Best,

Mac

Ohhh, bad time to dis social democracy, when 10% [really about 16+ if include contractors and those that have given up looking for work] are out of work here and millions are losing their homes, health care, credit rating, chance at college, etc.

>> Remember what John Travolta said, “It’s the little differences that are important…”

In what movie did he say that? In reference to what, I wonder? Get Shorty is my favorite movie of his, though I am sure Saturday Night Fever is what most people remember him for [or Barbarino ].

Shipping, duty etc. We have all those too.

Perhaps the answer is that, in the U.S., where it is ‘dog eat dog’ and a ‘biggest asshole wins’ mentality, jobs suck SO MUCH that there are people who will dedicate themselves to selling gear from everywhere and anywhere - hoping to keep some of their self-respect and eak out some kind of living, rather than work for some jerk who will abuse them and pay them barely enough to live off of. In both cases they can afford only basic health care and can’t send their kids to college - but one job is fun and one isn’t.

So we have access to a lot of different components, and even though the people selling it are barely getting by, they prefer it to the alternative.

Take care,
Mike

But I still don’t have a good answer to your question, why, if there’s a profit to be made from selling this gear people don’t leap at it? My reply: the anti-competitive spirit of social democracy. Costs are high and businessmen and union workers are used to not only being protected from competition by their national governments, but also to joining together in cartels to prevent internal competition as well.

Ask Peter about the good old days of Social Democracy in Denmark. He has also studied economics, so he may well have a better answer than I do.

Remember what John Travolta said, “It’s the little differences that are important…”

Best,

Mac

Wow, I never knew it was quite like that over there. Very interesting

Maybe someone else will know of this happening over here too, but I certainly don’t.

For one, from what I have heard, there is a huge markup on U.S. gear there, as well as a mystique that makes people want to buy U.S. even though it is often inferior.

However, on this side of the pond - there is no mystique about European audio gear - no one cares where they are from as far as I can tell. On the other hand, autos, There is some mystique there - but then again, they are actually ‘better’ cars as well in some respects (well engineered, but hard to repair German cars and great handling, easy to break Italian cars, and finally boring but never break Japanese cars. Big honkin’ heavy metal cars? Those are ours ).

In any case - it is hard for me, as a capitalist, to understand why keep something off the street if there is money to be made. Now, at the govt. level, one manufacturer might lobby to have a foreign import tariffed into non-competitiveness. But this happens in steel and memory chips - not in our itty bitty industry.

There ARE tarrifs/duties on imports from the E.U. - it is so stupid, they even have a separate schedule for each type of audio gear. And I imagine that the E.U. probably does the same thing to our gear - in a tit-for-tat kind of game that boys like to play - to kind of give the home teams a little advantage.

Perhaps the profit margin is not so good on U.S. gear there? But then why do they not just raise the prices until the profit margin makes sense and they can sell the gear they are importing. Perhaps the process of importing gear is so laborious that they just do not want to deal with it - and so focus on selling local gear? Perhaps they are friends with the local manufacturers, and they are in cahoots together to drive more sales to each other? [Is this what you are suggesting?] even though on the face of it it costs the dealer/distributor money?

————

In any case, I know there is some translation issues between what dealers and distributors are. But I have no problem with E.U. MFRS selling direct to consumers in the U.S. - as long as they do not have a distributor or dealers to whom they have promised not to do this.

Just a reminder to all our readers, in the U.S. the flow of components is:

EU MFR -> distributor -> lots of dealers -> consumers (hopefully lots)
US MFR -> lots of dealers - >consumers (tons and tons)

but as I understand it in the E.U. it is more often:

US MFR -> distributor/dealer -> consumers where the distributor is often the major dealer, and perhaps the only dealer, when the counties are small enough

And these posts have been about someone skipping a step or two in the chain and selling direct to consumers AT A REDUCED PRICE. We have a few MFRs that sell direct at the advertised price (Two off the top of my head are Pranawire and Rix Rax who is now 100% direct). The fact that they would sell direct at 100% of retail actually helps us, I think, because consumers can see and understand that the MFR respects and values their own products.

And that is the core issue: does the MFR respect and value their own products, and if they do, they had better choose distributors that represent them who also respects and values their products. No one is going to respect and value their products if they and their business partners do not. And I guess that goes both ways, for MFRs there selling here, or MFRS here selling there.

Take care, Mac,
Mike

Of course, it’s not all that black and white and I suspect you may know a US distributor of EU products in the US who does the same thing?

Best,

Mac

The title, as now amended for English majors everywhere [who are rarely my fans anyway…:-)] is still somewhat broad but no more so than the New York Times [and I am being serious, though the NYT has been lowering the bar for some time now].

It is indeed somewhat stereotyping singles out Europeans - but the percentage is so very, very high that I feel it is warranted. Japan seems to take more care in their choice of distributor, and Canadians seem to know more about just how bad we can be down here.

Take care,
Mike.

Your title is extremely broad and damning, while the body of the text addresses a much narrower flaw. (I’m not sure why Europeans are singled out in this behavior, either, but that’s another question.) Are you sure the title is appropriate, considering that nearly all blog viewers will see the title, but not nearly all will read the blog entry, and may well leave with a faulty impression of what you’re thinking?

Dave