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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by RhB_HJ Mike, As for the currency, going by your comment I would guess that you have never been in the business of exporting and importing. I guess when you talk to your friendly hobbyshop owner and he complains about those conditions he is just one more of the "whiners", eh!? [/quote] Your guess is not very good. Actually, I recently retired after 37 years with a Canadian manufacturer of mining equipment, the last 25 years as manager. ( You know, there are ALWAYS people around who know things, including some on this forum.) Anyway, our sales reached a modest USD$30 million by 1999...with, 85% of these sales to export markets, on six continents, and every nickel of our export sales was in $USD. Our labor & overhead costs were naturally in CDN$. About 50% of our material costs were offshore, mainly in Yen. The other 50% material costs were split fairly evenly between USA and Canadian. About half the major Canadian suppliers required payment in US Dollars by 1999. A trend hard to ignore. BTW, our selling prices were, and are, driven 100% by the competition, not by any other issues.How to make a buck on those sales, regardless of outside factors, was why they employed people like me. It was, and is, extremely difficult to juggle ever-changing exchange factors in any business....but to pretend the Canadian dollar is anything at all doesn't help. Perhaps it's not whining...perhaps it's just naive. The US dollar, the Euro, and the Yen are the current valuation currencies for goods & services...the Remnibi will soon be a factor. On the world stage, the Canadian dollar will never be anything but an annoyance, and an excuse for the banks to rip us off for a point or two every time we have to effect a currency change. BUT...I hope you have success in business in 2004, and beyond. I wish you were busier today, in fact.[;)] Mike[:D] Oh yes...my 'local retailers' of all products, never seem to whine about export-import or US Dollar factors, just their own occupancy costs, the fact that people aren't spending money, but most of all...their TAXES.[V]
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