Baffled by economics.

Nicad

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I bought these on a whim figuring I would prank my friend who I cycle to badminton with once a week. I figured for the price I would just put them on strangers cars in the neighbourhood too. They arrived today and they work perfectly. The package was mailed from Hong Kong. Inside it was wrapped in foam. Each LED was packaged in it's own blister pack with cardboard and plastic. The english words were spelled wrong.

$2.99 Canadian with free shipping for four units. I went back on Ebay to buy another ten or so and the price is now lower.

How can these LEDs be made, batteries inserted, put in envelopes, loaded on ships, unloaded and hand delivered by a unionized Canadian with an indexed pension plan??? with everyone getting rich along the way?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/370848518708?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT
 

jmackro

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I've bought similar electronic bits from Asia, for a similar price and wondered the same thing. What gets me is that when I try to mail something bigger than a business-sized envelope, or God-forbid, send something to another country, the postage alone is typically > 3 bucks.

A lot of these inexpensive electronic items come from Hong Kong; maybe they have some sort of a low-cost arrangement with the Canadian and US Postal services.
 

m73

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Pyramid scheme.....:D

No really... I think the $2.99 pays for some 'questionable' people to keep doing 'questionable' things hence the low price.

The actual cost is much more & incentives bring it down to such a small figure.

More than meets the eye is an understatement.

-M
 

deQuincey

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not judging your or others behaviour, Bob, Jay, please, you know i respect and appreciate you very much
but i try not to do such things
we are all responsible of the state in which our economy and our countries are in
not to speak about the things we buy and we really dont need,i.e. clothes,...
and the effects to the environment,...
respectfully
j.
 

Nicad

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I know a couple who sold their car to help the environment. They don't have a ton of stuff, the Husband is buying a titanium folding bike for a few thousand dollars. Oddly, they seem to fly to London several times a year for long weekends to see specific Music events. They LOVE to travel now. But yes, I agree our land fills are being fed stuff for no reason.
I'd imagine the raw ingredients for this techno marvel started out in a dismally polluted place.
 

jmackro

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not judging your or others behaviour, Bob, Jay, please, you know i respect and appreciate you very much but i try not to do such things we are all responsible of the state in which our economy and our countries are in not to speak about the things we buy and we really dont need,i.e. clothes,...
and the effects to the environment,... respectfully j.

DeQ: I had to read your post a couple of times to understand what you were getting at. Then I recalled that Bob had commented that his impossibly inexpensive purchase was for LED bicycle stems. And I guess you are characterizing those as something he really doesn't need, and somehow that's bad. Well OK, I'm not sure I agree, but I can understand your opinion.

If it makes you feel better, the impossibly inexpensive stuff that I purchase is typically for my automotive or computer projects. I recently bought an alternator connector for one of my Alfas and some relays for my e9 electric windows. Do you consider these purchases justified or frivolous when they are for an automotive hobby? It's OK if you reply "frivolous" - clearly I don't need faster electric windows on one of my 6 cars in order to survive. But if you say "frivolous", it starts you down the slope of characterizing everything we buy for our e9's as "frivolous".
 
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deQuincey

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DeQ: I had to read your post a couple of times to understand what you were getting at. Then I recalled that Bob had commented that his impossibly inexpensive purchase was for LED bicycle stems. And I guess you are characterizing those as something he really doesn't need, and somehow that's bad. Well OK, I'm not sure I agree, but I can understand your opinion.

If it makes you feel better, the impossibly inexpensive stuff that I purchase is typically for my automotive or computer projects. I recently bought an alternator connector for one of my Alfas and some relays for my e9 electric windows. Do you consider these purchases justified or frivolous when they are for an automotive hobby? It's OK if you reply "frivolous" - clearly I don't need faster electric windows on one of my 6 cars in order to survive. But if you say "frivolous", it starts you down the slope of characterizing everything we buy for our e9's as "frivolous".


my humble point , Jay, was about we buying things we do not really need because they are cheap
buying those things that had been produced far far away in possibly not environmentally friendly conditions harms the planet twice (production methods, and transport), or thrice (those things are so cheap that you do not reuse them or fix them, but throw them away and buy new ones), harms our local economies forcing our local industry and shops to close unable to compete with those prices

consider a hat, a switch, a knife, a pair of trousers,...
 

jmackro

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... harms our local economies forcing our local industry and shops to close unable to compete with those prices

Now that you mention it, a lot of the LED bicycle stem manufacturers that we used to have here in San Juan Capistrano have been going out of business lately.

bluecoupe30 said:
I sometimes wonder, are these irresistible "deals" from Asia just looking for names and addresses and other such information?

I've never gotten any spam or had my credit card hacked from a source that seemed associated with these impossibly cheap Asian suppliers.
 

Peter Coomaraswamy

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I'm so tired, but I have to climb up on my soapbox and present a thought; while watching the news one evening a story appeared about how we, the US, the most environmentally castrating, oops, I mean regulating country in the world was sending its worn out formerly-nuclear powered ships to India as a dumping ground where they would be dismantled by the untouchables and sold for scrap to China to be recycled into products that could be sold at WalMart. I wonder what would happen if you walked through the cookware isle with a geiger counter ??

Hard to stomach that truthfully we get what we deserve
 
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