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Title: With dollar at par, Canadian shoppers are up in arms
Category: Business
Posted By: Canuckism
Date: 2011-01-05 23:23:04
Canadian

   

I can't help but notice Wendy's commercials. In the US the Jingle is 'My 99', as items on the value menu are 99 cents. In Canada, the same items are sung to the jingle of 'My $1.89'. Double the cost.

   

I can be mistaken, but: one country is better in industrial way, another country has resources, another sale resources to one, one makes a good and sell it to another for higher price by using it's neighbour companies there or parts of the same company. And boom , as a result - another suffers.

   

When I go into Chapters later today to pick up some new reading material and the check-out gal tries to charge me according to the printed pricing on the back cover of the book (US$18.99 Can$24.99), we're going to have ourselves a problem. I expect either the store manager or store security to be called.

   

This happened last time the dollar went above par as well. When are the book publishers going to learn not to print the price on the book itself? If they didn't print both US and Canadian prices there in black and white, we'd be none the wiser.

   

I thought you were better at math than that.

   

I don't know all the factors that raise the cost in Canada, maybe some of it is just purely that we're sheep and are willing to pay more. But we have higher taxes and higher minimum wages, thank God. (Both should be higher). You really want to live in the American system, so that you can save some money on junk food? Absolutely if you pay people shit wages you can get your consumer crap at less cost - but at what cost to society? Go to Europe and see what they pay over there.

   

And what they get...

   

???

   

For what they pay. Income taxes are higher, gas prices are higher (well, it depends on what country, of course...), taxes to the EU are at par with the sales tax, and the richer western European countries hardly get anything from the EU, while the poorer eastern European countries, that deliver the cheap labour to the west, get subsidized.
On the other hand, in a western European country, healthcare costs are WAY higher than here, BUT you get a lot more for your buck. Or Euro.

When I look back after 3 years here, I got more for my Euro than I get here for my Dollar.

   

Not to be antagonistic (really) but then why are you in Canada?

   

Nah, guys what you know about taxes and prices?:-D Can you exist, using only 100 $ per month, paying 60 $ for water, gas, flat, internet etc, ha?):-D I can;-)

   

Western Europeans seem to live a good life. They get more holidays than we do, and don't seem to lack for anything. I don't know how long they (well Germany) will be able to subsidized the poorer countries in order to sell crap to them - at some point that's gotta collapse.

Health care costs as a percentage of GDP are lower in most European countries than Canada - we're towards the higher end of the scale, and then there's the US sitting way up there all by itself.

Are you saying that consumer prices are lower in Europe than Canada? Even with their VAT?

   

How about Canadian retailers doing more than just retreating to empty patriotism to earn business? I'm sick and tired about being fed this junk about "buy local" when really i'm being gouged by "local" business.

   

Yep. Of course it depends on what you buy, and I can only speak from experience here and in Holland, but I do not recall paying anything close to the equivalent of $4 for a loaf of bread for example. And that is grocery store bread that I am talking about, nor from the bakery like I bought in Holland.
Gasprices tho are ridiculously high. $2+/liter, and we are bitching now with prices (here) of $1.07.

   

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