Okay, I don't usually go here, but I can't resist.
I was on last Friday sniping about cross-border shopping. I am not a fan.
Commenters tonight made two points I won't let slide:
Basics are cheaper, they proclaimed. They should be. Compare incomes in the States with ours. Ask an American teacher how much they earn. Check out the real estate market in every state. They think we were discussing boarder crossers buying toys and gadgets to spoil their kids. It's Christmas shopping, folks. Every single person interviewed on every TV station and in every newspaper article is buying toys, designer jeans and electronics. Those aren't the basics in my house.
Point Two: "Get some real people on your panel who don't make 6-figure incomes". Oh, how I wish I had a 6-figure income. I'm a freelancer, people. And the further point that the panel should include a guy from Dofasco? That's where my father slaved for 40 years before the crap he inhaled from supporting us killed him. I'm daughter of a blue collar guy, living with a blue collar guy.
You want to wait in hours of lineups to support another economy? Go ahead. But don't complain when your own neighbours are losing their jobs because you wanted to shop for some 'stuff'.
Usually I agree with you, not this time.
ReplyDeleteWhy should the identical products be less in the States than they are here?
Because we have a higher standard of living?
BullPucky!
For years we were fed the line of the difference in the dollar, now that argument is gone. Now its import duties. What about the stuff that is produced here and sent there?
A 2008 Toyota Camry LE built in Cambridge, Ont lists at $29,500 in Ont (Toyota Canada Website), and $21,934 in Buffalo (Basil Toyota Website)
On CHCH Niagara Express this weekend, a Lexus dealer tried to tell us that the $9,000 difference in price for an ES was because they are not identical cars!
I am not jumping on the cross border bandwagon, I just want fairness.
Have I crossed to shop? Yes.
Am I going to this season?
Not likely.
Not all Government Employees are as overpaid as the public thinks.
DJW
Hey DJ, I hear (and agree) with some of your points. My biggest stink is stuff made here that costs less over there.
ReplyDeleteBut too much of it is apples and oranges. We have a different tax structure, and we get different things for it. I'll take our health care, warts and all, over my friends to the south. I'll take our 1 year mat leaves, versus their 6 week ones.
I'm livid at the difference in book prices, and have been for years. That is total crap. But because our markets are only geographically an hour away, doesn't mean they're the same markets. I also think prices will even out now that the 'dollar difference' you mention has flattened. Empty car showrooms will bring down the price of cars.
Of course I've bought stuff in the States. I just don't get lining up for hours at the border this time of year to buy junk. (I tried to put that line in italics, and couldn't. Sorry) And commenters noting they're buying cribs and other 'non-fun' things? Good luck returning faulty merchandise.
I think we should shop wherever we like - but you will never convince me my time is worth a mad rush to get to the border at 7am to spend the day trolling around a packed parking lot to go into an elbow-to-elbow jammed mall to pick through the picked over, sit in a line in my cold, or worse idling, car for 3 or more hours, to sweat it out as a customs officer tries to decide if I drove down naked in order to drive home newly clothed, pay duties and taxes anyway, and then get home again.
The show was mainly about Christmas shopping, which I addressed with a giant 'ferchristsakes', and I still feel the same way.
Sorry DJW, I'm with Lorraine on this one. We live in a less populated country with better infrastructure (for the most part, excluding bridges) and that should cost something. As of a month ago, Canadian retailers had no intention of revising their pricing in light of the increased Cdn. $. Guess they got the message loud and clear from us consumers eh! Now, magically the prices appear to be tumbling on stuff (including vehicles). If the price between the U.S. and Canadian counterpart are so disparate, walk out of the store and tell them why you are not buying the product. We Canadians are much too polite and need to speak up.
ReplyDeleteI, too, agree with Lorraine. We love our clean, safe cities, our free health care, our social services, our excellent schools. We Canadians have always felt better educated, healthier and more sophisticated than our American neighbours. Don't deny it. All this comes at a cost--a cost reflected in higher taxes and, yes, higher prices for goods. A cost that I am content to pay.
ReplyDeleteparty killer.
ReplyDelete