PISSED OFF at the pricing differences between Europe and the USA - Page 3

PS. Laffing Billy, that's one hell of a chip on your shoulder, mate. You're an absolute arse, and you don't even belong in this thread as I can't figure out how it might concern you one jot. So, Get over it. Personally, I think you're only here because you're basking 100% in the security that you're not paying double for your wares yourself, and are hence purely here for the sneering, snobby back-stabbing.

Moreso, you have made for personal insults at the Brits, whereas we all have absolutely no beef with the American people themselves in this thread. So wind your neck in and get over youself and your egotistical prejudices, laffingbilly.

I think that, by reading what many (American) people are writing in this thread, there is somehow a massively counterfactual view of what appears to be perceived of the financial conditions and infrastructure of Europe. From my portal in the UK, let's set the record straight...

Gah, two month holidays?! What planet are you on?! Tell me where I the heck I can work which lets me have more than 4 weeks off in a whole year, let alone all together! However, the schoolkids have six weeks off during the summer from school. Maybe you're thinking of them, lol?

In work, though, the Brits probably rank as being alongside the most over-worked in the world. We have to, as everything costs so damn much, and taxes are so high!!! HENCE THIS THREAD. I earn a pittance. And mortgages are sky high... Do you know how much a damn 3-bedroomed semi-detached house with tiny 6m x 6m garden costs? In dollars it's $320,000!! I can see myself having no choice other than to buy a 30ft long canal barge (a "bargain" at $70,000 - note the speech marks, that's called: "irony") to live in, as that would be the only way I can afford a roof over my head.

Some more real-world figures for the UK (shown in dollars):-

A new car with 1.6litre engine: $26,000.
Broadband (of speed: 512/256) : $50/month
Petrol (gas): $1.64/litre
A single CD album (pop/chart music): $26.28
A pint of beer: $3.85 (which equals around $3.38 per half-litre).
Bottle of whisky (70cl) = $23.70

(I added the "cheap" beer, because funnily enough it's probably one of the most heavily taxed commodities here in the UK (percentage-wise), along with, and especially, petrol (gasoline), but I guess LaughingBilly was more into spitting out any odd words he could think of rather than go by first-hand experience or research).

And then we get to the average wage, after tax, is around $30,000.

So-called "Tax Freedom Day" (when you finish paying salary-based taxes and start earning your OWN money) is, June 10th. Yep, 100% of the time from January 1st right through to June 10th we work to subsidise the government. After that our money is theoretically our own ("oh thank you so very much!" [note - more irony]), until December 31st.

$30,000, after tax, will be higher, of course, than some countries, but the cost of living is so damn high here, the outgoing spenditure is immense. It's overwhelming, to tell the truth. However, I guess we're poorer off than most overall, as the cost of living is so great. Nearly all of us here in the UK are running on credit, in the red, loaned out from every orifice. And the taxes....

In this country, your inheritance gets heavily taxed (40% in some cases), your retirement pension gets taxed, your savings get taxed, your salary gets massively taxed, everything you buy gets taxed (VAT), then there's council tax, road tax, stamp duty, national insurance tax, income tax, customs tax, blahdy blah I could be here all night....

And as for the UK's "free" healthcare, the National Health Service in this country is an absolute god-damn shambles. An extremely very bad way. If you require any sort of scan, there is a 6-month waiting list. If you just require a single appointment to see a specialist you're looking at 4 months. If the specialist requires that you have a scan (six month waiting list, as mentioned), it can literally stretch out for years. This is the price you pay for a "free" service (which, ironically isn't free, as the UK is taxed so damn high to begin with).

For example, my dad had a severe heart-attack last year, but there were no beds in the city hospital so he remained in A&E (ie. Emergency Room) overnight, and doctors didn't start treating him properly for 3 WHOLE DAYS. The reason? He had his heart attack at the weekend (on a saturday morning), thus there are literally no fully-trained doctors to administer and properly diagnose people (nurses have no power), nor qualified personnel manning the scanners to take anything other than an X-Ray. GOD FORBID SOMEONE HAS A BLOODY HEART ATTACK DURING THE WEEKEND!!!

And we move on to public transport, as mentioned by Crashnburn. The rest of the public transport in Europe is ace, especially France. However, in England it's diabolical, very much in particular the train network, and it's a rip-off to boot. (It costs nearly $200 to travel 300 miles from London up to the North of England, and odds on you'll have to swap trains thrice, and wait for each one. If you can make the journey before it gets dark, you'll be lucky.)

So despite all this, us in the UK are stood to pay twice what you pay, for an identical sodding laptop. What the heck do you expect us to do? Are you real?

And the weather's crap.

Hi crash, other than the weather, the taxes, and the extortionate cost of living in the UK, I love it here, as I grew up here and my family and social circle is firmly based here. That isn't the issue, though.

Surely you feel you should sometimes draw the line and stand your ground, as often the answer isn't to just "move to another area", but to confront certain issues head on. Hence this thread to see what other people in the same (European) boat may be feeling and how we can maybe get a better deal, not for Americans to lambast us, god forbid, because we dare to question why we pay 206% the price they do.

I mean, a large portion of this webspace is already devoted to everyone and his dog having their own threads with regards to the so-called "sparkly screens" - in itself, a genuine issue that certainly required raising - but paying twice the price for the same laptop isn't a genuine issue worth questioning?!

Hehe, a lot of them are students, with overdrafts, although many people try and get out of here because of the weather. My brother even went out there picking bananas to earn money, and then slummed it around the area for a 'holiday'.

Would they even want to, lol? I don't think they'd find much of the weather, or the beaches, and of course everything's over-priced (and the service is very poor), and that's comes back to my beef. Because it IS overpriced, too much. Too much even for us!!! That's why everyone here is in the red, on credit. My brother has just bought a small 3-bedroom semi-detached house with his wife. They will have finished paying off their house in the year 2033 when they're both aged 55 (they're currently 28 years old), with the mortgage being paid at a rate of (iin dollars) $560/month. They'll be broke until they finish paying that off. They can't afford to have kids for at least another 10 years, as they're both full time workers and wouldn't be able to afford the mortgage if it was otherwise.

Sorry if this is going on, and maximum respect to lesser wealthy countries who really struggle to survive, let alone afford a damn laptop, but certain people here gave us the need to outline our view further to understand the situation.

Spending $3000 (UK price) on a laptop isn't doing any favours to those third-world or less-fortunate countries. In fact, it makes it look all the more obscene, and thus I draw the line. I intensely dislike two-faced high-powered businesses who hide behind anonymity and treat you as a mere "name and number", and whom take the rip by trying to tell us it's "OK" to pay these sorts of prices while getting away with blue-murder. It's immoral!! And I wont kotow to them (and hope others wont, too)!

Kíeran

Substantially. BT (British Telecom) holds monopoly over all of the phone-lines in the UK, and thus they are free to charge whatever they like (until a higher-power 'watchdog' steps in and tells them they're applying extortion, and then and only then does BT rectify it, albeit as little as they can get away with). There simply is no competition to rival BT and lower prices.

Until very recently the price for 512/256 broadband was $56. Now they've dropped the price a tad (down to $50/month) and are in the process of upgrading the phone lines to 1mb/256kb. Maximum speed for consumers in the UK is 2mbit/256kb.

It's a long way off from 10mbit/10mbit and we still pay through the nose.

Funny you should mention that, many people are uprooting and go to live in France or Spain purely because they can't stand the British rat-race.

However, I digress.

Thanks,

Kieran

PS. No more tirades from LaffingBilly?