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Ps, when I want to look at exchange rates I look at:
https://www.oanda.com/currency...
That's inter-bank rates, look at the spreads. Big businesses will get closer to this than anything you mentioned.

USD against EUR changed 10% in the last 6 months, and nothing particularly unusual is changing in either currency at this moment.

https://www.oanda.com/solution...

20% in 4 days is rapid, sure, but fuck - an iPhone can change in price that much if there's enough demand, and it's still up in the air whether Bitcoin is a currency or a commodity like that.

Looking at the currency conversion chart over the last 5 years (note axis doesn't start at 0) you can see that MS is getting less dollar or Euro for each £1 GBP in income. The chart appears to show an initially fairly steady exchange giving, for every £1, around abouts $2 or €1.30, which has since dropped to around $1.60 (down 25%) or €1.20 (down 8%).

Now look at the second chart on that link. We can see that over the 10 year period the 8% drop in the amount of Euros being obtained for £1 GBP does look like a sustained currency difference. MS presumably has some European division, probably the one in low-tax Ireland, looking at their figures and sure enough UK sales are looking down over the long term due to currency fluctuations.

Do I buy that? Nope. MS is a US company and all financial reporting that matters is in USD. I'd bet even all internal reporting that matters is in USD, so I doubt this is some internal bureaucracy mishap. Looking at both charts combined, i.e. 2002 - 2012, the pound has been up for a while but now back around where it was. Keep going back if you like, the interactive chart is here. $1.60 for a £1 looks to be about the typical value.

Price rises are justified by unfavourable exchange rate movements. Prices increase in UK because of Stirling:Euro, prices rise in Europe because of Euro:dollar. It's always one way. They're never justifying a price cut on the back of favourable movements. I'm not just cynical about MS specifically, it's quarterly reporting. Gains are considered favourably for the quarter but then basically considered in the bank and there's a new baseline for next quarter. They're never really considered temporary, soon as it falls back it's a problem that needs addressed.

While I'm here I'll note the low value of the pound is largely an intentional effort by the government to entice foreign investment.

I should also note that what TFA should really have done is taken the actual pricing faced by customers in each area and made the comparison. It's possible the UK price was discounted all along (very surprising and against the norm if so however). For whatever reason, they didn't, and I don't have that info to provide it myself.

So... Where are you finding a cellular service provider who doesn't charge you for the service?
Oh, wait. That's your $1960.

(Yes, some fraction of that $1960 consists of the phone cost beyond the initial payment of $99, but not *all* of it by any stretch of the imagination.)

So try one of our smartphone contracts in Finland. For mine, the basic service costs euro0.66/month (yes, less than one euro). It includes true unlimited internet which costs an extra euro5/month (but there are no usage caps whatsoever). In combination with calls and text messages, it's a rare month when the total bill for this service exceeds euro10, including the unlimited internet.

So, over 24 months, this service would cost about euro240. Of course, you have to buy your phone separately, so spending about euro500 for a nice smartphone would bring the total to roughly euro740, which is US$970 today according to OANDA. In other words, at US$1960 you're overpaying by just about US$1000, even including the cost of the phone.

BTW, in some countries, you can get a rather better phone for rather less money - more pixels, more memory, similar size. For some reason, that particular Nokia phone is not for sale in the US or UK or Japan (or Germany, but is apparently a hot seller there, imported from vendors in Switzerland).

tldr: In Estonia, 1 USD (12 Estonian kroons) buys more stuff than in the US. In Sweden, 1 USD (6 Swedish kronor) buys less stuff than in the US.

Well, I'm just an arm chair economist so I just looked it up on Wikipedia. :)

For instance, look at these two tables, listing GDP per capita, one nominal, and one adjusted for PPP. Sweden has about the same nominal GPD/capita as the US, but is at about 80% of the US when adjusted for PPP -- because stuff is more expensive in Sweden. For instance, a Big Mac is about 8 USD in Sweden. The price of food stuffs in Scandinavia never ceases to amaze me, AFAIK it's not just limited to bad American fast food. The PPP rate is calculated from the prices of a range of goods, very similar to how inflation is calculated. I'd imagine that the price of internet access factors into it, but maybe it's limited to more corporeal stuff. Of course, the fact that Sweden has a much higher VAT than most if not all of the US immediately affects the PPP.

Anyway, yep, that'd mean your connection "ought to be" cheaper in the US than it is in Sweden, all other things being equal. But of course all things aren't equal, hence you get ridiculously cheap Internet while the Americans get dirt cheap fast food. You be the judge. ;)

Fast question:
Its 1993, would you rather have US Dollars or Chinese Yuan for the next 20 years? If you said Yuan, then you owe me money. In October 2003, the Chinese devalued their currency by 50% versus the USD.
http://www.oanda.com/currency/historical-rates/
Currency Cross is USD (Currency I have) to CNY (Currencies I want)

In that time, the US had fueled the rise of China because of long-term currency manipulation of the Yuan by China. This has fueled Chinese manufacturing boom but completely screwed Chinese consumers by artificially reducing their buying power. So the Chinese now sit on a a huge chunk of US debt because the best way to continue the yuan's manipulation is buying Treasuries and selling yuan which helps China compete. That 50% has moved to 14% even though China's market grow rate has been multiple of the the US over that time almost 20 years ago.

The Chinese can't stop buying debt without putting themselves at significant risk. Of course, if the US goes down as you say - that would loot the Chinese Treasury. The Chinese have tried to diversify out of US debt see all base metals and other commodities, but every time they have increased that commodity pricing exponentially. USD debt is still the largest and most liquid market there is. You can go buy 3 - 4 billion in debt and not make a hiccup. Do that in Gold, Copper, Aluminum, Silver and you can move that market by 10% and cost you amazing amounts.

So we continue this charade. The Chinese talk about wanting to diversify from USD (they can't because they need the currency advantage still and doing so impacts their own). And the US continues to talk about the Chinese manipulating its currency but we don't care because they have to buy our debt.

And he also said back in 1993. According to FXhistory 10k yen was worth about $80 back then.

I will post this anonymously because I already modded several people here.

Seriously, it is not USD $.41 an hour is not as bad as it sounds. I was curious how that compared to Mexico's pay rate.

See, the minimum salary in Mexico is MX$54.80, which is about USD $3.76* per 8 hour DAY. That means, USD$.47 per hour.

Now, I like to use the Big Mac Index to show the buying power of the earnings on each country (refer to the bigmac index article for justification).

A Big Mac in the USA is USD$3.57.
In China, it is 12.5 Yuan or USD$1.8*
In Mexico, it is MXP$32 or $2.2*

That means that even though people in Mexico are paid slightly more, the cost of living is higher than in China (from the BigMac cost).

Now, if you compare the China prices with the USA price, then, you can see that the cost of the BigMac is almost a half. This can give you a hint on why people from the USA think as the payment rate is to low.

Moreover, if McDonalds in China is similar to McDonalds in Mexico, then a BigMac is an "expensive" luxury item. That is, it is not something that people will eat every day.

In the case of Mexico, a "standard" complete meal ("comida corrida", soup, main dish, small dessert and water) will go around MXP$30 or USD$2.00, and that is in a "comida corrida" restaurant (it is not a real "restaurant" but a place where the work-class people go to eat home made kind of food).

Of course, eating at home makes things cheaper. Which would mean that the $54.80 daily allowance will get people more.

Although this is a very rough analysis, I think it helps people see that there is no sense in comparing only the net payment quantities. There are lots of factors to consider.

One thing I agree with everyone else is the working time. It is really sad to know that people is working 12 days shift (if not more). However, again, that is not specific for China. My wife used to work (4 months ago) in a cloth manufacturer in Mexico (making clothes for the US Sara Lee Hanes brand), and I know that people there used to work 12 hours and sometimes more.

*All rates from xe.com

If you're into Trading the Forex Market, there's Oanda. Their FXTrade and FXGame platform work amazingly well on Linux :)

Areed. I spent 3 months trying to find a good solution. If you've got buckets of money, NxCore ( http://www.nanex.net/NxCore/NxCore.htm - prices start at $500/month) and any of the brokers that support a FIX API (for which you can expect to pay a hefty fee, too; Interactive Brokers (IB - http://www.interactivebrokers.com/ ) for example charge a one time $500 fee, OANDA ( http://www.oanda.com/ ) charge $600 for the first two months then an ongoing subscription fee if you trade $12mil/month or something).

For those people not wanting to pour money into it, as good as you can get is Interactive Broker's Trader Workstation (TWS), and JBookTrader (http://code.google.com/p/jbooktrader/) or a custom trading platform that talks to their API. TWS is a pain that lacks automated login (for security reasons) and auto-exits every 24 hours (for... err... security reasons?), but it gets the job done. Data feed can be an issue still, though; IB offer up to 100 symbols at a time, and a basic historical data service, but some people dislike the fact they drop price ticks during busy market times (over 10 prices per second) and the historical data service is paced so you can only do a limited of number of requests (about one every ten seconds I believe).

In short though, AC is right; use Windows, it may well be less painful. Really.

£30 a year for immunity to prosecution. [...] that does does seem about the right price to me, perhaps even a little low - around $1.25 a month.

Assuming the £30 figure is the correct one, it's actually $4.99 a month.
(30 / 2 = 2.5, and 1 GBP = 1.995 USD)

http://www.oanda.com/convert/fxhistory

At 5 year intervals, Jan 1, beginning 1976. US$1 =

British Pounds
1976 = 0.4943
1981 = 0.4186
1986 = 0.6923
1991 = 0.5165
1996 = 0.6445
2001 = 0.6696
2006 = 0.5781
curr = 0.4980

Canadian dollars
1976 = 1.0168
1981 = 1.1945
1986 = 1.3985
1991 = 1.1604
1996 = 1.3645
2001 = 1.4988
2006 = 1.1641
curr = 1.0134

Japanese Yen
1976 = 305
1981 = 203
1986 = 200
1991 = 135
1996 = 103
2001 = 114
2006 = 117
curr = 116

German Mark / Euro (1 Euro = 1.95583 Marks)
1976 = 1.3398 Euro equiv (2.6205 German Marks)
1981 = 1.0021 Euro equiv (1.9600 German Marks)
1986 = 1.2510 Euro equiv (2.4468 German Marks)
1991 = 0.7627 Euro equiv (1.4917 German Marks, post-reunification)
1996 = 0.7348 Euro equiv (1.4371 German Marks)
2001 = 1.0620 Euros (2.0771 German Marks)
2006 = 0.8446 Euros
curr = 0.7100 Euros

So if you look at just the last 6 years, yes it looks like the US dollar is crashing. But compare over 30 years and you see that the British Pound and Canadian dollar first dropped against the US dollar, and are now returning to levels seen in 1976.

The Yen rose during the 1980s when Japan became an economic powerhouse, and has held pretty steady during the dollar's recent drop. In other words, the Yen is dropping right along with the dollar relative to the Euro, Pound, and CAD.

The German Mark and Euro have been up and down in 30 years, but the current rate is really not that far off from historical rates against the Mark.

Claiming that the US dollar is dropping into obscurity like some have been saying is like looking at a sports team's last 6 games and seeing that they're 0-6 and claiming they're dying; all the while ignoring that in the previous 24 games they were 15-9. Yes there are serious problems, but it's probably better characterized as "coming back down to earth" rather than crashing.

Yes, money you hoard devalues at a long term average of about 4% per year. And that's a good thing - it's better for the economy to have money actively invested rather than sitting in a mattress.

Here is a table of the Big Mac Index
Index

Given that Microsoft was fined 280m euros, perhaps this tactic backfired.

I wondered how much that was in terms of Microsoft's income; could they afford this easily or would it really change minds? According to Gervase Markham, Microsoft made £14 million a day from Microsoft Windows client licenses alone. 280 million Euros is about £188 million today, so Microsoft will need to spend roughly half a month's worth of Windows license fees to pay off that fine. So, challenging the fine with the lawyers Microsoft is already paying (and have no intention of firing) makes a lot of financial sense. Countries around the world have shown by example that they will either back down or stifle themselves from making Microsoft do something Microsoft doesn't want to do. Therefore, there's nothing lost in trying to reduce the fine.

When the fine was announced, Neelie Kroes was quoted as saying "The fine is at a substantial level to induce Microsoft to comply. They have to behave.".

That isn't American dollars. He "only" got $1,166,448

Just out of curiousity, which currencies don't follow this system?

• Disclaimer: I realize this is off topic, but does give a partial answer to the parent's question.

In Switzerland we write 10 Fr. (Franks) or 10 CHF, where CHF is the ISO currency symbol for the Swiss Frank.

Prior to the Euro, many of the European currency 'symbols', which were usually one or more letters, followed the currency amount. I think that Spain even used a ligature of 'Pts' for their Pesetas. It followed the amount.

A simple minded rule would be that real symbols, $, Euro, etc. all precede the currency amount and 'symbols' composed of normal letters follow it. But I believe that the Japanese Yen symbol follows the currency amount.

Ultimately the syntax used for stating a currency and amount is simply a practice, derived from custom and culture, that has evolved over many centuries. Thus, there is no general rule. Attempts have been made to standardize (e.g. ISO currency designators), but universal acceptance, by shopkeepers and the man on the street, has been low.

Internally in banks, in Europe anyways, amounts of money are written as a value followed by an ISO currency symbol. The ISO symbol is used to ensure that no mistake is made, say by assuming that '$' means US dollars (USD) instead of Hong Kong dollars (HKD).

You can read more that you even wanted to know about currencies at the Oanda web site. It in includes a forum where you and ask about currencies and a gallery of scans of various international bank notes.

Just out of curiousity, which currencies don't follow this system?

• Disclaimer: I realize this is off topic, but does give a partial answer to the parent's question.

In Switzerland we write 10 Fr. (Franks) or 10 CHF, where CHF is the ISO currency symbol for the Swiss Frank.

Prior to the Euro, many of the European currency 'symbols', which were usually one or more letters, followed the currency amount. I think that Spain even used a ligature of 'Pts' for their Pesetas. It followed the amount.

A simple minded rule would be that real symbols, $, Euro, etc. all precede the currency amount and 'symbols' composed of normal letters follow it. But I believe that the Japanese Yen symbol follows the currency amount.

Ultimately the syntax used for stating a currency and amount is simply a practice, derived from custom and culture, that has evolved over many centuries. Thus, there is no general rule. Attempts have been made to standardize (e.g. ISO currency designators), but universal acceptance, by shopkeepers and the man on the street, has been low.

Internally in banks, in Europe anyways, amounts of money are written as a value followed by an ISO currency symbol. The ISO symbol is used to ensure that no mistake is made, say by assuming that '$' means US dollars (USD) instead of Hong Kong dollars (HKD).

You can read more that you even wanted to know about currencies at the Oanda web site. It in includes a forum where you and ask about currencies and a gallery of scans of various international bank notes.

Just out of curiousity, which currencies don't follow this system?

• Disclaimer: I realize this is off topic, but does give a partial answer to the parent's question.

In Switzerland we write 10 Fr. (Franks) or 10 CHF, where CHF is the ISO currency symbol for the Swiss Frank.

Prior to the Euro, many of the European currency 'symbols', which were usually one or more letters, followed the currency amount. I think that Spain even used a ligature of 'Pts' for their Pesetas. It followed the amount.

A simple minded rule would be that real symbols, $, Euro, etc. all precede the currency amount and 'symbols' composed of normal letters follow it. But I believe that the Japanese Yen symbol follows the currency amount.

Ultimately the syntax used for stating a currency and amount is simply a practice, derived from custom and culture, that has evolved over many centuries. Thus, there is no general rule. Attempts have been made to standardize (e.g. ISO currency designators), but universal acceptance, by shopkeepers and the man on the street, has been low.

Internally in banks, in Europe anyways, amounts of money are written as a value followed by an ISO currency symbol. The ISO symbol is used to ensure that no mistake is made, say by assuming that '$' means US dollars (USD) instead of Hong Kong dollars (HKD).

You can read more that you even wanted to know about currencies at the Oanda web site. It in includes a forum where you and ask about currencies and a gallery of scans of various international bank notes.

Hopefull currency flucuations will make us workers more competetive. If the dollar starts loosing its value, us workers become cheaper. The higher value Euro has helped US exports slightly. However it will make stuff we import more expensive. And low skill jobs are unlikely to comeback to the US anytime soon.
Currency values seem out of wack. The big mac index doesn't lie. Of course they don't consume many big macs in india for other reasons....

English-readers can find Wage Statistics on Norwegian government officials here, where you would find the Average Ministry Salary in 2002 was 30,200 Kroner, or about $4,260. There is a footnote, however, indicating that costs of health services are not included.

Interestingly enough, I ran across this through Google: "I do not think any job is worth 10 times a prime minister's salary," said Minister of Finance Gudmund Restad (Centre) when asked about Tormod Hermansen's NOK 7 million salary.", where one could infer that the prime minister's salary is ~700,000 NOK, or $102,734 on 5/20/2003, the day of this report. By comparison, Pres Bush's salary is $400,000 (raised from $200,000 by Pres Clinton in 1999, the first raise since 1969).

Personally, the salary levels in USA's government are outrageous, given the rate of increase (or lack thereof) of the common person's salary. My personal political beliefs align with the Republican party, who used to represent reduction of government... and recent budget bloat really concerns me... And you are correct, our cultures are vastly different. I for one, do not understand how you can have a political party called the "Christian People's Party" who can expect to remain neutral on affairs of church & state. It's also discouraging to me that the average Norwegian citizen cannot differetiate between the concepts of capitalism and greed; there is quite a difference between valuing and rewarding the risks and contributions of individuals, versus rewarding administrators at obscene rates for playing numbers games and bending rules for personal gain.

Red Hat have handed Mandrake the desktop baton. The failure of US Justice department to get anywhere near solving the antitrust issues with current desktops pretty well spoiled the opportunity for Linux desktops in the US. Maybe Lindows will fight the defence on behalf of the US consumer.

Mandrake is delivering on the financials. Now lets see what the EU Commission on competition does on helping to create a level playing field. Will the rights of consumers prevail ? Munich is an important proving ground but expect some serious payola to flow to stop other cities. Whats 40 Billion USD work out to be in Euros now ?.

Get your exchange rates right: currently the Euro is very strong wrt the dollar, therefore the right dollar amount is not 17m, but 28.9m. See the Currency Converter for details.

Here in MN, if you're paying 50% taxes, you're making $150,000 per year (and we have high income taxes).

Here in Belgium, if you're paying 50% taxes, you're making EUR 29,260 ($33,420 today) per year (and I'm not even going to comment on the meaning of "high income taxes").

-- Pete.

Simply put, $9 is worth more to someone in Asia than it is in the US. It buys more food, pays more rent and buys more entertainment.

Comparing prices across regions is stupid and pointless unless you take account of the relative wages vs. the relative cost of living.

So, in essence, there is a good chance that $9 in Asia is actually still a rip-off price. You could use The Big Mac Index, which is a silly but much more accurate way of looking at the costs in other countries. A Big Mac in China is half the US price, so it follows (loosely) that the same ratio will apply for other goods.

TWR writes:

...or getting $1,000,000 (which is what a Nobel Prize is worth).

The cash award of the Nobel Prize is 10,000,000 Krona (Swedish Crowns), which is roughly $1,036,055 USD today (or 1,096,383 Euros)

TWR writes:

...or getting $1,000,000 (which is what a Nobel Prize is worth).

The cash award of the Nobel Prize is 10,000,000 Krona (Swedish Crowns), which is roughly $1,036,055 USD today (or 1,096,383 Euros)

This is what I got...

FXConverter - 164 Currency Converter Results

Wednesday, October 24, 2001

10,000 US Dollar = 19,711.4 Australian Dollar
10,000 Australian Dollar (AUD) = 5,073.20 US Dollar (USD)

When UoSAT started in 1985, the currency conversion rate between British Pounds and US Dollars was 1 USD to 3.25 GBP (Reached a high of 3.46 GBP, actually), according to OANDA. This means that this project really spent $195,000 USD.

600 Canadian Dollar = 457.995 Euro

600 Canadian Dollar = 391.139 US Dollar

After an insult like that, no wonder they're going with Linux.

~$47 per month!!!!!

Holy bajeezus... I'm paying more than that for my Cable modem, and it's got 1/100th the max bandwidth!

And that's not even considering the cost of living in some japanese cities.

But does it actually guarantee 100Mbps past the first gateway? How about upstream?

Oanda <-- Here's a pretty nice Currency Converter site I found while looking a few days ago.. It's suppposedly always updated. I think it even has data tracing back to 1990, (but that could have been another site)

All the salary expectations aside (check out what IT workers in Fiji get paid!!), one way of determining the cost of living to a fairly rough extent is to look at the Hamburger Index, which compares the cost of a McMealSubstitute in various locales.

I wonder if they could build an air compressor into the braking system so that the tanks would recharge when braking?

at today's rate, anyhow.

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