> The strangest one I heard was when my brother wanted to buy some
> carbon fibre to lay up some laminate sheets. The CF he found was made
> in Cambridge but it was loads cheaper (50%) to buy it via Hawaii than
> direct from the manafacturers! Cambridge=>London
> Cambridge=>Hawaii=>London
>
> I know which one should be cheaper......

Not at all. The manufacturer has set themselves up to manufacture
in volume. Small volume sales are something they don't really want
so having high prices is a way of discouraging that. Most would
just say "[censored]-off !". Try going to a Microchip production
facility and asking for a tube of 16F84's.

Even if you ask for half a million masked PICs, the price/delivery
isn't that great for similar reasons. Microchips core business is
OTP/flash parts and that is what their system is optimised for.

I don't think you can conclude that the whole country is rip-off.

Steve.

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