IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed • Hacker News Board

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#501

Post by omgwtfbyobbq » Wed, Jan 27, 2021, 6:16 PM UTC

Jochim wrote: post #444

johnp314 wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'abuse' is a subjective word, you could have left off the 'ab' and you sentence would still be correct, arguably more correct. Also, why not consider that by using the complex web of tax laws to their advantage allows them to sell products at a lower price. This allows folks with lower incomes to enjoy similar products to those who can afford getting their stuff from more posh places. One could judge Ikea to be more…

This is the same kind of mental gymnastics that gave us trickle down economics. The societal ethics, morality and the spirit of the law should all be taken into account when judging behaviour. Exploiting tax structures in order to conceal income is absolutely immoral and shouldn't be tolerated. This is especially egregious when the tax loopholes are effectively gated behind behing a multi-national corporation. It lea…

To be fair, trickle down economics is just fantasy. Tax avoidance is something everyone with a 401k does and is encouraged by the tax code.

If there's something unique about what they're doing, especially as a result of them lobbying for certain parts of the tax code, then I can see it being judged harshly.

If anyone can do what they're doing, then I don't see it as particularly negative.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#502

Post by citrusybread » Wed, Jan 27, 2021, 6:19 PM UTC

killtimeatwork wrote: post #350

leokennis wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IKEA has several “tranches” of cheap furniture. Some of it is solely designed to hit a price point (“a $10 chair”) and is made of cheap plywood, cheaply connected. Some of it is more the “can we pick some low hanging design fruit, apply massive scale, and create a decent chair for 20% of the price it would normally cost” variety. That furniture normally lasts a long time.

> Some of it is solely designed to hit a price point (“a $10 chair”) and is made of cheap plywood Isn't plywood actually stronger than real wood? It's even used for aircraft construction.

No, it depends on the application. There's a reason it's still called "solid wood".

If you look, most plywoods are "whitewood" or whatever is cheapest (most softwoods are incredibly strong as the term is just a synonym for coniferous). If you compare apples-to-apples -- Baltic Birch (or similar products with only birch layers) to solid birch...

The plywood doesn't have any noticeable wood movement;

The plywood can have fasteners and glue in any face (unlike solid where endgrain must be joined);

The solid wood usually has much better stiffness;

The solid wood is limited to shape and size by nature of trees; plywood can be found in larger sizes.

Good wooden chairs are impossible to find commercially now. The wood from the seat needs to be very wet and a wood that doesn't split easily, and the wood for the legs needs to be riven and dryer than what its final environment will be (so as close to 0% moisture as possible, at least This is so that the legs expand a bit into the seat, which will continue to shrink, and make an incredibly tight fit. But it's not conducive at all to mass-production, which is why you often see them nailed, bracketed, bolted, etc, all sorts of dirty tricks.

Woodworking is a rabbit-hole you might find compelling or infuriating. You can't unlearn the knowledge when you do.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#503

Post by hansvm » Wed, Jan 27, 2021, 6:20 PM UTC

citrusybread wrote: post #498

titzer wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, nice things usually cost a premium. But used, secondhand stuff can be affordable too. There should be an economy of downcycling that allows for more affordable stuff, too. I just don't think that IKEA is that. Case in point. When I moved in 2013 I had a ~$1500 dining table that I had paid $800 for. Due to the abruptness of my move, I ended up selling it on Craigslist for something like $200. Keep an eye out for…

>Just always looking for good deals and willing to driving 200+ miles for them. for a lot of us city dwellers, that already makes it unaffordable. I think the Buy Nothing movement is really accelerating this trend of trying to connect people to drive the recycling community. Don't throw out old furniture, your local Buy Nothing group will be full of people happy to rehome it.

I was just about to chime in to say something similar. Even if you have a vehicle which can move furniture and a day to blow picking it up, you're gonna pay at least $40 just in gas for furniture which, from the sound of things, isn't that much cheaper per piece than the entire bedroom set they had purchased.

Not to say that I haven't done that before. In the right circumstances it can be a good decision, but I don't know that it's a general purpose replacement for IKEA.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#504

Post by peter_d_sherman » Wed, Jan 27, 2021, 6:27 PM UTC

nom wrote: post #256

I never understood why people hate IKEA. Yes it's cheap. Yes it doesn't last a lifetime. Yes it needs a lot of wood. Yes it's highly optimized. But guess what, IKEA is a business responding to the needs of people. The negatives that are mentioned frequently are merely a symptom of our ever faster developing society. The people who complain are the same ones that just buy cheap crap from china without even thinking ab…

IKEA is to furniture -- what Walmart is to general consumer goods and groceries...

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#505

Post by Kalium » Wed, Jan 27, 2021, 6:28 PM UTC

titzer wrote: post #477

Kalium wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An interesting proposition! In 2008, I was on my own for the first time. I had to furnish my first apartment into livability. A family friend gave me a $300 gift card to IKEA. That gift got me a fully functional one-bedroom apartment that I could never have afforded at the time. Now, as a well-paid adult advanced in my career, I can afford to buy high-quality things. I do this knowing full well that I'm buying status…

Sure, nice things usually cost a premium. But used, secondhand stuff can be affordable too. There should be an economy of downcycling that allows for more affordable stuff, too. I just don't think that IKEA is that. Case in point. When I moved in 2013 I had a ~$1500 dining table that I had paid $800 for. Due to the abruptness of my move, I ended up selling it on Craigslist for something like $200. Keep an eye out for…

> There should be an economy of downcycling that allows for more affordable stuff, too. I just don't think that IKEA is that.

You're absolutely right! There often this. This is rarely anywhere near the IKEA price point, though. A dining room table for $200, however nice, would have eaten up two thirds of my furnishing budget. How does one manage chairs, a bedframe, and so on of good quality for $100?

It's not been my experience that a person can do that by being willing to drive hundreds of miles and owning a car, but YMMV. IKEA lets you do this reliably, and offers delivery services.

When your answer to "How do I furnish?" is "Do without until the perfect deal comes along", do you think it might be worth considering that your answer might not be great for everyone?

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#506

Post by arcticbull » Wed, Jan 27, 2021, 6:30 PM UTC

fastball wrote: post #428

arcticbull wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ooh and stop mining Bitcoin

Actually, as part of "Electrify everything", it would probably be good to replace a significant chunk of the banking system with a cryptocurrency layer (maybe bitcoin, maybe not). With green energy, digital gold is a lot more green than physical gold. Bitcoin is like electric cars – not super green right in this moment when the grid is still dirty, but all it takes to make it greener is to green up the grid. Meanwhil…

> And cryptos like Ethereum have the potential to 10x/100x/1000x that with things like PoS vs. PoW as well as the fact that Ethereum smart contracts can not only replace banking but probably other industries as well, such as title companies and various other middlemen.

It's been 13 years now and nobody's done it, because that's a terrible idea. The reason lawyers exist is that all contracts have ambiguity and require a human to review and consider. All contracts have circumstances that aren't captured. Just ask the DAO folks.

Middlemen exist for a reason. Efficiency, conflict and ambiguity resolution, and so on.

Blockchains are only useful for things that are entirely captured within the blockchain. As soon as you interface the blockchain with the outside world you have to trust something to enter and capture that data accurately - garbage in, garbage out. Once you're trusting someone, you don't need a blockchain, just fire up and RDS instance and save everyone the headache.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#507

Post by aspaceman » Wed, Jan 27, 2021, 6:30 PM UTC

fxtentacle wrote: post #143

tweetle_beetle wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The annoying thing about IKEA furniture, and that from competitors, is that all it takes is for a tiny piece of particle board to be damaged internally for the whole item to be useless. Generally, while they are in one piece and not moved, they are fine. But trasnporting or disassembling this stuff is a risk. The tiny wooden pegs, plastic bits and agressive screws going straight into soft board can rip out chunks, sn…

Ikea sells replacement parts online. Usually, all you need is their number code which you can find in the manual (or if your lost that in the pdf on their website). I recently ordered a replacement door myself, just to make it look new again.

Why is throwing away the old one, and buying a new one seen as a solution? Like huh? We're talking about waste.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#508

Post by eropple » Wed, Jan 27, 2021, 6:30 PM UTC

Ygg2 wrote: post #334

jakupovic wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I call BS, you can't even buy the material to build something at IKEA prices, let alone assemble it.

BS based on what? I can show you the desk. I did found his bill. It was $30 bucks more. The price for IKEA piece was materials plus delivery. The price for that desk was design, delivery and assembly on the spot.

IKEA has some "halo" items, but most people, when they're talking about IKEA, are talking about stuff like their GALANT table/desks.

What IKEA item were you comparing it to?

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#509

Post by bjourne » Wed, Jan 27, 2021, 6:31 PM UTC

yohannparis wrote: post #370

hiq wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I never understood why people hate IKEA. Did you read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA#Criticisms ? There seems to be many reasons to dislike the company, even as a happy customer. One thing that stuck with me is this: "The IKEA group has a complex corporate structure, which members of the European Parliament have alleged was designed to avoid over €1 billion in tax payments over the 2009–2014 period." It seems e…

This is an issue caused by the European Parliament. I'm sure if they want to stop this behaviour they could write some laws.

Taxation is handled by the member states, not EU. This means that many states act as the lowest bidder (e.g Ireland) to attract foreign companies.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#510

Post by crisdux » Wed, Jan 27, 2021, 6:31 PM UTC

abvdasker wrote: post #437

crisdux wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this critique. Corporate PR is largely propaganda. Our corporatist media isn't willing or able pursue actual journalism to find out the truth, so now we have lot's of people searching for answers on a forum that allows for free speech. If you don't like it, you should probably just stick to cable news.

I think you're largely correct, but sometimes corporations can end up doing the "right thing" in the pursuit of good press or to serve brand marketing. I would say that IKEA doing environmental conservation is a good thing in this case, despite the company's motives for doing so being transparently self-serving. To me IKEA's reason for doing this is less important than the positive impact it will have.

Yea I understand what you are saying. I think it's hard in our current environment to understand trade offs because there isn't a lot of truth or trust in journalism or corporate propaganda. It's impossible to make a value determination of this action because we don't have the truth.

I don't think people should just assume it's a positive impact without all of the facts. It could very well be a negative. You seem to be only focused on one dimension of this, forest conservation.