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Re: purchasing power parity

Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 4:16 pm
by Kereb
hito wrote:
Kereb wrote:- a loaf of bread at a bakery
four dollars

- 1 liter of milk
three dollars
I heard the loonie hit parity with USD recently, so did it suddenly drop to CAD 4 = USD 1? Or do you have to import the wheat and cows from Kansas and pay 400% tariff?

It's USD 0.80~1.00 for both those, down here.

No, I fucked up cause I posted this fast. A correction is in order
I was thinking of one of those 2L things of milk and those are like three-something. I buy milk about once or twice a year, and generally drink almond milk instead.
Yeah a ONE liter is more like one dollar-something. It's not cheaper than that at such as Safeway though. Why, I don't know.

And yes a loaf of the kind of bread I eat does cost about four bucks. But I eat snobby bread. White bread is like two bucks. I buy the ones with seeds and sticks and logs and MADE WITHOUT FLOUR etc etc. So yeah. But I used it as the rule instead of the white bread because the Super Valu I get my bread at has like a WALL of hippie breads and they're all about four bucks or so

Re: purchasing power parity

Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 4:19 pm
by Nortaneous
Kereb wrote:White bread is like two bucks.
Wait, what? If you go to the right grocery store in Maryland, you can get a mid-range loaf of wheat bread (Stroehmann, specifically) for $2.

Re: purchasing power parity

Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 4:22 pm
by Kereb
well lucky you.

Re: purchasing power parity

Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 4:40 pm
by Bob Johnson
Nortaneous wrote:in Maryland
But Kereb's in Canada, the only things that are cheap there are trees, snow, and moose. (This concludes the daily Canada joke that is a condition of USAnian citizenship.)

Yeah, I figured it might be fancy-schmancy bread, but even if it's in bags the number for milk seemed crazy.

Re: purchasing power parity

Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 4:45 pm
by Kereb
well like I said I had to adjust for a brainfart on carton size

But yeah it's still a bit high here. I dunno maybe if I shopped at such as Costco I could get cheaper milk.

Re: purchasing power parity

Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 4:48 pm
by Jipí
At my local discouters of trust (Lidl, Aldi, or Tegut) I pay like € 0.60-0.80 for a liter of low-fat milk (full milk, at 3.5% fat, is typically a couple cents more expensive, but it's in the same price range usually). A 1 kg loaf of not too fancy grey bread should be 2.80 to 3 bucks. I usually buy 750 g loafs of multi-grain bread for 2.40 €-ish. A Big Mac should be something like €4. An iPod nano is ~100 €, dunno bout them iPhones. On average, a m² in a dwelling house should be something like € 6, however it's super cheap in the East, and ridiculously expensive in cities like Munich (far over € 10). In Braunschweig I payed something like € 8 without utilities, here in a village close to Marburg it should be ~€ 6, down in the city it's often more expensive, like € 7-8. Personally, I pay € 220 for a 16 m² room in a shared flat including utilities, and joint use of bathroom, kitchen, garage, and a huge back garden, which is considered very OK. Gas is considered ridiculously expensive at ~€ 1.48/L.

Re: purchasing power parity

Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 5:02 pm
by Torco
The whole point is that you can compare things that are similar across boundaries and between themselves: a toyota corolla is a toyota corolla anywhere, and so is a ballpen. other than the kiloes of food you posit, which have another flaw [they depend heavily on a small sector of the economy, and are thus too noise-sensitive to be good indicators], vehicle upkeep, a "long distance" train ride and rent are *very* broad categories.

There's a few great indicators there, though... the beer, the trash disposal, the mobile subscription and the health and education prices. I'll answer the entire list later.

Re: purchasing power parity

Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 5:12 pm
by Jipí
What litter service costs I don't know, it's included in my rent, however a sixpack of pilsner beer (0.33 L) should be something like € 4 including deposit (I only buy single bottles or cans of beer every now and then as I generally don't drink much), public health care is 15.5% of your pre-tax income this year (a tooth filling is ~€ 60), and university may cost you € 500 to several thousand € per year. Most public universities have fees of € 500 per semester, so € 1000/yr. As I don't have a mobile plan I don't know what a subscription costs per month. For a combined DSL (mostly 6 MBit) and phone flatrate you typically pay ~€ 30-50/mo., however. A new Toyota Auris (there's no Corolla anymore here) seems to cost about € 20,000 (the cheapest model the website I looked at listed was 18k, the most expensive one 26k, most were 20-21k). I'd be surprised if a simple ball pen were more than € 0.50/pc., and 100-sheet A4 writing pads are ~€ 1.50, though stationery is generally much cheaper at the beginnings of school years. A pair of good shoes may cost € 40 easily if you buy in a proper shoe shop.

As for hookers, weed, or dildos, I really don't know.

Re: purchasing power parity

Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 6:09 pm
by Salmoneus
Torco wrote:The whole point is that you can compare things that are similar across boundaries and between themselves: a toyota corolla is a toyota corolla anywhere, and so is a ballpen.
Hardly. There are massive differences in the function, and therefore the price, of things, depending on context. Bottled water, for instance, means something different here (where we can drink the tapwater, and bottled water means you're an idiot, or are out one day and get desparate) to places without drinkable tapwater. A ball point pen? Well, I've never even bought one, because a) I would never willingly use one when I could use a fountain pen, b) I virtually never write anything anyway, because everything is typed, and c) from one place and another, we all have so many thousands of free ball point pens that there's no need to buy them. The chief function of the ball point pen, so far as I can see, is to be branded with a corporate logo and given away as part of a marketing initiative.
All of those factors will vary considerable with local and social position.

Insecticide is another good example. Here, where it's a product aimed at middle-class school students about to go backpacking around the world, the price is likely different than it would be in a country where there were, you know, actually insects to kill.

BTW, if you actually wanted to know about PPP, rather than starting a "Torco is obsessed with sex" thread, you could just look it up. The figures aren't hard to find.

Re: purchasing power parity

Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 7:01 pm
by Yiuel Raumbesrairc
Kereb wrote:well like I said I had to adjust for a brainfart on carton size

But yeah it's still a bit high here. I dunno maybe if I shopped at such as Costco I could get cheaper milk.
Nope. As I said, fixed price.

Re: purchasing power parity

Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 7:34 pm
by Nortaneous
More things:

I don't think they sell ballpoint pens by themselves here. You can get a pack of around 4 for $5 to $7 depending on the brand, or you can get a pack of 12 cheap pieces of garbage for maybe $3.

They don't sell water in bottles that big, as far as I know. But you can get a 20oz(?) thing of water for probably $1.30 and a bottle of iced tea (water with high fructose corn syrup and some disgusting coloring) for 99 cents.

No clue on the Big Mac, but a double cheeseburger is $1.19.

Not sure on weed either; the only purchase of just enough for one joint that I've ever heard of was $10, but that guy was a cunt who was known for ripping everyone off and who got forced out of the weed market within a semester of entering the college. Also, that was rural Massachusetts.
hito wrote:But Kereb's in Canada
Right, forgot about that.

Re: purchasing power parity

Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 7:48 pm
by Shm Jay
hito wrote:It's USD 0.80~1.00 for both those, down here.
For the very cheap kind. My milk costs about US$2.75 or so a gallon, but it tastes good. I don't buy bread a lot, but when I do I tend to buy loaves that cost US$2 or so because they are either high fiber or multi-grain or Russian rye or something like that which is not plain white bread.

Re: purchasing power parity

Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 7:50 pm
by Shm Jay
Kereb wrote: a dildo

low end to high end
So is the business end of the dildo the low end or the high end :mrgreen:

Re: purchasing power parity

Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 7:52 pm
by Shm Jay
Cathbad wrote:Embarrassingly enough, I have no idea what the actual prices for these items are here in Slovenia. :? I could tell you the price for a large, hearty loaf of bread (
What, and not the price of a large, hearty dildo? :wink:

Re: purchasing power parity

Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 9:59 pm
by jlyne
a big mac - I think about $3
a liter and a half of mineral water - is mineral water the fizzy kind that no one drinks here? If yes, then the same as pop - about $2 for 2L. If it's normal bottle water then about $1/L.
a simple ballpen - you can get like 3 for $1 at the dollarama
two liter cocacola bottle - $1.79 at Walmart I think
a can of insecticide - mosquito spray is about $4 for can
a dildo - depends on what it's made of, the size, etc. Starts at around $20 I think. I prefer vibrators though, so I'm not sure.
a plain notebook - about $1 for something with 80 pages
a brand new toyota corolla -$15,000 to $23,000 depending on a bunch of shit I don't know the meaning of because I don't care about cars
a monthly gym subscription - mine is $26 every two weeks, so ~$60 per month, and that's pretty standard here
the services of a cheap hooker - I hear from a guy at work that if you go up north in Manitoba you can get a blow job for $5
a kilo of beef - costs about $3.50 per pound here, so about $8 I guess
gasoline/petrol/whatever - it was 98 cents/L a couple days ago
a pack of your favourite cigarrettes - don't smoke, but I know my brother pays about $12 for a pack of 24
a joint [of marihuana] - never bought any here, always got it for free
running shoes - good ones can be $180, but a shitty every day pair that might need replacing on a yearly basis you can get at Walmart for $20
a hot dog - the summer hot dog stand outside my bus stop sells a hot dog with all the fixin's and a can of pop or a bottle of water for $4

Re: purchasing power parity

Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 11:37 pm
by Torco
Salmoneus wrote:
Torco wrote:The whole point is that you can compare things that are similar across boundaries and between themselves: a toyota corolla is a toyota corolla anywhere, and so is a ballpen.
Hardly. There are massive differences in the function, and therefore the price, of things, depending on context. Bottled water, for instance, means something different here (where we can drink the tapwater, and bottled water means you're an idiot, or are out one day and get desparate) to places without drinkable tapwater. A ball point pen? Well, I've never even bought one, because a) I would never willingly use one when I could use a fountain pen, b) I virtually never write anything anyway, because everything is typed, and c) from one place and another, we all have so many thousands of free ball point pens that there's no need to buy them. The chief function of the ball point pen, so far as I can see, is to be branded with a corporate logo and given away as part of a marketing initiative.
All of those factors will vary considerable with local and social position.

Insecticide is another good example. Here, where it's a product aimed at middle-class school students about to go backpacking around the world, the price is likely different than it would be in a country where there were, you know, actually insects to kill.

BTW, if you actually wanted to know about PPP, rather than starting a "Torco is obsessed with sex" thread, you could just look it up. The figures aren't hard to find.
Abrassive and gratuitous as often. I could tell you that the OP references a post in which, in turn, I reference the ppp figures given by the unstat. Or make explicit the not-that-hard-to-infer purpose of my question; to maybe share some of the differences between the various situations a bunch of people live in and maybe talk about that stuff in a spirit of levity and fun [as someone could conclude by the inclusion of hookers and dildos and weed]... common thing in, you know, social instances like, yeah, a party in someone's back yard- and comment on them, much like other threads on that note. Or point out that sex does exist and that mentioning it's existence and referencing the fact that there is such a thing as a market for sex-related things doesn't make someone obsessed with sex, or just ask you to lighten up, but instead I'm going to give you a funny picture.
yuso.png
yuso.png (15.62 KiB) Viewed 8371 times
Oh, and really, do people not write on paper anymore?

________________

I'm absolutely in awe of cigarette prices... the most expensive 20-box of cigs you'll find here is around 3 euro. Smoking really sounds like an incredibly expensive habit in the first world

Re: purchasing power parity

Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 11:55 pm
by faiuwle
I write on paper a lot, and seeing as there aren't that many students where I go to school that bring computers to class (and some professors actually ban them) I'd wager there are probably a lot of college students that take notes with pen and paper. (Some of my older relatives don't believe this either, though - they imagine that kids these days live in some kind of Jetson-world where everything is computers.) He is right about the ball-point pens, though - they are cheap, and shitty, and no one buys them because companies give them away as cheap shitty advertising. Roller-ball pens (or pencils) are what you want.

Also, is this thing where mineral water = carbonated water (rather than just fancy water with extra minerals) standard outside the US? I've never heard it used to mean that before.

Re: purchasing power parity

Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 12:04 am
by Nortaneous
I once heard that doctors tend to have shit handwriting because of the massive amounts of writing they're supposed to do in medical school and the high speed that is expected of a lot of that writing. I don't know if that's true or not, but I'm only in my second year of college and not even my doctor can read my handwriting.

Re: purchasing power parity

Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 12:11 am
by faiuwle
Well, no one but me can read my handwriting either, but I think that mostly has to do with how I broke my dominant wrist in middle school and my muscles forgot everything I ever learned about writing legibly.

Re: purchasing power parity

Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 5:27 am
by Jipí
It's Mineralwasser here, which is carbonated water, regionally also called Sprudel (essentially, fizz). It comes in bottles of glass at 0.75 L (0.33 L in restaurants for ~€ 1.20), or in plastic bottles of 0.5, 1 or 1.5 L commonly. You get it either medium (not too bubbly) or normal (too bubbly for my taste), and it's uncarbonated bottled water that's somewhat special. If you like uncarbonated water you can just drink tap water in most places, really.

Re: purchasing power parity

Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 8:12 am
by finlay
Torco wrote: I'm absolutely in awe of cigarette prices... the most expensive 20-box of cigs you'll find here is around 3 euro. Smoking really sounds like an incredibly expensive habit in the first world
It's deliberately a stupid amount of tax to try and make people stop smoking. Or to bring in revenue for the government. Of course they don't seem to realise that the two goals are diametrically opposed. *facepalm*

But now you know... Everyone here knows a packet of cigs costs about 20p to manufacture and that most of the cost is tax and duty, and it's only the hardcore smokers that decide not to care.

Re: purchasing power parity

Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 8:32 am
by Torco
finlay wrote:
Torco wrote: I'm absolutely in awe of cigarette prices... the most expensive 20-box of cigs you'll find here is around 3 euro. Smoking really sounds like an incredibly expensive habit in the first world
It's deliberately a stupid amount of tax to try and make people stop smoking. Or to bring in revenue for the government. Of course they don't seem to realise that the two goals are diametrically opposed. *facepalm*

But now you know... Everyone here knows a packet of cigs costs about 20p to manufacture and that most of the cost is tax and duty, and it's only the hardcore smokers that decide not to care.
Yeah, cigarrettes are pretty cheap and their cost is often 90% tax... but four times more expensive? I'm gonna have to pre-buy them

Re: purchasing power parity

Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 3:10 pm
by faiuwle
On the plus side, if you're trying to quit then apparently keeping track of exactly how much money you've saved by not smoking becomes a major motivator.

Re: purchasing power parity

Posted: Sun Jan 09, 2011 5:09 pm
by Nortaneous
Torco wrote:I'm absolutely in awe of cigarette prices... the most expensive 20-box of cigs you'll find here is around 3 euro. Smoking really sounds like an incredibly expensive habit in the first world
I think that only applies to cigarettes; a pouch of tobacco is about $12, at least in Massachusetts, and that's enough for at least 50 cigarettes. (More like 60, but they only pack 50 papers in there, and I roll big enough cigarettes that it probably wouldn't be hard for someone else to get at least ten more out of a pouch.)

Re: purchasing power parity

Posted: Sun Jan 09, 2011 9:38 pm
by vampireshark
Torco wrote:
finlay wrote:
Torco wrote: I'm absolutely in awe of cigarette prices... the most expensive 20-box of cigs you'll find here is around 3 euro. Smoking really sounds like an incredibly expensive habit in the first world
It's deliberately a stupid amount of tax to try and make people stop smoking. Or to bring in revenue for the government. Of course they don't seem to realise that the two goals are diametrically opposed. *facepalm*

But now you know... Everyone here knows a packet of cigs costs about 20p to manufacture and that most of the cost is tax and duty, and it's only the hardcore smokers that decide not to care.
Yeah, cigarrettes are pretty cheap and their cost is often 90% tax... but four times more expensive? I'm gonna have to pre-buy them
Not a bad idea. You're allowed to import 200 cigarettes through the green channel at customs (I think...) into the EU, so that should last you for a bit.

However, smokes here in North Carolina cost you only $3.50-$4.00 a pack of 20 compared to $6.50 or so up in Wisconsin. (The difference, of course, being that tobacco tax in NC is 45¢ per pack as opposed to $2.52 a pop in Wisconsin.)


By comparison, I wouldn't really be able to tell you what rent is here in this region... with military families abound, that really skews the figures due to the military BAH (Basic Allowance for Housing); I receive BAH from some of my military education benefits, and that's not a small number. Also, the rent I've paid has been for student housing, and that's a different beast in and of itself. In Leipzig, Germany, I think I paid €412 or so for two months, utilities included.