Disparity in Incomes

From a recent trip to Bangkok, we were in discussion on how cheap fashion is over in London and Europe once the season has passed. Already as it is, street brands in Asia are relatively cheap, but when it comes to middle class brands like Camel or Renoma, it just does not make sense.

Confused? Well hear me out, During the sales in London, I can find certain shoes for as low as £9 per pair (assuming the exchange rate is RM7 = £1 for easy calculations) means RM63 for a pair of shoes with leather soles! The simplest of shoes with Bonia or Renoma brands in Malaysia already sell for a minimum of RM250 (£35.70) which is four times the price!

Then I was looking for a pair of shorts to play football with during a session with the chaps. For a pair of Camel shorts, it cost RM70 which would be around £10! I remember going through the sales and finding pants selling for less than £5... I had to go to the Reject shop and buy a pair for RM20 (roughly around £3). Then for working shirts, only the ones on sale would be the sale prices in London which was £10 per shirt.

What really is mind numbing is that most of the stuff sold in the UK is from Asia! So why is there such a difference in price? This brings me back to the topic of purchasing power. Imagine earning £2000 a month and paying for the shirt, shorts and shoes as per price quoted above.

Now imagine earning RM2000 per month and buying similar 'inferior brand' products for the prices stated above. I just heard that a friend bought a polo shirt for RM400+ (around £60). For god sake, after one or two seasons, the same shirt may be thrown out over here and sold for £10...

Since I am cycling over here, I decided to go into some of the bicycle shops down in KL. Shop looked like any other bicycle shop, only that the prices of bicycles could really kill. RM20,000 for a bike! Almost a whole years salary. The same bike can be bought for around £3000. Almost two months salary, but you catch my drift. If this doesn't show the disparity in incomes over in Malaysia, I really don't know what can.