[Elecraft] Price increases - I feel loved....

[T. David Yarnes]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "James Duffey" <jamesduffey at comcast.net>
To: <elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
Cc: "James Duffey" <jamesduffey at comcast.net>; 
<bruce.beford at verizon.net>
Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2008 8:36 AM
Subject: [Elecraft] Price increases - I feel loved....


> We must have had different economics courses. As I 
> understand it, the  weaker dollar makes American goods 
> more attractive to overseas buyers,  not less attractive. 
> Elecraft and other companies that price their  rigs in 
> dollars receive the same income in dollars when they sell 
> a  rig overseas as when they sell it here. But as the rig 
> is effectively  cheaper overseas, they sell more and their 
> income in dollars goes up.


Hi All,

Duffey has it exactly right.  Elecraft isn't losing 
anything, and the foreign buyers are gaining!  As one recent 
post by one of our brit friends said, the K3 is a bargain at 
current conversion rates.  Elecraft could be losing a bit if 
much of their components were foreign made (meaning they 
might have to keep paying more in dollars to keep up with 
the conversion rate overseas), but I don't think that is the 
case.  Hypothetically Elecraft is losing, but only because 
they didn't set their price to foreign purchasers in foreign 
currency.  If they had done that, they would be enjoying the 
gain in conversion that has occurred.  They would be 
enjoying the fruits of "arbitrage'".  But they didn't do 
that.  So, the only thing they are really losing is buying 
power with respect to anything they might do with their 
money regarding overseas goods.  But we are all losing that 
here.  It's becoming more and more expensive for Americans 
to buy overseas products or travel overseas.  But we should 
be enjoying benefits of our products becoming more 
attractive to overseas buyers.  I'm confident that has had 
some positive effect on Elecraft's sales.

By the way, I think just about every college in the U.S. was 
using Paul Samuelson's text for economics--or at least it 
sure seemed like it.  He was a professor at Indiana 
University, I think, when I was in college.  And we used his 
text too.  I wouldn't be surprised if it is still in use in 
some form, but he's probably "SK" by now.  I just wish I'd 
had him for my professor instead of that nerd who kept 
staring at the ceiling every day for the whole hour while 
spewing out all those economic principals!

Dave W7AQK