What exactly do computer engineers do and how much money do they make?

How do products cost the consumer less than the amount of money it took to make?

• Basic example- A product, let's say a computer, is made available by providing the following people money to work- an inventors salary, engineers salary, programmers salary, material costs, manufacturing costs, and truck drivers wage... These people cost money to employ... How is it that the COST OF THE COMPUTER is less than the wage paid out to make it?

• Answer:

  If you sell something for less than it cost to make it, you are "dumping". In international trade, that is a no-no. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy) But when supermarkets and other retail outlets do it, it is called a "loss-leader" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_leader But as a general rule, prices are 2-3 times "cost of goods sold" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_goods_sold (COGS does not include R&D costs, sales and marketing costs, transportation costs, administration costs, etc. Actual profit margins are much smaller: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit_margin ) But an interesting issue is just what the costs are. For example, consider a barrel of crude oil. From it, you can make a certain amount of gasoline, a certain amount of fuel oil, a certain amount of tar, etc. In order to make a profit, what you get by selling all of them has to exceed the cost of producing all of them. But that doesn't apply on a product by product basis. If demand for gasoline is high, you'll produce as much gasoline as you can and sell it for a good price. In the process, you may produce more tar than you can sell, and so end up almost giving it away. This is at the center of the Chinese accusation of dumping of chicken feet by American producers. Americans don't eat chicken feet, but love breast meat. Chines don't particularly care for breast meat (it is too bland) but like chicken feet. So American producers grow enough chickens to supply the American demand for chicken breasts and so have all these chicken feet left over. So they ship them to China where they can get at least a little money for them. Since anything they get is pure profit, and they want to sell them all, they price their American chicken feet below Chinese producer prices. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTOE61402H20100205 The American price is clearly below the Chinese cost of producing chicken feet, but is it dumping? But as for computers, I know of no one who sells new computers below cost.