Comment by joering2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by joering2 | Hacker News Reader

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Easy to imagine - phones would be 1.5x more expensive than they are now, from get go. The cheap electronics (and goods in large part) have been hallmark of "quality of life in USA" for decades; I still get iPhone and Lenovo laptops 40% cheaper than family members living in Europe.

However, it seems that Americans are so tired of growing prices that they are getting used to paying them. Just yesterday there was an article that summarized oil price drop 40% from when the war cooled down, but prize at the pump went down only 12%. The big oil explains this that people will buy gas anyways, so why lowering the price? I think we will see the same happening with electronics - Apple breaking news on $500B factory spending in USA is mostly because they believe Apple owners will keep buying Apple regardless of the price. They may be right... will see.

>Just yesterday there was an article that summarized oil price drop 40% from when the war cooled down, but prize at the pump went down only 12%. The big oil explains this that people will buy gas anyways, so why lowering the price?

Because the gas station across the street will sell it for less. Because a different refinery will sell it to the gas station for less. Gas prices are the pump and oil prices in the commodities market don’t move in perfect unison. But they do move eventually.

Wild how some ragebait “article” can erase people’s memory of gas prices going down. Not to mention that gas at the pump has taxes/labor applied to it that can also change.

https://www.macrotrends.net/2501/crude-oil-vs-gasoline-price...

https://www.macrotrends.net/3591/us-gasoline-prices

    > I still get iPhone and Lenovo laptops 40% cheaper than family members living in Europe.

Isn't this mostly explained by much higher sales tax (VAT) in most European countries? That doesn't seem to have anything to do with off-shoring the manuf'ing of these elctronic devices. That higher tax revenue can be used to fund excellent national healthcare (insurance) programmes, something that the US badly lacks.

Typical VAT rates are ~20%, so that only accounts for about half the difference.

Not just VAT.

For example, the EU mandates extended warranty protections that would be an optional purchase in other markets.

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