monetary system. It will inflate and deflate as fiat money, but it appears to be much more controlled. Under a backed currency you are also able to redeem your notes for that currency. We had all of our gold confiscated, however, and can no longer use it as currency. Instead we get taxed whenever we want to acquire gold.
 
Wow, thank you.

I don't know if I fully understand it, but I have a much better idea. It's like the theory of relativity applied to economics, lol.
 
You used to be able to redeem US currency for gold and silver. I have some silver certificates from the late 1950s that state they are redeemable for $1 worth of silver. But by the early 60s they stopped that practice. I am sure they are gard to find. Some guy came into my work one day and paid his bill with silver certificates and $2 bills. I managed to get one $2 and two $1 silver certificates.
 
There are actually some pretty reputable dealers online that sell gold in silver. Problem is though people are becoming smart enough to buy it again, and it just recently passed $700/once. Silver is around $35 I think.
 
pliknon said:
There are actually some pretty reputable dealers online that sell gold in silver. Problem is though people are becoming smart enough to buy it again, and it just recently passed $700/once. Silver is around $35 I think.
Click to expand...
Huh...I gotta wonder what's caused the boom in the gold/silver market, because most countries don't use it to back up currency anymore...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top