I get tired of all these people that talk about panels under a buck a watt. Where are they and would you want to buy them? Just saw an article about the Australian Govt. Investigating cheap Chinese panels that are failing after three years and that they paid a subsidy for. With UL, shipping, mounting and wiring there are no cheap panels.
There are zero solar panels I can buy for over $1/Wp (Netherlands). The cheapest ones are about €0.45/Wp, the most expensive ones (e.g. Yingly Panda YL275-C) are about €0.80/Wp. At current exchange rates $1~€1. Even exotic panels like the Sanyo HIT 240s (which have very high efficiency, to use on super-tight roofs) are below €1/Wp.
Entire installations, including all costs, start at just below €1/Wp. Prices are so low that people often choose for higher quality/all black (=purely cosmetic)/fake panels (to fill up visually empty space)/additional crap. With all that, average installation prices have dropped from €1.75/Wp to €1.55/Wp in the past 12 months in the Netherlands.
This is all without any subsidies, including import taxes (that are useless because prices have dropped so much since, that panels are cheaper than they have ever been). You can get about €0.20/Wp effective rebate on your entire installation if you ask for VAT back (which is a subsidy for solar right now).
The US has always been significantly more expensive with solar, and not for any obvious reason afaik. You use the exact same panels, same inverters, not much is technically different. Subsidies and incentives have been astronomical in the US over the last 10 years, waaaaay more than we've ever had in Europe. First Solar and Solyndra being two of the main examples, getting a combined $1B in tax breaks and subsidies, not to speak of the big govt. expenditures on california's (world-leading) solar farms. The subsidies in Germany pale in comparison to that. So you can't blame the government.