European VS American.....

To get back to your thread starter, the primary reason that European products tend to be at the upper price level range is that the characteristics of the workforces in Europe tend to have very strong labor unions that have increased the cost structures for producing products in Europe. With restrictive labor laws and higher taxes contributing to higher costs, European manufacturers have been forced into the high end for products in order to survive.

It doesn't mean that all Europeans wear Patek watches, they obviously don't. With the exception of the Swatch, the everyday person on the street in Europe probably wears a Seiko or other inexpensive watch from outside of Europe. Inexpensive watches aren't produced in Europe, not because people there don't want them, but because it is uneconomic to produce them there.

The high cost structure in Europe has had an impact on other products as well. For the most part, the successful European cars (outside of Europe) are the high end brands and models because Europe's lower priced Fiats, Peugeots and other brands are not competitive with the Japanese and Korean cars in the middle and lower price ranges. The reason that they have a dominant market share in Europe is due to high trade tariffs that help keep out the imports. Even Mercedes and BMW have been threatened by competition from Lexus, which routinely soundly beats the Germans in quality of construction and customer satisfaction. Notice that most of the major car manufacturers (Mercedes, BMW, Honda, Toyota, Nissan) have very substantial manufacturing facilities in the U.S.

This problem may be changing somewhat with the opening up of the Eastern European nations as manufacturers in the high cost countries of Germany, France and, to a lesser extent, Italy are relocating manufacturing plants in the Czech Republic, Hungary and other eastern countries in order to lower their cost structures.

In short, the reason that European products seem to be more expensive than U.S. products is because their cost structures force those products into the high end. We don't see lower priced European products in the U.S. either because they don't exist or because they are not competitive with products produced in the U.S. or Asia.

John

 

This in turn is not exact.

I'd rather say the states have a luxury tax, while we don't have it.

It's true that for a while europe (never Switzerland) had a quota on the amount of japanese cars that could be brought in the countries (just like we have it for chinese textil), but this is OMC compliant, as automobile industry is a major one in europe.
However, the japanese circumvent this by building many car plants in europe, making them free from quotas.
The result was that all car makers in europe (is VW a high end marque, they wish they'd be, but no...?) to raise dramatically the quality of their cars, meaning now the japanese cars are in no way a menace, and the product is fully competitive. Not sure if these quotas are still active now, but i think they're not (unlike US system where they go crazy if there are quotas when they want to export, but find it normal to have them to protect their economy)
It's true that workforce tends to be much more expensive, and that money goes only indirectly in the workers' pockets (social security, health insurance, pension etc), but the watch example is a wrong one. They could build cheap watches, but it was a historical choice. Switzerland (more precisely la Vallée de la Joux (french and swiss) and Geneva) was always home of the fine watches and the mechanical watch innovations (french breguet for example, who invented every major complication), and they decided not to move in the cheap market, except for Swatch, that goes quite well (and bought up 90 % of these makes, like Breguet, Blancpain etc)

 

Ok guys, i just a bit around.

Every country has his good and bad points, and the US is a great state.
My guess is in the states it's very exotic to have european stuff, so it's cool and expensive. Same here for US stuff (really).

 

No Golf/Jetta in the US ?

Uuhh...

 

How laughable, blame the reprehensible actions of your nation during WWII on Bush, can you possible stoop any lower?

Do you realize that Switzerland was instrumental in financing the Nazi war machine, and only because of the Swiss turning plundered Nazi wealth into hard currency were they able to sustain the war from 1944-1945 and avoid complete economic collapse. While millions of American, British, Canadian and Soviet soldiers died on the battlefield and millions of Jew gassed and burned in ovens, Switzerland profited from and financed their deaths. My family lost several members in 1945 during the D-day campaign; I can’t help but realize that they and many other would still be here had Switzerland not financed German war effort.

 

You simply don't have a clue.

 

Oh yeah, but you have, and the swiss (with the polish), not the germans are reponsible for WWII...