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adrian_byesterday at 7:16 PM1 replyview on HN

The ratio in money between the revenues in Europe and those in USA is rather misleading.

With the same amount of money you can do much more in Europe. Even in the few domains where USA had a traditional advantage, like the prices of electronic devices, e.g. computers, things have changed a lot recently.

Prompted by another discussion thread on HN, I have compared yesterday some prices for computers and associated components in USA and in Europe. Now the prices in USA are 30% to 40% higher, in sharp contrast with how the price ratio was in the previous years, when prices were lower in USA.

The real economic strength of Europe vs. USA is much greater than the values of GDP expressed in USD, and including some meaningless indicators, would seem to imply.


Replies

adrian_btoday at 12:21 AM

Someone has downvoted for unknown reasons my posting, even if what I have written are just true facts, not some personal opinion.

Perhaps the downvoter has not believed that the prices have become so bad in USA, but then he/she should have checked the prices instead of downvoting.

After another HN poster has said yesterday that he has just bought a computer in Europe and the same computer was more expensive by 37.5% in USA, I thought that this is unbelievable, so I have also checked myself the prices.

I have just bought an ASUS NUC computer in Europe at a price equivalent with $490 and the same computer is on Newegg at $679, i.e. more expensive by 38.5%, a value very close to that reported by the other poster.

Moreover, I have equipped that computer with an 1 TB SSD and 32 GB DDR5, at a hugely increased price in comparison with last summer, i.e. the DDR5 modules are more than 3 times more expensive now (thanks to the US companies hoarding memory devices). Even so, the total cost in Europe was equivalent with slightly less than $900 while the same configuration on Newegg was slightly less than $1200.

Q.E.D.

In past years the opposite was true, i.e. computers and related components were cheaper in USA, even if the difference was not so great as it is now in the reverse direction.

Therefore it is clear that the dollar is overvalued, its true value is much less in comparison with the euro than the official exchange rate says. For most non-electronic things, the prices were lower in Europe even before. So the GDP of USA is also not as big as it is claimed.