DIYbanter - View Single Post - What size nut goes onto a typical US passenger tire Schrader valve?

Leon Schneider

wrote on Thu, 08 Dec 2016 00:27:15 -0500:

"you only get what you pay for - and then only if you are lucky"
pretty well defines today's market place.

Actually, I disagree completely that "you get what you pay for", since
again, that's saying that quality and price are locked in step, and they're
just not.

Here, in California, it's a million bucks for a 2000 sq foot POS house.
In Texas, that house would be 50K or less.

The quality is the same.
The price is very different.

You really get what OTHER PEOPLE PAY FOR, in that the way economics 101
works is that the price of something is based on what other (idiots mostly)
are willing to pay for.

So, for example, at Safeway, the lettuce is 2 dollars a head consistently
whereas at Trader Joes, it's 1 dollar a head for the same quality lettuce.

How the hell can Safeway charge double?
The answer is that OTHER PEOPLE are buying that lettuce.

If Trader Joe was out of lettuce, I'd be stuck paying what OTHER PEOPLE pay
for if I wanted or needed a head of lettuce.

The quality would be the same in both cases.

Generally speeking we overpay for junk - because it costs the same to
warehouse and inventory junk as it does quality goods. The price we
pay for goods includes the cost of the goods (which varies with
quality, to some extent) plus the cost of warehousing, inventory, and
handling - which is the same for junk as for jewels.

I agree with you that manufacturing is only part of the total cost of an
object. In some cases, manufacturing is almost nothing, and where storage
is the biggest expense.

Take o-rings for example. How much do they really cost? How much do they
sell for in the auto-parts store? The expense is not in manufacturing since
they make tens of thousands at a time. The expense is in everything else,
as you noted.

Even in the case of tires, look at the expense in California:
Tire itself = about 100 bucks
Sales tax = about ten percent of that
Eco fees = about five or six bucks
Shipping from Tire Rack = about 16 bucks each (UPS ground)
Installation & balancing = about 20 bucks each
Disposal fee = about 3 bucks each
California tax on the disposal fee = about a quarter but do they have to
tax everything?
etc.