Americans are soo lucky

[maizenblue]

As others have already said, in the US we have to pay a state sales tax which can bump the price up a bit.

 

We still pay lower taxes overall though compared to Europe, but in the US we also have to pay a lot of things ourselves. The big one is health insurance. In the US I pay 250 a month for Health insurance, which is probably less than half the total cost, (my employer pays the rest).

 

If I lose my job or switch jobs, I then have to pay the full amount for that insurance, at least for a time, I think its up to 6 months, after which I lose it altogether or pick up a new health insurance plan with another employer)..

 

Mass transit is also virtually non existent in most of the US, and rent and housing is very expensive unless you are willing to live in a dangerous ghetto(or have roomates who help pay).

 

When you add it all up, Europeans make out extremely well, while Americans get raped by "the man"(the wealthiest 1% who own everything).

[seabass9990]

Wow and i thought we had it bad in canada

[michaelocarroll007]

Im from america and went to portugal last year and When i was there i was so surprised how far my money went. Food prices were much cheaper even after the conversion and this was when the euro was stronger. I would go out to eat and it was always at about half the cost of when i go out in america i got a speeding ticket it was at least 1/10th of the price i would of paid in america But the Tolls & Gas prices were CRAZY compared to here it made it seem like if i lived there i would just stay in my home town lol. Anyways there's some stuff we pay more for and some stuff you pay more for just how it works. and like many have said our prices do not include tax. 

[lol1290]

In Slovenia and Germany we have about 20% VAT, included in price, but american's are still "lucky" with the prices of computer hardware. You can get the same pc build much cheaper in USA then in EU.

[TheMastr13]

Around 7-8% is what it is in most places. Here in Kansas it's 8%or something.

In 'Murcia its 8.25%

[lasttimelord12]

In America, a motherboard for $39.99 is listed on NewEgg.

 

Switch to Canada

 

$69.99

 

Muricans get things for uber cheap. 

[hawthorne]

Yeah but they have no health care so they are the joke of the first world.

[SkywardKkalox]

Sweden says hi with 25%.

23% here, HYPE!

[ThomasD]

Remember also that our social services (healthcare, education, etc) are terrib

ly underfunded to have those lower taxes (never mind that even if they were properly funded, the level of incompetence would be as insane as it is now)

A common misconception.

 

Accounting for social services spending is very complicated, given that expenses are spread across Federal, State and local governments and the definition of the term is so varied among those same entities.

 

But educational spending, even if spread out across the same groups is easily defined and accounted.

 

So, when looking at public educational spending the US consistently ranks near the top of all OECD nations.

 

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp

[theereal]

Why are PC parts so expensive in the UK? The price of a 980ti in America is the same as a normal 980 here. A Titan X in the US is $1000, well here it is £1000 ($1537) I cry

Where i live (Norway) a Titan X is 1300$

[Mattrixx]

In 'Murcia its 8.25%

Never had to pay that much here!  The sales tax here will most likely raise though soon, as Kansas is having some problems with it's budget. No one wants to raise taxes, so we're really trying to cut costs everywhere before raising taxes.

[Oskar94a]

25% VAT in Sweden also income taxes ranging from 14% to 65% (depending on income) where 32% is average tax.

[Watsyurdeal]

Oh gee....that's really toooooo bad

[Godlygamer23]

£1000 For a titan X? Are you kidding, it is actually around £850 and we pay taxes wereas americans dont (normall, I think)

Americans pay taxes.

[handymanshandle]

We've got sales tax too, it's just that only states and counties collect sales tax not the US government. So the Minnesota Sales Tax and nearby Washington county so the overall tax rate is about 7.125%. GST/VAT I recall is applied on imported goods in Eurozone countries and Canada. So sure a $1000 graphics card would cost $1071 in Washington County, Minnesota. 

 

GST/VAT in the UK is about 20% so in USD $1200 is what you're paying. (Remember US$1000 is £654.60 so the US dollar is weaker than the British Pound, so £654.60 with 20% attached makes it £785.52 (which is $1200) I'm guessing that any extra cost to a $1000/£654.60 item would be additional shipping and not VAT. Shipping to an Island by boat is more expensive, so is shipping by air. The reason it's cheaper for trans-pacific boating then being driven cross continent. The reason it'd be most likely more in Canada is the time spent going through the border. Time is money, so long(er) crossing times can mean that the price of the unit itself has to go up because it costed the shipping company more so in turn the company having something shipped would have to pay more because the shipping company had to cross US/Canadian borders. Of course it's possible the company uses a trans-Canadian shipper for Canada and a trans-United States shipper for the lower 48. (Even though Alaska and Hawaii are part of the US that is why things are more likely than not to cost more than they would on any of the lower 48 states.)  Club3D is based in the Netherlands so I'd suspect that their prices in the Eurozone are lower but then again AMD GPUs would have to be shipped from other places.

[toms94z71]

minimum wage here is 7.25 which is the national minimum wage although some states and even cities have higher around the country. Sales tax is 6.75% where I live because they don't want it to be easy for you to figure out in your head lol. You have to pay for health insurance out of your pockets with many jobs, or if you are lucky you get a discounted policy through your employer. You go to use said insurance and find out it doesn't cover half of what you need and the other half you still have to pay half of it seems like. Get a broken arm and expect to pay a few thousand out of pocket even with most insurance policies. Heck I got one tooth pulled a few years ago using my dental ins, which by the way is a separate policy from health ins for some explainable reason even though your teeth are clearly related to health, it still costed me nearly $400 out of my pocket for the xrays and the one extraction.

[Kingofpants]

Taxes! and ours are equally expensive when we actually pay the taxes. Remember that our prices don't include the taxes like everyone else in the world does.

It doesn't matter, your taxes are fairly low compared to other countries and even if you pay taxes its still ridiculously cheap. My computer would have been 35%+ cheaper just south of Canada.

Computer parts in USD are by far the cheapest. Around 70% of the the rest of the world has to pay.

[Counter-Strike Player]

Would you Europeans like to move here and try to get a decent college education for $45K per year, out of your own pocket?

[Suika]

Dude where I live it is around $7.50 so $8 isn't that bad, only $.50 more an hour still makes a difference.

Pretty sure Missouri's minimum wage is currently at $7.65. Also consider that living expenses in Cali are through the roof. A $250k house in rural Missouri is probably a $2.5M house in Cali lol.

Funnily enough Wal-Mart is becoming a decent option for work versus other places, with starting wage at $9.50/hour and just hoards of benefits and options to grow in the company.

[Thony]

Its not Americans being lucky. Its EU being super anal and taking its cut for importing goods.

[Vvardenfell]

Titan X is $1500 in Israel.

[Mattrixx]

Titan X is $1500 in Israel.

The U.S. does a lot for Israel; we can't have them getting things really cheap now!