That’s idiotic.

For anyone. Finland’s economic system with its inherent overpricing benefits no one. Not the worker, not the student, not the poor immigrant, not the bum on the park bench.

“The S-group’s restaurant monopoly in many smaller towns should be driven down tough.”

So you want to combat a monopoly created by the government- and a centralized economic system- with even more government and more of the same economic system?

If so, then good luck! Can’t wait to see those results

Hohhoijaa, siis for whom? An average Helsinkian? A MacDonald’s employee? A Finnish engineer? An average Russian? An illegal Turk?

Go to Norway if you want to see some really high prices.

The S-group’s restaurant monopoly in many smaller towns should be driven down tough.

Fair enough. Maybe I didn’t give you a good link. I apologize. So try the one below. It’s about the same price for this particular product (8800 series is relatively new and easy sell for retailers), but try a wider range of products and see the difference.

Generally, I think Finnish retailers are willing to eat the loss on popular, high-volume, big ticket items. But they rape you on all the less significant stuff. I guess they have to.

221,13€ and upward:
http://www.ciao.de/Club_3D_8800GT__7737141

“Acer TravelMate 5520G seems to be €650 in Finland and €779 in Deutschland.”

597€ and upward:
http://www.ciao.de/Acer_TravelMate_5520_401G16_Turion_64_X2_TL_58_1_9_GHz_15_4_TFT__2688395

“Those MacDonald’s and Walmart’s jobs… ”

Ok, forget about the US. So you think it’s justifiable that Finland’s prices for take-out food are by far the highest in Europe? —not US, I mean Europe. And yes, McD’s does take a loss in Finland, despite being more expensive than elsewhere.

The renter has the right to file for “their” part of the property tax paid in the unit they live in, however, most people are unaware of this.

Acer TravelMate 5520G seems to be €650 in Finland and
€779 in Deutschland.

Let’s take the printer I bought a while back, Canon Pixma MP610 is €169 here (€30 down from what I paid, sigh). From Germany I could get it–hey it’s cheaper–for €155. But that’s without delivery.

Anyway, I’ve done some shopping both online and offline and it’s possible to get some digital stuff cheaper outside Finland, for example the low-end MP3 players were very expensive till lately. Most of the time, though, it’s not worth the effort. Particularly when the prices happen to be lower here which they quite often are.

Those MacDonald’s and Walmart’s jobs are very real for many people in the USA, certainly more so than in Finland where more youngsters educate themselves further. Or in most other countries, for that matter. Stop kidding yourself and you’ll start making more sense.

And interestingly enough, you’ll get often the same Mäkkäri deals here as in other parts of Europe. I don’t know how they make it … perhaps they don’t, MacDonald’s isn’t doing great here in Finland.

Huh??????? I’d say the Finnish price is about 10%- to 15%- higher than the EU price. But that’s only because Finnish retailers are forced to compete against online distributors from abroad—they simply match the price, and then add what it would cost to ship one unit….maybe drop the price by 2% so it looks plausible to the Finnish customer. That system is made possible thanks to a, hight-tax, non-dynamic Finnish-style local economy. No competition.

BTW, the 50%, that I mentioned above, is in reference to the US price.

http://www.verkkokauppa.com/
http://www.preisvergleich.de/
http://www.nextag.com/

“only in Finland and Sweden the workers of McDonlad’s are unionized”

Yes, and each purchase costs about 1- to 2-euros more in Finland. Despite the ripoff, it’s still the best food deal in that price category.

Consider that Subway costs nearly double the German price. I mean, 4.50e for a tiny 15cm sandwich with 3-meatballs?! Same thing for 2.50e in Germany.

I guess part of the difference is that Finland still pretends those are real jobs. In other countries, those are considered ’student jobs.’ And rightly so.

Computer equipment is not 50% more expensive here but rather somewhat cheaper than in rest of Euorope or at least used to be a few years back when I was into building them things.

My father bought a Chinese chainsaw from Honk Kong for less than 100 and says it’s good value for money for a non-serious user.

In general the Walmart prices won’t happen in Finland ever. Well, not until we get those workers treated the same way as in the USA. Did you know that only in Finland and Sweden the workers of McDonlad’s are unionized, no wonder their salaries and other benefits are ridiculously good.

I dunno, I’m using SuSE Linux

Actually, whereas I initially cheered both, the US court’s and EU court’s decisions, respectively, now I’m not so sure they were right.

At those points in time, the industry was ripe for a major paradigm shift. People were tired of Micro$oft’s restrictive licensing, not to mention all the viruses that attacked Windows systems regularly.

But by temporarily pacifying consumers and competitors, those judgments might have prevented a clear shift from occurring. It’s too bad, because demand existed; even developing countries’ governments were rejecting M$ in favor of Linux.

Regulation doesn’t always produce its intended effect…then again, maybe this time it did from the government’s pov; just consider how tightly M$ and the US government are ‘bundled.’

The ‘feds’ wouldn’t want to let that industry become *too* decentralized, would they?