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Apple stopped sales in Turkey after the lira crashed 15% in a day

reuters.com

171–180 of 251 posts

Re: Apple stopped sales in Turkey after the lira crashed 15% in a day

#171
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't stealing all the foreign assets of Venezuela by US and UK also affect the Venezuela economy?

Freezing, not stealing, because the chances those assets would be used for the actual benefit of Venezuelans is pretty much zero. They will be returned when Venezuela has a legitimate government.

> They will be returned when Venezuela has a legitimate government.

??? They have had all this time, it is them who do abroad visits and diplomacy with CARICOM

It is only anglosphere the ones that don't want to recognize Venezuela

Re: Apple stopped sales in Turkey after the lira crashed 15% in a day

#172
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course they will take your passport. First time I bought sim in store, it was illegal to use foreign phones, and shop owner had to fake his IMEI. Airports never had this restrictions or asked for IMEI.

AFAIK foreign IMEI was never illegal in Turkey. The registration requirement started in 2011, before that you could just pop a local SIM and use it. Any IMEI can be registered within a specific timeframe(they change it from time to time but it's usually 3 weeks to 12 months) or the GSM operator will deny service to your device. It could be that you missed your deadline because to register an IMEI you need to do it wi…

Interesting, this was 2014, perhaps clerk did it to save me money for device registration.

Now I just use my EU data plan, it has enough data for short stays.

Re: Apple stopped sales in Turkey after the lira crashed 15% in a day

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember the process of getting a SIM in turkey was super annoying. I had to physically go to a store where they needed BOTH of our passports and a second form of ID (so had to go back to the hotel and return with my traveling companion) and a decent 30 minute process of entering our information into databases and making copies of IDs. Compare that to most countries where I can either trivially pop into a local sto…

I definitely like using turkey as an example of how quickly a relatively healthy democracy can turn into an opressive theocratic regime when pointing out how close the USA became a similar nation just this past year and warning friends to not be complacent in upcoming election cycles.

It definitely is a good example of such. A good example of such after 20 years of the West quietly cheering for such outcome.

Turkeys' EU accession plan went nowhere, despite Turkey being genuinely serious for years on end.

Western capitals were dead silent during the 2016 coup attempt.

Re: Apple stopped sales in Turkey after the lira crashed 15% in a day

#174
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK foreign IMEI was never illegal in Turkey. The registration requirement started in 2011, before that you could just pop a local SIM and use it. Any IMEI can be registered within a specific timeframe(they change it from time to time but it's usually 3 weeks to 12 months) or the GSM operator will deny service to your device. It could be that you missed your deadline because to register an IMEI you need to do it wi…

Interesting, this was 2014, perhaps clerk did it to save me money for device registration. Now I just use my EU data plan, it has enough data for short stays.

That's probably it. Instead of you paying this ridiculous registration fee, the clerk probably offered you a cloned Turkish IMEI. That's another popular workaround!

Re: Apple stopped sales in Turkey after the lira crashed 15% in a day

#175
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But those taxes are everywhere, named like "Luxury Consumption Tax". Are those taxes effectively targeting products that are imported? It's classic trick to improve the trade deficit.. I would guess that getting rid of them would only further crags the currency.

I think in general luxury goods taxes are underexploited. People normally want to buy expensive things so they can show off how much money they have. May as well make them more expensive, and divert some of that cash to useful purposes.

Maybe... My point was that often these taxes are actually targeting imports, and not necessarily "luxuries".

Well, that also depends on how you define luxuries :)

I personally don't mind taxes, but consumption taxes, even on "luxury items" are generally likely to be regressive in nature. So maybe don't use them...

Re: Apple stopped sales in Turkey after the lira crashed 15% in a day

#177
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, it's not Apple's fault Turkey's currency is unstable. Why would it be their responsibility to take the exchange risk? I wouldn't be surprised if in response to future events like this they stopped accepting payments denominated in TRY altogether.

A perfectly reasonable thing for Apple to do would be to buy foreign exchange options to hedge out the risk of currency fluctatuions, passing the cost on to consumers. So it'll cost a percent or two more in the price of a new Apple product, but that means Apple isn't exposed to risk of currency fluctuations. Having said that, Apple is probably a big enouhg company to just accept the risk itself and not pay for option…

If apple do this, people will make use of the price difference and resell Turkish goods in the rest of the world for a profit.

Re: Apple stopped sales in Turkey after the lira crashed 15% in a day

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A supermarket could refuse to sell you something unless you pay in Mario coins, but I beleive a restaurant is forced to accept your dollars to settle the bill you incurred for the food, and can't insist you pay your bill in Fallout Bottlecaps. Is this right?

As long as they tell in advance (before you order), they can have any rules like any contract. It is extremely rare to have weird rules, but more common sense ones like "exact change or card only", "card only" are fairly common.

This quite possibly varies by jurisdiction, but at least in the UK they do have to take legal tender in the GP's case. In a restaurant where one pays after receiving the food and a petrol station where one pays after receiving the fuel, you have no way to give back what you've taken and leaving without paying is illegal. So while it would be foolish of the retailer to attempt to refuse payment in local currency, if you try to pay in legal tender then they are obliged to accept.

Having said all that, the largest denomination that's legal tender where I am (Scotland) is £1, filling up with fuel today cost me £100, and I'm not in the habit of carrying around that much loose change.

Also, it's absolutely the case that a store where you receive the goods after paying for them may accept (or decline) whatever they choose. Many shops on Edinburgh's High Street, for example, have signs in their windows saying they are quite happy to accept Euros or Dollars. Not that you'll get a particularly good exchange rate, mind.

Re: Apple stopped sales in Turkey after the lira crashed 15% in a day

#179
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember the process of getting a SIM in turkey was super annoying. I had to physically go to a store where they needed BOTH of our passports and a second form of ID (so had to go back to the hotel and return with my traveling companion) and a decent 30 minute process of entering our information into databases and making copies of IDs. Compare that to most countries where I can either trivially pop into a local sto…

Devices, SIM cards and identities must be matched in Turkey, so that nobody does anything naughty. They also make the service providers keep tower signal logs worth of many years, so it's common to prove your whereabouts in courts by requesting these logs. On the plus side, you can see and manage all your data from the government portal. It's rather convenient to be able to see all the subscriptions(GSM, TV and so on…

>So that nobody does anything naughty

Ah yes, now I know why all of those shootings and mass murders happened in the Turkish airport-- there was no system for mapping identities to SIM cards!!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Atatürk_Airport_attack

Re: Apple stopped sales in Turkey after the lira crashed 15% in a day

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely like using turkey as an example of how quickly a relatively healthy democracy can turn into an opressive theocratic regime when pointing out how close the USA became a similar nation just this past year and warning friends to not be complacent in upcoming election cycles.

It definitely is a good example of such. A good example of such after 20 years of the West quietly cheering for such outcome. Turkeys' EU accession plan went nowhere, despite Turkey being genuinely serious for years on end. Western capitals were dead silent during the 2016 coup attempt.

> Western capitals were dead silent during the 2016 coup attempt.

Yeah, and for the better. The coup attempt is very controversial and it's not good guys vs bad guys situation.

To be fair, the west cheered for Erdogan up until Erdogan completely abandoned his initial positions. Later, the west simply worked with Turkey and Erdogan was properly elected through the years.

What the West was supposed to do? Invade Turkey? Assassinate the politician who consistently got about %50 of the vote of the Turks on elections with no less than %85 voter turnaround?

Foreign influence cannot solve local problems.

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