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From: philip@pescadero.Stanford.EDU (Philip Machanick)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: Expensive International Macs
Message-ID: <1990Dec5.004655.20387@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 5 Dec 90 00:46:55 GMT
References: <1990Dec5.094856.3679@csc.anu.oz.au>
Sender: news@Neon.Stanford.EDU (USENET News System)
Reply-To: philip@pescadero.stanford.edu
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Lines: 22

In article <1990Dec5.094856.3679@csc.anu.oz.au>, pfr654@csc.anu.oz.au writes:
|> I would like to hear someone admit that the price has little to do with the 
|> cost of production and shipping, and much more to do with the market - the 
|> US market is much more competitive, so to sell ANYTHING, they have to 
|> charge less.
How about starting a political campaign against international price fixing?
The following changes might help:
1. remove import duties - or at least red tape so private individuals can
   import as easily as big companies
2. make it illegal to refuse service / support to anyone who imports
   through "unofficial" channels (preferably, make the concept of
   sole distributor/sole importer illegal as a monopolistic practice)
I would also consider a campaign against software manufacturers who attempt
to enforce international marketing restrictions by tricks like checking the
nationality of the keyboard / system software before launching.

Maybe a bit of activism is called for. After all, think how much fun it will
be to watch your local distributor frantically drop prices to compete with
US-based mail order / grey market distributors.
-- 
Philip Machanick
philip@pescadero.stanford.edu