Eeyore wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Eeyore wrote
JoeSpareBedroom wrote

In 1988, personal computers used to cost almost as much as a small car.

No they didnt.

Economies of scale changed that.

There was much more involved in the price than that.

It wasn't so much economies of scale,

It wasnt economics of scale at all.

it was making the parts overseas in low-wage economies.

Nope. We saw an even more dramatic reduction in price with say
cpus and memory which have bugger all wage economics involved.

If that were so then why is chip packaging
so often done in Malaysia / Philipines etc ?

Thats a tiny part of the price. Might as well do the packaging
in a low labor cost country with something that portable.

Can you imagine how much genuine US made drives used to cost ?

I know what they used to cost, I bought plenty of them.

Or power supplies ? Or cases ? Or generic peripherals ?

All of those too.

Why did a US made Microsoft mouse cost £20 when a far eastern one cost $3 ?

The current MS mice still have that sort of margin over the cheapest
and arent made in the US anymore, and havent been for a long time now.

Maybe the same will happen with biodiesel,
if suppliers see a viable market.

The cheapest biodiesel will come from abroad.

Have fun explaining why the cheapest corn etc doesnt.

They won't use corn. More like palm oil and jatropha.

Not a chance, those dont produce anything like the volume needed.

These are far better sources of suitable vegetable oil anyway.

I wasnt talking about corn as a source of veg oil, just as an example
of a crop that is produced in the first world using industrial scale
agriculture that doesnt get used in the low labor cost countrys.

The reason it doesnt is industrial scale agriculture
that doesnt happen in low wage economys.

So why is Malaysia gearing up for palm oil production then ?

Because there is a market for that.

Separate matter entirely to whether the same dramatic reduction
in cost will be seen as was seen with ram and cpus and hard drives.

Palm oil production isnt suited to industrial scale agriculture.