Serious point - you can cherry pick individual items that are more expensive or cheaper over different countries, but just comparing one item means you are totally out of context. Then you throw in fluctuating exchange rates as well, and the comparison isn't worth that much.
It goes on at quite some length, but even if you can't be bothered to read the whole thread the initial essay is quite interesting.
For those who can't be bothered to RTFA, he questions firstly the practicality of ever sending humans out of the solar system, and secondly asserts that within the solar system
there's not really any economically viable activity on the horizon for people to engage in that would require them to settle on a planet or asteroid and live there for the rest of their lives. In general, when we need to extract resources from a hostile environment we tend to build infrastructure to exploit them (such as oil platforms) but we don't exactly scurry to move our families there
Slashdot Mirror
But a beer costs six Euros, so it evens out
http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g189852-i233-k635713-Beer_Price_in_Stockholm-Stockholm.html
Serious point - you can cherry pick individual items that are more expensive or cheaper over different countries, but just comparing one item means you are totally out of context. Then you throw in fluctuating exchange rates as well, and the comparison isn't worth that much.
There was quite a good discussion of this on Charlie Stross's blog [British sci-fi author] some time ago:
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/06/the_high_frontier_redux.html
It goes on at quite some length, but even if you can't be bothered to read the whole thread the initial essay is quite interesting.
For those who can't be bothered to RTFA, he questions firstly the practicality of ever sending humans out of the solar system, and secondly asserts that within the solar system
there's not really any economically viable activity on the horizon for people to engage in that would require them to settle on a planet or asteroid and live there for the rest of their lives. In general, when we need to extract resources from a hostile environment we tend to build infrastructure to exploit them (such as oil platforms) but we don't exactly scurry to move our families there