David said:
Here, I was refering to the usual lot of ink cartridges, not just
Canon. Nevertheless, no reason at all why any cartridge that WOULD cost
<$5 to make in any 3rd world country cost $30+ even if made in a 1st
world country.
$5 to produce an ink cartridge in Japan? You've got to be joking, body! 50¢,
maybe, not 5$. So what's going on? Is there a conspirary? Have all printer
companies established a cartel?
This is not necessary. The Stock Exchange regulates the money market
throughout the world. And in the beginning of this maelstrom of pure folly was
Microsoft.
Microsoft got into the business of offering a very useful product that cost
next to nothing to produce. If you design a car, then you have to build an
assembly line to produce the car. Otherwise, you can't sell the car you've
designed. But after its product is designed, Microsoft has nothing to produce
except a CD or it may offer it on a server. Bits are transfered. That's it!
That's how Bill Gates became the richest man in the world and many of his
associates multibillionnaires in about 20 years. Of course, his business would
still be better if it wasn't for Linux. He could charge Dell the full 150$
(US) for XP, just as to anybody. But he and his investors are hoping this is
only a temporary situation.
So, all companies in the world... and their investors, of course, thought that
was a nice way of making business. They get the primary goods in third world
countries for next to nothing and charge the customers the highest possible price.
If some smaller companies can get ink powder at a "fair"(1) price, they may
undercut their price. So they devise all kind of artifices to trick them out.
That's the name of the game.
(1) The quotes, of course, are because every company plays the same game.
But, in this scheme, money has been diverted from its original purpose of
facilitating exchanges. Some people get all the money for providing next to
nothing and some people have needs that can't be met because they don't have
the money.
And, of course, I'm not only talking about Third World countries, but also
about what you refer to as First World countries, where the gap between rich
and poor increases at a tremendous speed.
Go to the steelwork cities of the Great Lakes, you'll understand what I mean.
Politians and economists' discourse now seem completely vacuous, it just
doesn't grasp reality anymore.
Now that Microsoft has escaped the antitrust suits, that the company managers
behave more like money managers, not seeing much farther away that the next
quarter bottom line, escaping this unreal reality will become more difficult.
Not that nothing can be done. You could, most importantly. switch from Windows
to Linux, try to get your ink for third parties, refuse to be told that you
must throw away a good quality printer for a brand new crappy one because the
company refuses to give you the information on some glitch it has introduced, etc.
And before you buy anything, wonder if you really need it. Take back your
/time/ to yourself.
GP
