"Americans not getting bang for buck in Europe"

"Earl Evleth" wrote
| European restaurant bills include the TVA and service meaning that
| you estimate that the meal is going to cost 50 euros, from the
| menu prices, that is what you pay, not 50 + tax + tip as in the
| US. Many Europeans are dismayed on visiting the US and finding
| the prices on items are not what one pays at the cashier's booth.
| However, Americans sometimes express dismay in not being able to
| withhold a tip for poor service.

Of course, *deducting* 10% (or more) from the total for bad service is more
costly to the restaurant than failing to add a 10% service charge (because
it's 10% of a bigger amount). It is also more effective as the waiter or
cashier has to explain the shortfall to management.

It is, however, slightly harder arithmetic.

Owain

(PJ O'Donovan) wrote:

"EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)" wrote in message ...

in fact the latter made so little sense to my logical mind that I barely
passed the course. (Which I only took to help fulfill graduation
requirements.)

This "logical mind" of yours that you pontificate is not at all in evidence in
the continuing discharges of your political bias here.

I love well-crafted irony.

--
PB
The return address has been MUNGED

"Gregory Morrow" wrote in
message hlink.net...

nightjar .uk.com wrote:

Up to a value of £145, that is true. Over that, you are liable to pay UK
import duty and VAT, but you should also be able to claim back any taxes
you
paid in the USA when you export the goods.


No. The US does not have VAT.

It has no sales or state taxes of any sort?

Colin Bignell

On 8/02/04 13:40, in article ,
"Owain" wrote:

| However, Americans sometimes express dismay in not being able to
| withhold a tip for poor service.

Of course, *deducting* 10% (or more) from the total for bad service is more
costly to the restaurant than failing to add a 10% service charge (because
it's 10% of a bigger amount). It is also more effective as the waiter or
cashier has to explain the shortfall to management.
`

Obviously Europeans express their displeasure with the service by either
saying something or not going back.

Either can be effective in some cases. Being Americans
by accent, we have, during our 30 years in Paris, been subject to short
changing by café waiters when
mistaken for tourists. Some of the waiters are not smart and should
realized that if we
have a dog with us, we have not come from the US.

This has happened only a couple of times in this
time period so not a big problem. The problem cafes are usually in the
areas which have a large number of tourists. Since they do not normally
become habitués so screwing them is not a losing proposition. So café
waiters can try and get away with short changing. One trick is giving the
wrong change, slapping the change down and rushing off to another customer,
not giving a person a chance to protest. One time, in a café on the Champs
Elysee, I got up and complained to the patron of the café, this risks
getting the offending waiter fired since patrons don`t like this kind of
trouble, especially verbalized for others to hear. At another café on the
blvd Montparnasse where we were known (near where we live) a new waiter
tried the short change act, and the patron must have fired him because he
was not there the next time we went there.

So complaining can be effective but one should be clearly right. The times
it does not work is when one is vacationing in the summer in a tourist
loaded area. A pick up meal is often not that good, the service slow and
disinterested and on top of this the food overpriced.

We travel to the US now and then and just returned from Florida, the Fort
Lauderdale area. The restaurant service was uniformly very good and the
seafood in this area excellent. In a couple places the "cuisine" was
bit pretentious, some of the best food was in relatively inexpensive places.
We also like old fashion diners for breakfast or lunch. The softshell crabs
were in season and I also like the peal yourself shrimp. The food in the
Fort Lauderdale area is so good the port makes a logical departing
or arriving point for Europeans traveling to and from Europe to the USA
or Americans coming to Europe. Port cities in Europe are generally
less interesting (Marseille excepted) in one will grab the boat train into
London if one took the QM2 from Florida back to Europe.

Earl

"Earl Evleth" wrote in message
...

On our recent visit to Florida,
the car rental charges included a Florida "tire and battery" fee ($24.60
for
a 12 day rental) plus a 7% sales tax ($26.69).

I expect that you paid an airport surcharge as well, if you picked the car
up at an airport.

While not FTL, I once compared car rental at Orlando and Tampa. One had
cheaper rental prices, but it had a stiff airport fee as a percentage of the
total bill.

Car rental is a bazaar. I recently rented a car from Hertz for 2 weeks in
the Caribbean. It fits this newsgroup since it was an EU country ;-) When
I turned the car in:
1) first bill was for 3 weeks,
2) second bill was for 2 weeks but at a higher price than quoted,
3) third bill was correct.

Keith Anderson muttered....



Surprised you don't like the UK. It has a Prime Minister with his head
right up a right-wing president's arse, who's a champion of global
corporatism, who's dismantling the welfare state and privatising
everything............no wonder there are a load of surly people
around.


.....and you want to replace him with a Tory?
(or from the sentiments which flow from your keyboard, some disenfranchised
former Eastern European bureaucrat with genuinely authoritarian socialist
perspective)

TMO

On 8/2/04 4:29 pm, in article ,
"Olivers" wrote:

Keith Anderson muttered....



Surprised you don't like the UK. It has a Prime Minister with his head
right up a right-wing president's arse, who's a champion of global
corporatism, who's dismantling the welfare state and privatising
everything............no wonder there are a load of surly people
around.


....and you want to replace him with a Tory?

Err ... No ... That's the point. No sense replacing one Tory with another.

J;

Earl Evleth wrote in message ...
On 8/02/04 10:05, in article ,
"Mxsmanic" wrote:

Gregory Morrow writes:

No. The US does not have VAT.

Yes, it does, but the U.S. calls it sales tax or excise tax. It is
_far_ lower than the VAT in most of Europe, though.


More exactly the US does not have a VAT but the individual states
have sales taxes and some cities on top of this. There are also
specific tourist taxes on hotels.

Some of the left wing nuts here who want to tax Americans into
oblivion lose
sight of these hidden taxes. I wonder how many have heard of the
alternative minimum tax that affects the so-called "rich" like the cop
on the beat whose wife is an RN, filing a joint return. Americans are
also burdened with state income taxes in most states in addition to
state property taxes and local property taxes, all in addition to
Social Security taxes which are taxed 3 times for many of the "rich"
prudent enoough to save enough to generate an additional $30,000 per
year past age 65. But these taxes on the "rich" will never be enough
to placate the Marxist mentality until all are poor, suffering
together.

On Sun, 08 Feb 2004 09:29:59 -0600, Olivers
wrote:

Keith Anderson muttered....



Surprised you don't like the UK. It has a Prime Minister with his head
right up a right-wing president's arse, who's a champion of global
corporatism, who's dismantling the welfare state and privatising
everything............no wonder there are a load of surly people
around.


....and you want to replace him with a Tory?

No

(or from the sentiments which flow from your keyboard, some disenfranchised
former Eastern European bureaucrat with genuinely authoritarian socialist
perspective)

I'd actually settle for a democratic socialist. I'm a big fan of Tony
Benn.

Jeremy Henderson wrote in message ...
On 7/2/04 9:08 am, in article ,
"Sjoerd" wrote:


"freeda" schreef in bericht
...

I read an article on this in a UK broadsheet. Apperently, if you want a
Digital Camera, an iPod, and a laptop computer, you can save about 500-700
GBP, more than worth it since a return from London to NYC is under 200 GBP
and it is only a 7 hour flight.

Plus you can buy pepperoni. Oh yes, and Cheddar cheese.


Pardon me, but I've missed something. What's the deal about pepperoni? :)

CY


And you have to be lucky at UK customs, too.

They can't even spot truckloads of Chinese cockle-fishers, so an iPod
shouldn't be a problem.

J;