Quote:
Originally Posted by toyos
This applies to a much lesser extent for luxury goods where the 'prestige value' plays a more important role, not gains in performance (ep's aside since they're not luxury goods). One common example is sports cars, my late-model Porsche gave me less performance and way more problems than the Nissan that cost me significantly less. Even the build quality was questionable. That's one of the reasons why Porsche Group's net profit for 2007 was 57% of the total revenue (= overpriced products that were made at relatively low costs), some people are prepared to pay the premium for the prestige, not necessarily the performance or even quality.
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That's actually not correct and in fact you have used an extremely poor analogy. You are forgetting that over 50% of what you paid for the Porsche went to the Government in Excise and Luxury Car Tax and didn't in fact go to anyone connected with Porsche. Buy a Porsche in the USA and proportionately relative to the Nissan, it will cost a lot less than it does in Australia. In fact, Luxury cars in many "advanced" overseas countries aren't that expensive by comparison to the mass produced cars.
I have owned two BMW's, a Jaguar, a Mercedes and a Lexus. Were they worth the money? Outside of the Lexus which was an outstanding car, the answer is probably no. This is because of the inflated prices due to Government taxes in Australia. Ask the same question to a person in the USA, who pays $US 25k for the Nissan and $US 30k for the BMW, and the answer will be "yes". Are they better cars than the mass produced cars which cost a lot less money? Without question, irrespective of the cost or the country you buy them in.
Cheers,
John B