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

reuters.com

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

#181

Post by pasabagi »

jopsen wrote: post #175
pasabagi wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

>likely to be regressive

I'm not sure. I was just looking for some points of comparison, and as far as I can gather, tampon tax (the standout example for regressive luxury taxation) wasn't actually a luxury tax, but rather a tax on 'unnecessary' items. Which is - ech - but, you know, it's not an extra tax.

I think explicit taxes on higher-price items within categories (so like, expensive cars) would be kinda nice, because it avoids all of the fiddly questions over what is and isn't an luxury item.

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

#183

Post by mensetmanusman »

spdionis wrote: post #165
WanderPanda wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even wages?

Especially wages. At least for the industries where workers are in a position to demand. A tech job that offer in local currency gets laughed out of the room around here.

Are people using btc because of the threat from Russia?

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

#184

Post by LatteLazy »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #182

If the US is experiencing 7% inflation, does that mean the lira is a net -22% relative to the dollar?

Not in one day.

And it would be 22% compared to something with a more fixed value (like gold). Value is stable, the USD fell 7% and the lira another 15% for 22% total.

Looks like the lira is down 31% compared to my own currency (gbp) so far in 2021.

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

#185

Post by mensetmanusman »

Tenoke wrote: post #139
whatever1 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No phone would be sold because transactions take hours.

I've bought a beer ~7 years ago with btc. They just wanted for 1 confirmation (~10m), not that it mattered since we could drink in the mean time anyway.

When I tried to pay with btc they put mentos in my beer.

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

#186

Post by MrMorden »

colechristensen wrote: post #116
harpiaharpyja wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you stop to think about it yes it is pretty odd, but enough people do this that I don't have to think twice when I see it. You'd definitely wouldn't see it in formal writing, but informally it's not uncommon. A quirk of cross-cultural transmission maybe?

I think it's more often subtle morality/superiority signaling by calling an entity by a different name. Think Republicans referring to the "Democrat party" instead of the "Democratic" or people using "CCP" instead of "China".

"China" can refer to any number of different things; "CCP" only refers to the Party.

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

#187

Post by mrtksn »

sushsjsuauahab wrote: post #179
mrtksn wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The security aspect was more of a pretext to force people purchase the heavily taxed officially imported mobile phones.

Obviously, the usefulness for prevention of such attacks would be limited, it's more about identifying the offenders. It's also useful for surveillance, as you would expect a totalitarian state would like.

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

#188

Post by sigstoat »

colechristensen wrote: post #116
harpiaharpyja wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you stop to think about it yes it is pretty odd, but enough people do this that I don't have to think twice when I see it. You'd definitely wouldn't see it in formal writing, but informally it's not uncommon. A quirk of cross-cultural transmission maybe?

I think it's more often subtle morality/superiority signaling by calling an entity by a different name. Think Republicans referring to the "Democrat party" instead of the "Democratic" or people using "CCP" instead of "China".

…do you not make a distinction between “china” and the chinese communist party?

i think even the CCP itself does.

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

#189

Post by mrtksn »

jopsen wrote: post #168
CSDude wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It used to be OK. However, recent increase and the longer increase with start of Covid started to amplify in all goods. Even bread is now 1.5/2x more expensive, restuarants are 2x expensive compared to 1YR, because of cascading increases in every industry, mostly transportation and goods. For instance, the wood for the kitchen is increased almost 3x in 6 months according to our guy. Tech workers are mostly in good sp…

> 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.

> Are those taxes effectively targeting products that are imported?

Nope, pretty much anything that is not deemed basic biological need has some amount of Luxury Consumption Tax, or ÖTV.

Alcohol, electronics, cars, fuel ,communication services, communication devices, cola and similar drinks, cosmetic, newspapers etc.

The rate and the items will change all the time. Especially for the fuel, it's used as a buffer to keep gas prices stable as the Turkish lira and oil prices fluctuate. Currently the luxury tax on gas and diesel is 0 because they gradually reduced it to keep the price somewhat stable as the oil prices soar and the Turkish lira falls. When the oil prices were low and the lira was strong, Turkey had the most expensive fuel prices in the world. Currently, it's the cheapest in Europe.

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

#190

Post by fmajid »

mrtksn wrote: post #180
baybal2 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The way Fethullah Gülen got red-carpet immigration treatment in the US stinks to high heaven, though. It seems suspicion the US was behind the coup attempt is widespread in Turkey and not limited to AKP supporters.
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