Skyrocketing price of mechanical hard drives

[lehnerus2000]

Wow you figured this out easily yet top CEOs and related execs paid a king's ransom many times over couldn't..WHAT in the HECK are they paying these people running the companies for?

Back when I was a "suit" we made five-year plans in business. Today, the plan is annual but split into quarters. The prime objective is to make money. That's what businesses do. It's the CEO's job to make money for the investors. If you can pay someone else to make parts cheaper than you can make them, it adds black to the bottom line. If you're the maker of the parts and can do it in high volume, the parts are cheaper to make. It's called economies of scale. The more you make, the less it costs for each part. If the parts are made by 100 factories scattered all over, you loose the benefit of economies of scale and the price goes up and profit goes down.

That's the problem.
There is no hint of national loyalty (politicians are just as bad).
We have the same problem here.

Of course it's cheaper to buy goods from countries that pay their workers $0.50 per day.
What happens, when all of the equipment that a country needs to operate its economy, is imported (all local production having long since ceased)?
Economists and politicians never bother to ask/answer that question.

Free trade can only work properly, when the playing field is basically level.
If that is true, then efficiencies/improvements come from innovation.

Those giant CEO bonuses come out of the pockets of the investors.

 

[rubyrubyroo]

Funny, I've been keeping up with this situation over the past year or so, and China has "banned" nearly all rare earth elements, with the exception of two, one of which is neodymium, which makes up the bulk of the nickle plated magnets in a HDD's . Older drives used some other rare earth's but not any that I know of anymore.

 

[FranzB]

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Having all of one kind of manufacturing in one place makes about as much sense as stacking a bunch of nuclear reactors on top of each other in a zone prone to earthquakes and tsunamis.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Exactly !!!!!!!!!!!!

And that about 2 meters from shore

and that was done for economic reasons: easy access to cooling water. I only wonder how they were able to pull that one off and that no one said anything (e.g., the IAEC).
A bunch of hoodlums who then (maybe) resign and get an isotopic golden handshake.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi all
My last word on this -- as this thread probably has run its course -- some of this stuff IS political -- for example I suppose most people want Pensions when they retire --and with most people living longer people could expect to get almost as long on a PENSION as in their WORKING period -- many youngsters today will easily live into their 90's and maybe even 100's.

This has to be paid for -- so pension funds need to invest in companies making money (putting cash in the Bank at a miserly 0.5% a year won't help them at all). Companies are encouraged to make as much money as possible and therefore DO move production to India, China, Malaysia etc.

The State can only provide so much wealth to distribute -- and if a country (and most are definitely not self sufficient) isn't self sufficient in what it wants then we have international commerce.

If you want to go ahead and allow the State to be the sole provider of income, goods and services it's your choice -- that's what Elections are for -- but the only major state that tried this approach failed dismally.

With all it's imperfections the capitalistic methods of the West have worked better than any other system in bringing decent living standards to people all over the globe.

As living standards rise in places like India etc --off shoring this sort of stuff won't make a lot of sense especially as transport costs rise horriffically and you'll see production and services being re-patriated --it's already happening in some areas like Call centers.

So "You pays your money and takes your choice".

(Incidentally --technology will usually always found a way round a problem --if rare Earths are banned then someone will design a system that can get round this process -- might temporarily be more expensive but will work in the end. The more you try and prevent something from happening by manipulating a market the more you'll end up not only by exacerbating the problem you tried to solve in the first place but will also cause some major unpredictable consequences too like China having now to import HDD's for it's own use !!!).

Cheers
jimbo

 

[lehnerus2000]

Strange

I find it strange that corporate profits and CEO salaries continue to rise and yet returns to shareholders seem to be static and western governments are all running massive deficits.

Despite these massive deficits (and no money for pensions) there is always money available for corporate tax cuts (and politician pay rises).

If I didn't know better, I'd swear that someone was lying to us.

 

[jimbo45]

I find it strange that corporate profits and CEO salaries continue to rise and yet returns to shareholders seem to be static and western governments are all running massive deficits.

Despite these massive deficits (and no money for pensions) there is always money available for corporate tax cuts (and politician pay rises).

If I didn't know better, I'd swear that someone was lying to us.

Returns to shareholder static !!!!!! Not sure what planet you've been living on lately but actually a lot of companies are AWASH with cash (or flushed with money).

The reason they aren't spending / investing is that with consumers paying off credit cards and other debts like mad these companies don't at the current time think it worthwhile to expand until the consumers start going out spending again.

If you have a decent job at the moment it's probably a good one --however for a lot of under 25's, some pensioners, people on Social Security and people who work for the State (or used to since the State sector in a lot of countries is being cut back a lot) things aren't so hot - However this group aren't investors anyway as a whole.

If you follow markets like I do you can do reasonably well on the stock market even in these times -- for example the S&P 500 (a better indication rather than just the 30 companies in the Dow Jones Index --since a large movement on just one company gyrates the index rapidly) is currently just under 1300 with a year low of around 1000 -- a win of around 34% ---


If you'd just left you money in a Bank --- 0.5% If you are lucky -- lots of current accounts even pay ZILCH and charge you per transaction too.

People who say Shareholder don't get any money usually don't understand how the Stock Market works --- very very few investors buy stocks just because they might (or might not) pay a dividend.

People trade in the actual Stocks or even better but far far beyond the scope of this topic --and this is a W7 Forum not an investment one -- trading calls and puts in the options markets.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[lehnerus2000]

I meant $ dividend per share (return to investors), not share price.
So companies are hoarding cash, instead of paying dividends to the investors (that really helps the investor).
All that does is help speculators drive up the share price (i.e. create "bubbles").

You can get a higher return speculating (if you are lucky) on the share price.
The trouble is a lot of this speculation is done with other people's money.

If some joker wants to blow his money gambling that's his problem.
If he blows my money, I'm not going to be happy.

If you'd just left you money in a Bank --- 0.5% If you are lucky -- lots of current accounts even pay ZILCH and charge you per transaction too.

Agreed.
Banks are scum anyway (their "uncontrolled" gambling, triggered the current mess, or at least it was one of the main factors).

My point is that National Security is more than just how many troops and planes you have (or at least it should be, IMO).
You never hear "Economic Rationalists" demanding that the MIC be outsourced to China.
They could supply troops and equipment at a fraction of the cost that the US can do it for.

Communications, computers, power and weapons should all be considered to be National Security items.
If you don't control those items, you are at the mercy of your suppliers.

No local production means you are at the mercy of outside factors (like flooding in Thailand).
I guess we'll just have to wait for Thailand to dry out.

 

[seekermeister]

For someone in dire need of a medium sized internal drive, this might help, until the prices go back down:

Seagate ST31500541AS 1.5TB Hard Drive - 5900RPM, 32MB Cache, SATA-3G at TigerDirect.com

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Well shareholders profits in my view are made on the backs of individuals who earn for the most part just enough to eek out an existence,. I doubt VERY much that those greedy shareholders would want to live in the conditions or work the hours put in that those offshore workers have to put up or shut up about.

We sit here in front of our nice new machines and talk about the price of eggs and while I agree with what someone said that it was a good idea to manufacture goods in different locales to avoids the whole manufacturing process being ground completely to a halt, then in my mind those plants should be situated in sites that are not prone to natural disaster. Now I know that nowhere is safe but for example Fukishima is to me a prime example of the lack of forward planning and was built on the back of greed, as was Bhopal in India to name but a couple.

Take a walk down any large town street and look inside those dollar shops and I often think to myself how do they get the raw materials, manufacture the parts, assemble them, pack them, ship them , wholesale, and then transport and retail them for the say a screwdriver set for $4 ?

For my personal view such items as hard drives should be sold on until the supply runs out - hiking the price is not the answer - has it made them anymore available - no! Has it made most of us upset - yes! But I for one would rather wait until they come on stream again and pay a decent and fair price, and also anyone who does a bit of build or repair work and doesn't keep a spare for such occasions is well nearsighted or blinkered for want of a better term.

My gripe is that we sit and complain about off shore manufacture but do nothing to ensure that jobs stay on our own shores simply because we expect far too much in the way of recompense for what we do. Our telephone call centre for a national carrier a prime example - most of the time I can't understand what the operator is saying to me because of the lack or grasp of the English language.

 

[lehnerus2000]

My gripe is that we sit and complain about off shore manufacture but do nothing to ensure that jobs stay on our own shores simply because we expect far too much in the way of recompense for what we do. Our telephone call centre for a national carrier a prime example - most of the time I can't understand what the operator is saying to me because of the lack or grasp of the English language.

I couldn't survive on $0.50 per day (they probably can't survive on that in Chinese cities either).

Nobody asked me if I wanted the telephone call centres shifted to a foreign country.
Some executives decided that it would be a great way to boost their bonuses.

IMO the problem was caused by the original import tariffs being an arbitrary value, instead of a calculated one.
They should have been replaced by some sort of formula based import tariff (e.g. comparative wage levels and regulatory overheads) not just eliminated outright.
Of course it would've required a lot of bureaucracy, as it would've had to have been calculated for each product and each country.
Poor countries would've complained that it discriminated against them ("Why should we pay our useless peasants $15 per hour?").


At least the current HDD situation is based on some actual event (e.g. all of the factories being underwater) and not due to some clowns speculating on the share market.

 

[FranzB]

The whole problem is that the "economy" has been reduced to how to produce something cheap.
A very dangerous oversimplification that has gained ground because the general public can buy things cheaper, forgettting that you first have to earn money in order to buy something, even if it is cheap. It has become an ideology and all ideologies are dangerous. It maximizes one part of the whole, it never optimizes the total.

What good is a superfast (personal) computer (other than for complex calculations) if the transfer of data is slow and becomes the weakest link? Or this fetish of large screens. I have two laptops. One with a large screen and a netbook. Both not used for any "professional" purposes, i have to add. I really started to dislike the large screen and hardly ever use it any longer. It gives me the creeps.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi all

This stuff about Factories moving etc -- is really a load of twaddle.

We ALL want cheap goods and Cheap food --no matter who are in the Suits.

The Market is the ONLY place that will decide. For example some Banks are beginning to find that having Indian Call centres is causing then to LOSE customers at a prodigious rate so they have started reversing the outsourcing stuff.

If you are against something --for example I don't smoke so I won't invest in any Pension Fund or "trust" that deals with the likes of Philp Morris for example. Others don't like defence or Arms industry businesses so don't deal with companies who are into these industries.

If you keep buying cheap products simply because of the price you are as guilty as the people running the factories in China etc and paying less than subsistence wages.

People WILL pay for quality goods etc produced in European factories IF the products are shown to be really good and competitive.--for example can ANYONE really imagine the Ferrari factory being moved to China no matter HOW GOOD the chinese production lines might become -- or even worse imagine it being produced in that other competing Country by the likes of TATA etc. It wouldn't be long before a Ferrari was known as the "Tatty Special" even if the end quality was 100% identical to the original Italian Ferrari production line.

Don't get me wrong --by no means are all products produced in these countries all bad or produced in Factories that operate a little better than "Slave Labour".

Bose for example - designed in India - have probably one of the best run factories anywhere --and their products IMO are worth every penny / cent / eurocent etc and are certainly NOT CHEAP - but people buy them because they appreciate the quality.

If we want stuff re-patriated we've got to be prepared to pay a bit more and ensure the production quality is of the HIGHEST POSSIBLE standards -- CEO's can STILL make money too. I doubt if the top brass at Ferrari are having to worry how to survive until next payday.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[FranzB]

Hi all

This stuff about Factories moving etc -- is really a load of twaddle.

We ALL want cheap goods and Cheap food --no matter who are in the Suits.

The Market is the ONLY place that will decide.
....................
...................

Cheers
jimbo

You are right as long as the "Market" is not manipulated.

 

[pparks1]

Bose for example - designed in India - have probably one of the best run factories anywhere --and their products IMO are worth every penny / cent / eurocent etc and are certainly NOT CHEAP - but people buy them because they appreciate the quality.

I couldn't argue more against this statement about "quality of products". BOSE is absurdly overpriced and better quality can be had for fractions of the price.

People can choose to believe what they want, but a quick search of "why bose sucks" will turn up tons of audiophile and audio enthusiasts websites. I'm a previous owner who will never make that same mistake twice.

Look up their speakers on the website. For example, here is the page for the 301's. Bose 301 Direct Reflecting Book Shelf Speaker System.

Look for the specs, they will list the size and weight...but nothing whatsover as it pertains to sound quality. Nothing important to a speaker such as frequency response, cross over points, impedence, sensivitiy, etc.

Now, look up any other reputable speaker manufacturer, look at their specs. They list all of the audio characteristics that are important. Look for brands like
-Klipsch
-Paradigm
-Definitive Technologies
-Sonus Faber
-Axiom Audio
-Polk Audio
-B&W
-PSB

To me, this speaks volumes.

BOSE has great marketing, hands-down. A few good products. The rest of their products leave a ton to be desired, cost-aside.

If you ask the typical person who will tell you how great BOSE speakers are, to name 5 other reputable speaker brands they would struggle. If you ask them anything about other systems they have auditioned, they will just stare at you blankly. So, I maintain that many are just taken in by their advertising and because of price, make the assumption that they must be good.

And I'll stop anybody from saying I'm a hater simply because I cannot afford them. There are lots of system which are recommended and are just as expensive, if not fare more expensive then the BOSE system. For example, the JL Audio Fathom F113 subwoofer...which is nearly $3,700. Trust me, this monster could chew up and spit out any bose system..

 

[linnemeyerhere]

pparks1, +1 on the Bose issue.
Bose is a marketing phenom and that's about it. If small with rich sound is what you desire there are many other brands which out perform Bose. Where Bose is strong is bringing all the features together in a simple way that doesn't get complicated. For me the complication is the fun of being an audiophile, just as most of us here build our own computer systems which pay vastly improved performance and enrich our understanding. To me the mp3-Bose revolution has altered all music to the banal and we must fight this with every fiber of our beings. If this is too much for you and you disagree then load a new app and be happy with your itunes, iphone, ipad imac, ibose, cause idontcare ! Most things in life require an effort to understand and fully enjoy......viva the process !

 

[carwiz]

I get better sound out of my CAs than a Bose setup at three times the price. (Or was it four times the price? I don't recall.) I looked at and heard Bose speakers while I was building/shopping my system components. The stuff was junk. They slap their name on a few $3 speakers and call it a sound system.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi all
I can only say on this this

Unlike 99% of people wearing those rediculous Bud phones where the long suffering public hears more of the "music" than the wearer does, Bose Noise cancelling phones are a relevation ---ever had the misfortune to sit next to a woman with a Baby on a 10 hr flight from London to LA or on a Eurostar train from Brussels or Paris to London on a Friday afternoon with a load of American "wage slaves" having to get in contact with their "Slave masters" --aka Employers--on mobile phones thinking the rest of the carriage is totally deaf discussing something totally pointless while the rest of us are looking forward to a nice weekend.

Bose actually WORKS -- suggest you try them before saying they are overpriced junk - especially the Noise Cancelling ones.

The reason a lot of people get disappointed with Bose is that these people are passing hideously compressed mp3 music through the system which any decent amplifier / system will really show up as HORRIBLE ==> artifacts etc etc --even at 128 kbs -- you need AT LEAST 320 kbs to be passably OK on an expensive system.

Using FLAC /WAV will give you a great listening pleasure.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[carwiz]

I did try them! They WORKED like $3 speakers. Took them back and bought 2x 2.1 CAs. They're computer speakers designed to work with a PC and they work! And I don't have to worry about whether I'm listening to wav, mp3, mp4 or k-bs or any mega bs. And if I wanna rattle the walls, they do that too.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Hum well I wouldn't have anything else except the Bose in my car - just brilliant at the road noise "reduction" have never had better and I reckon better than the $6000 Pioneer system that my son had in his car.

I don't know about the manufacturing side but Bose was at least American by invention and origin, and in my book like Marantz a top system.

Bose Corporation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[pparks1]

Unlike 99% of people wearing those rediculous Bud phones where the long suffering public hears more of the "music" than the wearer does, Bose Noise cancelling phones are a relevation

The BOSE noise cancelling headphones are one of those products that fit into the ok category. The $300 models work well and for airplane use and such, they are good. For audio quality, on $300 headphones....there are much better choices. For $300, you can get the AKG K 272's, the Grado SR 225i for $200, and the BeyerDynamic DT770's for $229. Any of these should destroy the BOSE offering from a sound quality standpoint. Personally I own Grado SR125's ($150) that I use at work. While they are an open design that leaks sound, since I listen at low volumes while at work, this bothers absolutely nobody. And my ears fatique quite a bit from noise cancelling headphone use....it's nothing that I would want to use when I didn't need to.

Bose actually WORKS -- suggest you try them before saying they are overpriced junk - especially the Noise Cancelling ones.

As I said in my previous post, I know about BOSE as I used to own some of their stuff. I learned from regret that better choices were available. The noice cancelling headphones are pretty decent, but if you get a chance to listen to some AKG's, Grado, Sennheiers, Denon or BeyerDynamic headphones please give them a shot. You might be blown away by the sound quality difference.

he reason a lot of people get disappointed with Bose is that these people are passing hideously compressed mp3 music through the system which any decent amplifier / system will really show up as HORRIBLE ==> artifacts etc etc --even at 128 kbs -- you need AT LEAST 320 kbs to be passably OK on an expensive system.

Using FLAC /WAV will give you a great listening pleasure.

Cheers
jimbo

Garbage in = garbage out. That's what I don't buy any digital music and instead still buy cd's and rip myself.

In addition, people play their music through craptastic players as well with bad circuity. That's why I highly recommend a portable headphone amp for any real quality listening. And always remember, if you have crappy files and crappy playback equipment, if you buy nicer headphones you will likely be even more UNIMPRESSED.

Hum well I wouldn't have anything else except the Bose in my car - just brilliant at the road noise "reduction" have never had better and I reckon better than the $6000 Pioneer system that my son had in his car.

Their car systems are usually pretty decent. Of course, when it comes to the premium brand audio in cars, you don't really have a choice unless you are building it yourself. While I have never personally had a car with the BOSE system, my friends have had some nissans and such which included the BOSE system and they did sound good. Certainly on par with the Chrysler Infinity setups, the VW monsoons and the Chrysler Boston Acoustics setup (that's what my Wagon has).