The falling dollar

Silva Lining said:
In the UK -

PAN F £1.89 from 7DayShop

I have to work for 3 minutes.
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3 x 20 minutes = 1 hour

1 working day = 8 hours

£1.89 x 20 x 8 = £ 302.40

that is my math. But it is not that important anyway. Just dreamed about what I could get for that money (every day) ...

160 rolls of Pan F. For example...
 
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skibeerr said:
How many minutes do you have to work to buy one roll of 35mm Illford pan f plus 50?

Me in Belgium 25 minutes.
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Depends, I've got a fixed income and flexible hours, flexible meaning overtime is not payed 🙂

Roughly 20 minutes with 5.49 per 36exp roll.

A typical hairdresser in eastern germany would have to work 1.5 hours without tips, a waiter in western germany 40 minutes, again without tips.
 
Socke said:
Depends, I've got a fixed income and flexible hours, flexible meaning overtime is not payed 🙂

Roughly 20 minutes with 5.49 per 36exp roll.

A typical hairdresser in eastern germany would have to work 1.5 hours without tips, a waiter in western germany 40 minutes, again without tips.
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!Socke you are in my league. Lets unite!​

🙄 FREE LEICA'S FOR THE WORKERS.🙄​
 
skibeerr said:
How many minutes do you have to work to buy one roll of 35mm Illford pan f plus 50?

Me in Belgium 25 minutes.
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Me in Switzerland at my current job something between 15 and 20 minutes. I'm a student though, so this is not my *real* job. 😀
 
Thardy said:
What surprises (bothers) me is not that the dollar is weak (well a little), but the extremely high prices in the UK compared to what seemed like low salaries.

I found the same examples of food as above when I was there two weeks ago. You look at a menu and prices in pounds are HIGHER than the dollars we're used to, example (hamburger meal in US 10 dollars, same meal in UK 15 pounds) then you think wow that's almost 2.5X the price I'm used to paying. The same occured with hotel rooms.

Then I saw on the news (BBC) that London is the 2nd most expensive city in the world.

My comment on the low salaries come from what I saw in the classified ads for various jobs COMPARED to cost of things like housing, autos, (same autos in UK seemed to be priced much higher than US).

The prices in Paris seemed to be much lower than in London.
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Wouldn't you agree that what you actually are observing is that the dollar is 'very' weak compared to the Pound. Haven't been so week in 26 years, actually. Further: Typical for expensive cities (Stockholm, Tokio, London, Oslo, Paris etc.) are 'high salaries'. That is what drives prices - 'the supply side of the market'. You should be familiar with this in the US.

What is typical for these cities is not neccessary the price of the cheesburger, but of real estate. When buying an exclusive apartment in West London (or Paris) you could be competing with members of the Saudi Royal family. Or with some of the best payed stock brokers in the world.
 
Olsen said:
exclusive apartment in West London
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...well, a NON exclusive apartment in West London starts at around 3.000 used Leica M6.

BTW, the Dollar is weak, the Yen is even weaker, especially when you are in Europe.
 
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All things are relative - the pound is expensive relative to the euro, the euro is expensive relative to the dollar, the dollar is expensive relative to yuan, the yuan is expensive relative to some other currency... what normally does not surprise me, is overvalued currencies in old democracies. In this respect the pound is perfectly ok - what is out of place really is the dollar. The nice thing is,everybody says the dollar has to fall because: (fill this space with your own argument...) . The democracy and rule of law is something that adds a lot of value to a currency, especially these days, because the biggest portfolio flows that drive up the currencies come from (commodity producing) countries where the rich either do not have the confidence in the rule of law and order at home ( often rightly so), or they have too much money to consider the domestic options, or both... so the flow ends abroad. This is why the Russians and Arabs, etc, pay the top dollar for London mansions and drive world stock prices higher. Maybe a less geopolitically aggressive US administration would do more favours to dollar's strength - we will see after the next election...
 
Basically the US is fighting two wars on credit and the UK is using stealth taxes.

The two large UK political parties are heading towards the cliff lemming style, but you can never tell with politics.

I have to buy cheap bulk film.

Noel
 
Thardy said:

OK, OK, I GIVE. I guess my liberal side is just trying to empathize with the little guy in the UK. Maybe they're doing just fine. Maybe prices are not all that high, but something is just not quite right when 2 nights in a London hotel cost the same as a NEW Leica MP.
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I spent a night in the Meridien for 650 quid, that was back in 1990!
 
Yes I remember when the Aussie dollar was worth 50 cents U.S. a few years ago and a pound sterling bought over A$3. Tourists flocked here in their droves and our exporters loved it. But of course it meant Aussies heading overseas had to take wheelbarrow loads of money with them to pay for their holiday and imported goods cost a mint. But with our dollar at its highest level against the TWI (trade weighted indicator) for nearly 20 years, thats why I bought a new M6ttl and a new Hex 35UC LTM lens this year. If the US$ is falling it is just the international markets passing judgement on the American economy and factoring the cost to the US of the Iraqi war. If I was an American heading overseas on holidays, I'd just skip going to Europe. Lets face it, the place has been done to death tourist wise. Head Downunder, you'll be more than welcome here, bring your cameras and your devalued dollar will still buy a great holiday.
 
Silva Lining said:
In the UK -

PAN F £1.89 from 7DayShop

I have to work for 3 minutes.

Someone on average UK salary would need to work for 9 minutes.
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Hmm, that would be about 2.85 EUR. So why the hell does it cost over 5 EUR here in Germany?

Anyway, you should have used your net salary, as you can't spend your taxes, can you? 🙂


colin
 
Whatever arm pit of the world one may be in, a Ben Franklin, or a Grant, or a Jackson, will help you out, when in trouble. US Dollars are the most recognized currency in the in third world.

Cheers
MArk
Quito, EC

[Ecuador's currency was changed to US Dollars in 2000, we do not have anything else, thus our inflation is 2.8%]
 
What might also be interesting is how much Japanese opto/electronic goods cost in various countries. It used to be the case that Europeans (especially Brits) got screwed wrt. Americans. Exchange rates be damned.

Zeiss ZM 25


Germany (Shphoto)..EUR 900 ................. == EUR 756 (without sales tax)
USA (popflash).........USD 777 ................. == EUR 567
UK (Robert White)....GBP 540 == EUR 810 == EUR 690 (without sales tax)
Japan ?


Ah no. I was wrong. It's European continentals are getting screwed.

Must be because the US market is larger. Although the EU has a population of 493M.

I guess the message is, "forget economics, pay what you have to, take pictures and enjoy life as best you can."

colin
 
colinh,
Note that PopFlash prices are Grey Market. I don't believe Tony Rose is an official USA distributor of Zeiss products, hence the lower prices than the others (presumably Zeiss official resellers).
 
colinh said:
What might also be interesting is how much Japanese opto/electronic goods cost in various countries. It used to be the case that Europeans (especially Brits) got screwed wrt. Americans. Exchange rates be damned.

Zeiss ZM 25


Germany (Shphoto)..EUR 900 ................. == EUR 756 (without sales tax)
USA (popflash).........USD 777 ................. == EUR 567
UK (Robert White)....GBP 540 == EUR 810 == EUR 690 (without sales tax)
Japan ?


Ah no. I was wrong. It's European continentals are getting screwed.

Must be because the US market is larger. Although the EU has a population of 493M.

I guess the message is, "forget economics, pay what you have to, take pictures and enjoy life as best you can."

colin
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I recently got a new black ZM 25 in Tokyo for a friend in the US. It cost 84,800 yen!

JPY 84,800 = USD 687.56 = EUR 504.66

Photog gear is cheap, but overseas travel is now very expensive :bang:
 
jonmanjiro said:
I recently got a new black ZM 25 in Tokyo for a friend in the US. It cost 84,800 yen!

JPY 84,800 = USD 687.56 = EUR 504.66
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So, ZM 25/2.8 = 500 EUR in Japan
and Elmarit-M 24/2.8 = 2600 EUR in Germany.


Good thing we Germans earn over 5 times as much as the Japanese 😀



colin
 
colinh said:
So, ZM 25/2.8 = 500 EUR in Japan
and Elmarit-M 24/2.8 = 2600 EUR in Germany.


Good thing we Germans earn over 5 times as much as the Japanese 😀



colin
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Or the 24 Elmarit is 5x as good as the ZM25 ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

🙄 🙄
 
colinh said:
Good thing we Germans earn over 5 times as much as the Japanese 😀
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Over 5 times more than the Vietnamese ..... sure!

Over 5 times more than the Chinese .... most likely, but some Chinese do earn VERY good salaries.

Over 5 times more than the South Koreans .... unlikely.

Over 5 times more than the Japanese .... not a chance 😀
 
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