One of the family members who was with us at the Grand Canyon was visiting from Russia.  He was actually the reason for the trip.  My dad was taking him all over and trying to show him the country.  Anyways, while they were in Vegas he bought a car.  Not my dad, the guy visiting from Russia.  I didn’t think I heard right when my dad first told me.  He said “We need to go back to Vegas because he bought a car and we need to drive it to San Fransisco so we can ship it.”  I was like “What?  He bought a car?  Why?”  The idea of going to another country, buying a car, and shipping it home is… well… foreign.

It tells you a lot about Russia.  That it’s more cost effective to buy a car here and ship it around the world than it is to buy a car there.  Dang!  What really struck me as odd is that he bought a Volkswagen.  Seems like buying a Volkswagen directly from Germany would be the cheapest, but apparently not.  Maybe he doesn’t have the opportunity to go to Germany.  Maybe our dollar is so bad that even Russians can shop here cheaply.  (Let’s hope it’s not that.)

Anyways, he paid $6,000 for a 2001 Volkswagen Passat with 46,000 miles on it.   The tariff on it was $2,000 and it was going to cost about $1,500 to ship it.  (Those numbers are from memory, I think they are right.)  Obviously he paid cash.  Which impressed the heck out of me.  But when I asked my dad about it he said that it was this guy’s life savings.   Which makes me sad.  I hope he got a good deal an that the car lasts a good long time for him.  I’m sure it will improve his life greatly.

What’s ironic is that he was impressed about how nice everything here is and how nice everyone’s things are.  And it’s really financing and debt that makes it all possible.  As we are all learning about right now, when there is restricted financing it really affects the economy.  So he was impressed at our ability to finance and I was impressed at his ability to pay cash.  Funny how that is.

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