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Hard Drive Prices - WAT?


tkrow21

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I'm confused here. You're mad because a company, designed to make money, is making money? Supply and demand is the reason prices skyrocketed. If that bothers you, I suggest you take a class in economics or something so it makes sense.

I am mad because a company is making too much money. I look at it this way. If a company makes money then grate. If a company makes too much money, really, I am ok with it. If a company makes too much money because they are taking advantage of a situation and more importantly its consumers, then I have an issue. It feels unethical in this particular situation.

 

Also I apologize. The article I linked had another link on the word "story" in the part of it I copied over. Believe it or not, it had some compelling arguments which is why I started examining the stock and such. The problem is I did not know you had to subscribe to the wall street journal to read the whole thing. I will try to find the article somewhere free before SOPA stops me :rofl:

 

The other thing is that supply and demand is not effected as much as you think. Companies can control the supply and demand at will. WD is probably hoarding a lot of their drive parts so that other companies have a hard time buying them and though a long string of buying and selling it keeps the company safe from buy outs. I have taken that economics class and make my money from economics itself and I am currently enrolled in yet another class, so I do understand it waco ;) The logic of it is that yes, prices did need to go up because of the situation. Yes you are right about supply and demand. However, we were told that those problems were going to be resolved be December, then it was late January, now it is March. I feel like the time frame keeps shifting because someone is getting to rich and too greedy because of the situation, and because people need hard drives, everyone keeps buying them. Information is still scarce, but it is slowly starting to rise to the surface about this. What has my attention is the fact that the flood took out a facility. It wasn't like the flood took out the fort knox of hard drives. They moved most of the hard drives before the flood, and from what I have heard (not read, but hear; so don't quote me) the facility is back in use. So why shouldn't the drive prices have gone down by at least 10- 15 dollars?

Edited by Tjj226_Angel

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I am mad because a company is making too much money.

 

First this is a craziest thing I have ever heard. Now for the rest of your comment. I have spoken to some people at WD and the plant is NOT in operation, it is still in clean up mode and will be for some time. Additionally WD did not hoard any drives away, they are in big demand with OEMs that are running in fear and thus driving up the price.

 

I think when all this ghets done and we can look back you will find companies like WD just about came out even on this mess. The higher prices gave them more cash flow but there is a massive bill coming with the clean up as well as the lose production during all this time.

 

Also worthy of note what you are seeing in drive prices is from the resellers NOT WD entirely. Many of them have because of supply and demand concerns raised the prices as well.

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First this is a craziest thing I have ever heard. Now for the rest of your comment. I have spoken to some people at WD and the plant is NOT in operation, it is still in clean up mode and will be for some time. Additionally WD did not hoard any drives away, they are in big demand with OEMs that are running in fear and thus driving up the price.

 

I think when all this ghets done and we can look back you will find companies like WD just about came out even on this mess. The higher prices gave them more cash flow but there is a massive bill coming with the clean up as well as the lose production during all this time.

 

Also worthy of note what you are seeing in drive prices is from the resellers NOT WD entirely. Many of them have because of supply and demand concerns raised the prices as well.

 

Then can you ask them why the time frame keeps getting moved around? That isn't me being sarcastic or anything. I have been trying to understand that for a long time, and it would be great if you could actually get a direct answer.

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A company is making too much money without it being ethical.

How is WD being unethical? :huh:

 

 

Then can you ask them why the time frame keeps getting moved around? That isn't me being sarcastic or anything. I have been trying to understand that for a long time, and it would be great if you could actually get a direct answer.

This is summed up with a simple "crap happens".

Edited by Waco

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This is summed up with a simple "crap happens".

 

I still think your "Take an Econ class and learn about Supply and Demand" sums it up the best ;) Although I think the curves might confuse him even more :whistling:

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How is WD being unethical? :huh:

 

 

 

This is summed up with a simple "crap happens".

 

It is possible the WD is being unethical because if they raise the prices to fix a problem like the flood, then fine. They will make more money than usual to spend on the problems the flood has created. It would be unethical if they have the money available to fix the problem and still keep the prices high. Basically, I don't want WD to turn around and say oh well even though we are back to the way we were before the flood, but since we now know that computer people will still pay twice the price of a normal HDD we will just keep it that way and stuff our pockets even more. To me that would be taking advantage of the situation, taking advantage of consumers, and really being all around greedy. Can they do that? Yes. Do I have to sit here and like it if they do that? No.

 

And look, I get the supply and demand stuff. I really do. I just have a really hard time believing that 1 plant in Thailand caused all of this. I really don't think that that plant was the ONLY source of hard drives. To me, I have always been leery about the prices. Something just wasn't adding up. I could see a 40-50% increase in price, but some times it was 100% plus. If you guys want to show me evidence that says the supply was cut so drastically that it does justify a 100% increase in price then fine, but I really doubt there was a reason for it to be so high, I really doubt that WD is having as big of a problem as they claim though I will defer to computer ed, and I really doubt for there to be any reason for the prices to still be this high. Heck, for the money they have made extra of the drives, I bet you they could have burnt down the old facility and built a new one by now.

 

So basically, I have always been paranoid about this whole situation and now I am starting to see weird anomalies in the stock, weird anomalies in the earning projections, weird anomalies everywhere. Seagate should not be at a 52 weeks high if the hard drive markets are struggling.

 

I get you all want to laugh it off and say I don't understand supply and demand, or business, or who knows what, However, CEOs are getting payed more, earning projections are super high, and now I am seeing little bits of news here and there saying that the hard drive companies are pocketing more money than they should.

 

Call me crazy, and I hope that you all will challenge me to the point where I admit defeat and am able to put this matter out of my head, but something is not adding up.

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...I am seeing little bits of news here and there saying that the hard drive companies are pocketing more money than they should.

More money than they should? What does that even mean? :lol:

 

Pretend you own WD. You sell HDDs. Supply is low, prices skyrocket, and you make more money because of it. Do you feel bad at all? HELL NO. The market demanded HDDs, they weren't available, so prices jumped. You made more money because of it. There's nothing to be ashamed of there.

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More money than they should? What does that even mean? :lol:

 

Pretend you own WD. You sell HDDs. Supply is low, prices skyrocket, and you make more money because of it. Do you feel bad at all? HELL NO. The market demanded HDDs, they weren't available, so prices jumped. You made more money because of it. There's nothing to be ashamed of there.

 

Yes, but I am afraid of supply going up and demand going down and basically the market returning to normal while WD still keeps the price of HDDs up. WD still has the power to set HDD prices at whatever they want. Even if supply and demand are back to normal, WD can keep the current prices. That is what I am afraid of and am starting to see.

 

To me there is such a thing as making too much money. If you and I make forks for instance and it takes us both 3 cents to make the exact same fork, but you sell yours for a dollar and I sell mine for 2 dollars, and the only difference was because I just felt like 2 dollars was a solid number, then yes I would have a problem. I probably would toss and turn in bed until I sleep walk to change the price to a dollar per fork. To me that is just how I like to run business. I always want a profit, but no more than 15 percent. To me I always want to get paid for my service, but I always want to provide the best possible price I can. That is my idea of ethical business, and I don't feel like that is what we are getting right now.

 

It sort of reminds me of oil companies. If the price goes up to high, we send a team to investigate the company to make sure it has ethical business practices, and if by magic the prices shoots down over night. How much do you want to bet that hard drive prices would go down if America were to investigate WD?

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Tjj, why are you busy going on and on about ethics? All hard drive prices have skyrocketed. No one is forcing you to only buy WD drives, so why keep beating a dead horse?

 

That dead horse made fun of him once and kicking it is satisfying?

 

Supply: way down. + Demand: still as it was and rising. = Prices: Up and Upper and Upperer.

 

Basic Economics... why is this an issue?

 

edited for typo and added upperer.

Edited by Munkypoo7

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