71–80 of 168 posts
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Some (likely outdated) idea to do with treating farming capacity as a strategic reserve.
Look, in war times, we can plant potatoes in all our gardens and take our spare meadows. We don't need these farmers in peace time; we really don't. They are leeches.
This is a simple duty arbitrage play. For anyone wondering what he actually did wrong, there are a few key points to note. Aluminum (and all materials, really) is exported and imported and duties are paid on the basis of the HS code and (if there is a trade agreement to be taken advantage of) certificates of origin (COO) along with the usual shipping docs. China is inclined to tax exports of primary aluminum because…
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Really? Wouldn't you think U.S. has the lowest proportion of "rich without merits" as %age of rich of any nation in the world – and indeed in history of world?
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. This is a totally valid point. For the downvoters: malchow's claim is that in the US, rich people are more likely to be businessmen or people who have otherwise worked for their wealth, rather than simply having been born to the right parents.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really? Wouldn't you think U.S. has the lowest proportion of "rich without merits" as %age of rich of any nation in the world – and indeed in history of world?
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. This is a totally valid point. For the downvoters: malchow's claim is that in the US, rich people are more likely to be businessmen or people who have otherwise worked for their wealth, rather than simply having been born to the right parents.
This is a simple duty arbitrage play. For anyone wondering what he actually did wrong, there are a few key points to note. Aluminum (and all materials, really) is exported and imported and duties are paid on the basis of the HS code and (if there is a trade agreement to be taken advantage of) certificates of origin (COO) along with the usual shipping docs. China is inclined to tax exports of primary aluminum because…
I'm missing the part of this scheme where you need to have a large cache of aluminum in any form to make this work. Related: The Chinese regulations on export of neodymium magnets is similarly structured. Exporting the magnets or the raw metallic ingredients is subject to high tariffs, but export of finished products using them is not. This isn't just about energy exports though, it's straight up protectionism of the…
And yes, in case the loophole closes. These guys may have been the largest operation that some guy flew a plane over but they probably weren't the only ones.
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And why is that a problem, exactly? In the end aluminum is fungible for aluminum, and the US is getting aluminum from Mexico under NAFTA. Trying to enforce a tariff on element production from a subset of external countries seems sisyphean.
> And why is that a problem, exactly? It says in the article: American companies are being put out of business by heavily-subsidized Chinese companies. > Trying to enforce a tariff on element production from a subset of external countries seems sisyphean. Apparently not: > The company failed to obtain NAFTA benefits after U.S. authorities concluded that the metal came from China. It helps to read the article you're c…
One of the reader comments said: "Extradite him to the US and then prosecute him. Getting rich without any merits is horrible." and I thought: you must be new here
Really? Wouldn't you think U.S. has the lowest proportion of "rich without merits" as %age of rich of any nation in the world – and indeed in history of world?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really? Wouldn't you think U.S. has the lowest proportion of "rich without merits" as %age of rich of any nation in the world – and indeed in history of world?
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. This is a totally valid point. For the downvoters: malchow's claim is that in the US, rich people are more likely to be businessmen or people who have otherwise worked for their wealth, rather than simply having been born to the right parents.
There are two big issues:
* It is very hard to gut-feel wealth distribution (eg, http://marketrealist.com/2013/10/shutdown-101-perceived-weal...). Identifying who the US rich requires more study of statistics than most people have time for - so this assertion is about a group that is difficult to identify. If most of the US rich were in fact living quietly on family wealth from a generation ago, how would this be identified? How do we verify that these 'rich people' are indeed meritorious? They might not be.
* All of history is a very long time. Although the US is technologically the most advanced nation we have ever seen, to claim that it rewards the meritous more than any nation in history is probably wrong, and suggests grandparent isn't making a point based on careful thought. We have had democracy for more than 2,000 years, the US has only been around for ~300.
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A similar, and perhaps more amusing, situation happened in Canada a few years ago. We have a 245.5% import tariff on cheese (why? Because dairy farmers are more important than poor people, apparently) but there was a much lower tax on "food preparations", including packaged pizza toppings. So companies would package up "pizza topping kits" in the USA, import them to Canada as "food preparations"... and then remove th…
Isn't the whole point of free trade agreements to prevent those sorts of tariffs? Does NAFTA not cover cheese?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some (likely outdated) idea to do with treating farming capacity as a strategic reserve.
Look, in war times, we can plant potatoes in all our gardens and take our spare meadows. We don't need these farmers in peace time; we really don't. They are leeches.