Humor: (or manufacturing) Wired examines the question of why LEGO sets are so expensive, and comes up with some answers.
Science: Wired reports on a giant
prehistoric swimming predator, with five-inch teeth.
Wired also tells us that Crows react based on what they think other crows know.
The Arts: Christianity Today has published its list
of the 10
"most redeeming films" of 2012.
Christianity: He Lives attempts
to define faith. It's not easy.
Heart, Mind, Soul and Strength has been analyzing
some of the books in the New Testament mathematically (frequency of
words used). Her conclusions are interesting.
Image source (public domain)
I have always loved legos.
ReplyDeleteIn the early 80's a company called Tente sold Lego knockoffs at Rose's department stores in the US.
I had a number of these sets along with legos. Tente was sued and the sets were clearance priced all over the place.
Tente blocks/pieces were also very well made. The only issue was when fitted with legos it was almost like the two pieces were superglued together.
My parents bought as many of these as they could find.
The patent recently ran out on legos. (I believe 2005)
I'm kind of surprised the author of the article didn't mention licensing as one reason legos are expensive. They are also produced in Denmark and have a rather high import duty and transportation cost. A consideration for Chinese produced goods is that the Chinese government subsidizes freight and import duties to the USA.
Further, wages are relatively high in Denmark so while you may think plastic pieces must be cheap to produce, I'd imagine they aren't as cheap as we may presume and certainly not as cheap as the knockoffs produced in China.
Interesting information on the economics of Legos, atlibertytosay.
ReplyDeleteThanks.
Thank you for the link!
ReplyDeleteBtw I'm a big LEGO's fan myself. Interested to find out more why they're so pricy!
Take care & God bless
Anne / WF
You are welcome, Weekend Fisher.
ReplyDelete