Technology is Cheap, or is it talk?

The Sunday Times, today, is reporting that South Africa is one of the cheapest places in the world, if you want to buy new technology like a Motorola Razor. On the other hand, should you want to go and show off your new toy to the paparazi, you are going to spend a small fortune to enjoy your chanpagne. Moet is the most expensive here.

There are a number of reasons, me thinks. The biggest one is that the Razor continues to make money once you have bought it while Moet doesn't, unless you are stupid enough to buy a second bottle. Also, it brings to life the fact that we are radically overcharged for anything that comes in a bottle at restaurants and nightclubs!

More from the article in the Times...

In tobacco, the level of excise duty has a major effect on price. A box of Marlboro Reds cigarettes costs just over $1 in Moscow but a massive $9.74 in London.
Currency valuation and corporate pricing strategy also influence price, and retailers often set prices at completely different levels to the manufacturer’s suggested retail price.
Moscow is the cheapest place to buy a pack of Marlboros, but the most expensive to buy
a Coke. Residents of Buenos Aires can pop open a bottle of Moët at only $32, the cheapest of the cities surveyed. But they will pay about $320 more for the Motorola cellphone than we
do in SA. The price of a McDonald’s Big Mac burger, which is used as a measure of currency valuation by The Economist magazine, costs more than $4 in Paris and only $1.31 in
Shanghai.BusinessWeek said Nike Air Structure Triax sneakers were most expensive in SA, at R1099, or $181. But a Nike spokesman said they actually cost R899.

So that is the answer? Stop buying.....