Subject:
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Re: Some Lego buying stats
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 25 Jun 2001 00:26:35 GMT
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Viewed:
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889 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Selçuk Göre writes:
> Actually, although we (me and my wife) earn quite above the average in
> Turkish terms, (minimum legal wage is 107 million TL here, and 1
> USD=1.25 million TL), I think it does not buy us a decent life. Here is
> some numbers:
>
> House Rent : 170 million TL (140 USD) expected to be at least %70 higher
> starting from October. It is a 2 rooms + 1 living room type (~100m2)
> flat in a small apartment building, located at one of the cheaper land
> value side of Istanbul.
My sister lives in a two bedroom two bath apartment in Santa Monica, probably
considered a desirable neighborhood (whenever you see a Southern California
street lined with those tall skinny palm trees in a movie, chances are good it
is her street), but because Santa Monica has rent control, the people in her
building pay rents ranging from $175 (this is rumored among the tenants) to
$3600(?) per month. My sister's rent is somewhere in the middle, but she still
has to go down to the basement to wash her clothes in a common laundry room.
> If you want to have your own home, You must collect about 40-50 billion
> TL (35-40 000 USD) as a whole because there is no such thing that
> purchasing this big items by paying month by month.
I think that is about the size of a down payment on a home here. In our Sunday
paper today the featured home could be dropped right into Elliott's
neighborhood in E.T. and you couldn't tell the difference. It was built in
1991 and is 2140 square feet (~200m2) with four bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths on
an 8424 square foot (~780m2) lot and the asking price is $405,000. And I
live in Vacaville, California, which is aptly named (if this house were in
Silicon Valley it would probably go for double that price).
> So this means a total of ~660 USD per month of bills to pay. Considering
> that me and my wife make a total income of 1170 USD/month, this gives us
> ~500 USD extra. <...> So all the money that we can collect in our bank account
> with my 7 and my wife's 4 years of carrier is around 5000 USD, which is not
> enough for even immigrating to a decent country like Canada..:-)
Hey! :-)
> > What you tend to see in the movies is not always representative. For the
> > middle class, especially out West in newer developments, the houses do tend
> > to look like those in the movie E.T. (Only example I can think of-- my kids
> > were just watching that movie.) The kitchens on tv shows are usually much
> > better than those in real life-- most of us don't have Sub-Zero
> > refrigerators or Wolf stoves...
> Actually I'm in home appliances business for about four years
> (refrigeration, air conditioning and heating), but I don't know the
> brands you mentioned..:-). The thing that I must say, no appliances are
> included to the house inventory when you rent or buy a house, so you
> must have your own appliances. Here are the representative prices from
> our biggest local manufacturer (Turkey is becoming the second biggest
> supplier of home appliances):
>
> Refrigerator (no-frost): 739 - 2884 million. A decent mid size one is
> 1316 million (1050 USD)
> Washing Machine: 486 - 1015 million. A mid size one is 625 million (500
> USD)
> Oven: 270 - 703 million. A mid size one 378 million (300 USD)
> Combi Heating Unit: 700 - 1200 million. A mid size one is 950 million
> (760 USD)
> Dish Washer: 429 - 834 million. A mid size one is 605 million (484 USD)
I think our appliances are similarly priced, but we have a great range (no pun
intended!). For instance, with refrigerators Sears has a lower end one
advertised today for $599, but you could probably pay up to $5000 for a really
upscale built-in one. Sears advertises their brand of appliances as "America's
most popular", and I believe it. European brands such as Miele and Dacor are
popular among people with lots of money. I think our appliances tend to be
bigger and use more energy than those in use in European households.
Appliances are usually provided in apartments and sometimes come with a house
when you buy it (people don't always move them because they may not fit or
match the decor of another house).
> Having a car is the most wanted thing maybe but I consider it a luxury,
> because even I can't afford having one (1 liter of oil is 1 USD here,
> and even our very cheap and bad locally manufactured (under license)
> cars like Fiat Palio and such costs more than 10 billion TL [10000-12000
> USD]).
It is a necessity here, but what we spend on all these things-- cars,
appliances, etc., varies greatly according to our priorities. When my husband
and I built our house, I decided that the kitchen would be the one thing I
would refuse to compromise on (I'm not a gourmet cook, I just wanted a nice
kitchen). So three times that I can remember we spent the price of a new
compact car in a single expenditure-- once on the custom cabinets, then on the
appliances (KitchenAid in almond-- my cabinets were painted to match exactly),
then on Corian countertops. OTOH while I do drive a Volvo station wagon, it is
a 1985 model with 282,000 miles (~454,000km) on it. And my husband's Toyota
pickup truck is a 1983 with over 230,000 miles (~370,000km) on it and has hit
both a Honda and a cow during the time we've owned it. And we bought both our
vehicles used. Lucky for us, both Volvo's and Toyota's are very reliable!
> Our biggest problem is the very very big difference in income levels of
> the people. We have a minimum legal wage of 107 million (85 USD), and
> very big portion of working people are working for that only and trying
> to survive, Turkey also has the second big Mercedes/BMW fleet after
> Germany.
I think that is also our problem. There has always been a difference but it
has really become more of a problem as the income/stock portfolio gap has
widened. Also the media portray a relatively high standard of living in a way
(especially in advertising) that causes everyone to think that it is the norm--
if you are watching people on TV driving BMW's and wearing expensive clothes
when you can barely pay the rent after working all day at a crappy job, you
tend to grow resentful.
> The difference here maybe, although the conditions are very very bad,
> still we don't have any people died on streets from starving (not in our
> entire history) but it looks like it would be changed very soon, looking
> at the current trend.
Oh, so your country is headed toward being a kinder, gentler nation like ours?
:-/
Maggie (whose uncle Buster met his maker in a homeless encampment)
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Some Lego buying stats
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| Thank you very much for the inputs Maggie..:-) (...) Actually, although we (me and my wife) earn quite above the average in Turkish terms, (minimum legal wage is 107 million TL here, and 1 USD=1.25 million TL), I think it does not buy us a decent (...) (23 years ago, 21-Jun-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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