Unfortunately, when I cancelled my home phone, I moved the number to a cell phone. seemed like a good idea at the time as I'd had that number as my main contact number for over 10 years. Unfortunately it also means that I get a lot of telemarketing calls to my cell phone now. of course I do report every single one of them to the CRTC (our version of the FCC)... don't know if it helps, but it doesn't seem to hurt...
If they were selling at a loss, they wouldn't sell to those places at all, which means it's still profitable, just not as profitable as elsewhere. There is no right to make a certain amount of money. If you can get away with it fine, but don't use the government to force it on us.
It is actually pretty black and white here, if there were no profit from selling at the lower price they wouldn't do it. So it obviously still makes moeny. It's not my fault that their greed makes them want to make even more money in a different country. If I want to buy from somewhere that they are willing to sell, then they have no right to legislate against that.
Further to this, we have already decided that corporations are allowed to shop around the world for cheaper parts, raw materials, and labour. Why would we then outlaw individuals doing the same thing?
If your business model requires government intervention to make it profitable, you are doing things wrong. Can't have it both ways. Time to return some of the rights back to individuals.
Hate to respond to myself, but I want to clarify. I have no problem whatsoever with them charging whatever they want in different locations. That is their perogative. I just think that we should have the same right to buy wherever we want.
Why do we reserve the right to game international markets exclusively for corporations? If they can set the prices in different parts of the world however they like, why can't I choose to buy in different parts of the world wherever I like? Why protect corporations while refusing to protect individuals? I thought we ruled that corporations are people, if so it's time we scaled their rights back to the same level as individual people.
I always hate that part. some of the biggest names in history produced all their work without any form of copyright. Why do people think that if we gave "only" a measly lifetime of protection people would suddenly stop creating?
It's time to abolish copyright completely. We did fine without it before, we'll do fine without it again.
Because "someone else" doesn't pay for it. Insurance ALWAYS makes a profit. so that means that you are the one paying for it through premiums. People like you who don't care because they don't get the bill directly are the reason that insurance premiums are so high. The premiums have to cover all the costs and still make a profit, the more procedures/devices/etc cost, the more your premiums cost. But because nobody objects (because they don't think they pay for it) the companies get away with it.
And yet due to protectionist legislation, it can often be difficult or impossible to import certain models to Canada to bypass the price fixing. In fact it is completely illegal to import any new vehicle from anywhere other than the US in to Canada, and even from the US you are only allowed to import the models that the manufacturer decides are importable and only with modifications listed by the manufacturer (and in some cases that only that manufacturer is allowed to make) (not to mention that the manufacturers have told their American dealerships not to sell to Canadians.)
Price differences like that would quickly be fixed by the free market if the market were allowed to be free, but lobbying has prevented it.
You're right in one part, it's capitalism all right, best laws money can buy. If you take out the government interference in the market (patents, copyrights, and all the protectionist laws that go along with them) you suddenly find that the market bears a lot less abuse.
Price difference is only half the problem, ever try to buy anything from Amazon in Canada? there's nothing on the Canadian site, they stock a fraction of the product and the American site refuses to ship to Canada.
It's also especially interesting when you look at digital files. a friend of mine recently bought an e-book reader, he suddenly found out that ebooks are priced just as their physical counterparts, significantly higher in Canada, and apparently it's not just IP based either, it looks at where your credit card was issued.
Depends where you compare to. often the "developing countries" aren't the place with the cheap electronics. But I can definitely tell you that the US has much cheaper electronics than most of the rest of the developed world. I live in Canada, we share a very long border with the US so it's not exactly far away, and yet our prices are generally close to 50% higher than the US. Most US companies though refuse to ship to Canadian addresses, and their Canadian divisions carry a much smaller selection (I'm looking at you Amazon!) The only way to get the cheaper electronics is to physically go and get them, or set up a mail forwarder (or in short, use the tricks in the article linked above) Even digital downloads are significantly more expensive, despite no need to ship anything, or even maintain a Canadian presence, and all despite the Canadian dolar hovering around par with the US dollar for many years now.
You would think, but in fact it's not likely. the reason is that when shipping across the planet it is much more efficient to ship a pallet load of CDs (or more likely a shipping container full of pallets of CDs) then it is to ship the same quantity individually wrapped and addressed. not to mention the pallet load will likely ship by sea with thousands of other pallets whereas the individual ones will likely ship by air which is a much less efficient method of transport.
All of this completely ignores the fact though that much of what's being discussed is simple electronic data, things like itunes purchases and such which don't ship at all and yet still have vastly different prices in different countries.
We live in a world where, due to extreme political lobbying, we have a global market for large companies, and yet a local market for individuals. I have no problem with a global market, but if the company can buy it's parts and labour overseas at no penalty, I should also be able to buy the finished product the same way. Unfortunately in many cases doing so is illegal. (It's illegal to import many of these things yourself (such as music and movies, but also things like foreign region DVD players (in some jurisdictions), not to mention many larger items like cars and trucks))
So how do you explain a country where the dollar has been at par with the US dollar (or within a few cents) for almost 10 years now, and yet all prices are close to 50% higher (not Australia, Canada) e.books cost more, mp3s cost more, physical products cost more. There's only one justification, and it is greed.
ok, we'll call it "campaign contributions" instead. better? same deal though, money going to a specific politician with a specific expectation of that politician later.
No, because it is much better to tell people what resolution they get, and what size screen, or such instead of a useless name that means absolutely nothing. The only reason to use such terms is to confuse customers and make it harder to compare your products to the competitions' (of course Apple knows that it's customers don't comparison shop, so they don't really care there)
>You're the first post I've come to on this thread that has mentioned the sad relationship between microwave ovens and channel 6.
Microwave ovens don't interfere with "channel 6", they interfere with the whole range. Microwave ovens use magnatrons to produce the microwave radiation because magnatrons are cheap, they aren't used in communications networks though (despite being cheap) because they have lousy frequency stability. as a result they tend to blast all over the band. There is one office I work in on occasion where the kitchen is directly between the work area and the router location. any time someone nukes their food you loose all access to the internet until the microwave oven is done. we've tried every channel, doesn't help. Now in fairness the signal level is fairly low to start with (long distance, and lots of metal and concrete between the router and the work area) but the microwave is a very noticeable cause of problems.
Except that the method of getting caught was because they accidentally were giving attribution... getting caught != attribution but attribution == getting caught
And this is yet another thing all the "OMG cell phones cause cancer" people keep failing to account for... actual cancer statistics. Do you have any stats on brain tumours pre-cell phone? or that have been attributed to other causes? For that matter, cell phone use has been growing exponentially for years, so it should be easy to see the same exponential growth of brain tumours right? Of course not... but let's not let science get in the way of our panic.
Could you link to some of these "well known" studies about heating? Because the last one I saw completely failed in it's scientific method by not using any controls for increased activity due to listening to a conversation, or differentiating between real and placebo effects. If there are other better studies I'm genuinely curious.
Or maybe the public concern should be with real science instead of anecdotal evidence of something that is only correlation with no proof of causation?
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Unfortunately, when I cancelled my home phone, I moved the number to a cell phone. seemed like a good idea at the time as I'd had that number as my main contact number for over 10 years. Unfortunately it also means that I get a lot of telemarketing calls to my cell phone now. of course I do report every single one of them to the CRTC (our version of the FCC)... don't know if it helps, but it doesn't seem to hurt...
The question isn't what can they do, it's what will they do? and I highly doubt they'll go any further than the company.
If they were selling at a loss, they wouldn't sell to those places at all, which means it's still profitable, just not as profitable as elsewhere. There is no right to make a certain amount of money. If you can get away with it fine, but don't use the government to force it on us.
It is actually pretty black and white here, if there were no profit from selling at the lower price they wouldn't do it. So it obviously still makes moeny. It's not my fault that their greed makes them want to make even more money in a different country. If I want to buy from somewhere that they are willing to sell, then they have no right to legislate against that.
Further to this, we have already decided that corporations are allowed to shop around the world for cheaper parts, raw materials, and labour. Why would we then outlaw individuals doing the same thing?
If your business model requires government intervention to make it profitable, you are doing things wrong. Can't have it both ways. Time to return some of the rights back to individuals.
Hate to respond to myself, but I want to clarify. I have no problem whatsoever with them charging whatever they want in different locations. That is their perogative. I just think that we should have the same right to buy wherever we want.
Why do we reserve the right to game international markets exclusively for corporations? If they can set the prices in different parts of the world however they like, why can't I choose to buy in different parts of the world wherever I like?
Why protect corporations while refusing to protect individuals? I thought we ruled that corporations are people, if so it's time we scaled their rights back to the same level as individual people.
I always hate that part. some of the biggest names in history produced all their work without any form of copyright. Why do people think that if we gave "only" a measly lifetime of protection people would suddenly stop creating?
It's time to abolish copyright completely. We did fine without it before, we'll do fine without it again.
Because "someone else" doesn't pay for it. Insurance ALWAYS makes a profit. so that means that you are the one paying for it through premiums. People like you who don't care because they don't get the bill directly are the reason that insurance premiums are so high. The premiums have to cover all the costs and still make a profit, the more procedures/devices/etc cost, the more your premiums cost. But because nobody objects (because they don't think they pay for it) the companies get away with it.
You pay for it, only in a round about way.
And yet E.Books still have a 50% difference even though they don't even have to have a presence in the country...
So how come it costs more to download a file from iTunes when iTunes doesn't even need any physical presence in the country?
And yet due to protectionist legislation, it can often be difficult or impossible to import certain models to Canada to bypass the price fixing. In fact it is completely illegal to import any new vehicle from anywhere other than the US in to Canada, and even from the US you are only allowed to import the models that the manufacturer decides are importable and only with modifications listed by the manufacturer (and in some cases that only that manufacturer is allowed to make) (not to mention that the manufacturers have told their American dealerships not to sell to Canadians.)
Price differences like that would quickly be fixed by the free market if the market were allowed to be free, but lobbying has prevented it.
You're right in one part, it's capitalism all right, best laws money can buy.
If you take out the government interference in the market (patents, copyrights, and all the protectionist laws that go along with them) you suddenly find that the market bears a lot less abuse.
Price difference is only half the problem, ever try to buy anything from Amazon in Canada? there's nothing on the Canadian site, they stock a fraction of the product and the American site refuses to ship to Canada.
It's also especially interesting when you look at digital files. a friend of mine recently bought an e-book reader, he suddenly found out that ebooks are priced just as their physical counterparts, significantly higher in Canada, and apparently it's not just IP based either, it looks at where your credit card was issued.
Depends where you compare to. often the "developing countries" aren't the place with the cheap electronics. But I can definitely tell you that the US has much cheaper electronics than most of the rest of the developed world. I live in Canada, we share a very long border with the US so it's not exactly far away, and yet our prices are generally close to 50% higher than the US. Most US companies though refuse to ship to Canadian addresses, and their Canadian divisions carry a much smaller selection (I'm looking at you Amazon!) The only way to get the cheaper electronics is to physically go and get them, or set up a mail forwarder (or in short, use the tricks in the article linked above)
Even digital downloads are significantly more expensive, despite no need to ship anything, or even maintain a Canadian presence, and all despite the Canadian dolar hovering around par with the US dollar for many years now.
It's imported in either case, so no difference.
You would think, but in fact it's not likely. the reason is that when shipping across the planet it is much more efficient to ship a pallet load of CDs (or more likely a shipping container full of pallets of CDs) then it is to ship the same quantity individually wrapped and addressed. not to mention the pallet load will likely ship by sea with thousands of other pallets whereas the individual ones will likely ship by air which is a much less efficient method of transport.
All of this completely ignores the fact though that much of what's being discussed is simple electronic data, things like itunes purchases and such which don't ship at all and yet still have vastly different prices in different countries.
We live in a world where, due to extreme political lobbying, we have a global market for large companies, and yet a local market for individuals. I have no problem with a global market, but if the company can buy it's parts and labour overseas at no penalty, I should also be able to buy the finished product the same way. Unfortunately in many cases doing so is illegal. (It's illegal to import many of these things yourself (such as music and movies, but also things like foreign region DVD players (in some jurisdictions), not to mention many larger items like cars and trucks))
So how do you explain a country where the dollar has been at par with the US dollar (or within a few cents) for almost 10 years now, and yet all prices are close to 50% higher (not Australia, Canada) e.books cost more, mp3s cost more, physical products cost more.
There's only one justification, and it is greed.
ok, we'll call it "campaign contributions" instead. better? same deal though, money going to a specific politician with a specific expectation of that politician later.
And yet at no point was a cellular telephone, or a human head, or accurate measurements involved...
No, because it is much better to tell people what resolution they get, and what size screen, or such instead of a useless name that means absolutely nothing. The only reason to use such terms is to confuse customers and make it harder to compare your products to the competitions' (of course Apple knows that it's customers don't comparison shop, so they don't really care there)
Which is not in any way a scientific study on the effects of cellular phone radiation on human tissue.
>You're the first post I've come to on this thread that has mentioned the sad relationship between microwave ovens and channel 6.
Microwave ovens don't interfere with "channel 6", they interfere with the whole range. Microwave ovens use magnatrons to produce the microwave radiation because magnatrons are cheap, they aren't used in communications networks though (despite being cheap) because they have lousy frequency stability. as a result they tend to blast all over the band.
There is one office I work in on occasion where the kitchen is directly between the work area and the router location. any time someone nukes their food you loose all access to the internet until the microwave oven is done. we've tried every channel, doesn't help. Now in fairness the signal level is fairly low to start with (long distance, and lots of metal and concrete between the router and the work area) but the microwave is a very noticeable cause of problems.
so... no actual peer reviewed scientific study then?
Except that the method of getting caught was because they accidentally were giving attribution...
getting caught != attribution but attribution == getting caught
And this is yet another thing all the "OMG cell phones cause cancer" people keep failing to account for... actual cancer statistics.
Do you have any stats on brain tumours pre-cell phone? or that have been attributed to other causes?
For that matter, cell phone use has been growing exponentially for years, so it should be easy to see the same exponential growth of brain tumours right? Of course not... but let's not let science get in the way of our panic.
Could you link to some of these "well known" studies about heating? Because the last one I saw completely failed in it's scientific method by not using any controls for increased activity due to listening to a conversation, or differentiating between real and placebo effects.
If there are other better studies I'm genuinely curious.
Or maybe the public concern should be with real science instead of anecdotal evidence of something that is only correlation with no proof of causation?