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Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States

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Re: Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States

#181

Post by nine_k »

uncircle wrote: post #145
coryrc wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your alternative? I'm serious. (Mine is multi-member ranked voting (NOT IRV)).

Can’t get into details in a forum comment, but I’ll say that whatever we have in most of the Western world ain’t very democratic. It is a spectrum, that currently skews very hard towards plutarchy. The positive thing about having a king is that there was only one head to cut when things got out of hand. Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44887634 I’m no monarchist, but it’s about time to have a serious…

> only one head to cut when things got out of hand.

History has been showing time and again that it's an illusion. Bad governance structures and corruption get entrenched, and gladly plead allegiance to a new king.

Re: Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States

#182

Post by Scoundreller »

scoopr wrote: post #69
CalRobert wrote: post #6

You can still send letters- this is a big deal but it’s not -quite- as bad as I first thought since my ballot is mailed in from abroad…

While technically true, f.ex. Finland has stopped all mail shipments[0]. I guess the airlines were not set up to dealing with the hassle of making sure all the shipments are “allowed”. Or maybe just lazy, dunno really. [0] https://www.posti.fi/en/latest-news-at-posti/%20/news/trump-...

Thailand too: https://www.reddit.com/r/Thailand/comments/1mx1m9r/no_mail_s...

Re: Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States

#183

Post by timr »

someotherperson wrote: post #160
timr wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So execute it for China alone. The issue is that these blanket actions are lazy at best and exclusively populist. Same argument. If there's a country that doesn't get tariffs, that country will very quickly become the leading global exporter to the US. It's the same thing for the "penguin island" that everyone mocked: if you put high tariffs on every place but penguin island, it will soon be Penguin Island Logistic…

> If there's a country that doesn't get tariffs, that country will very quickly become the leading global exporter to the US No it won't lol, that's not how international logistics work. You don't just flick a switch overnight. Maybe measured in the order of years... in which case the policies can be adjusted. They clearly think this works for taxing Americans given how huge the tax code is. > same thing for the "pen…

> No it won't lol, that's not how international logistics work. You don't just flick a switch overnight.

I didn't say "overnight". But if you don't think it would happen, you haven't been paying attention: it has been happening for decades. It's not a crazy thing to consider when establishing a tariff policy.

> Penguin island was stupid because it reflected how lazy the policies they applied are. It clearly showed that the Trump administration doesn't fundamentally understand what trade deficits are nor does it have an actual, well thought out plan. The only thing Penguin island has in common with this is that both actions are incredibly lazy and superficial. The Trump admin needs to get serious.

Flinging names ("lazy", "superficial") is not an argument. You've obviously decided that these actions are stupid -- maybe they are! [1] -- and nobody is going to convince you otherwise, but I just gave you a plausible reason that you'd choose to do it this way.

[1] I don't personally like these policies, but I'm willing to admit when something I don't like as a whole makes sense in part.

Re: Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States

#184

Post by bendbro »

cheema33 wrote: post #34

This needs to be repeated. Tariffs are a tax on ordinary citizens. Unlike regular taxes, tariffs are not progressive and therefore benefit the wealthy. These are the sort of things the poor and middle class voted for. To make the rich, richer. And then turn around and complain that rich are getting richer and they are getting poorer.

> These are the sort of things the poor and middle class voted for. To make the rich, richer.

Experts show saving 7.1337% at Walmart is worth losing your job to offshoring!

I haven't seen meaningful change for poor or workers with a decade of Democrat policy, so pardon me while I ignore that and vote for some tariffs.

Re: Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States

#185

Post by cuuupid »

freen wrote: post #176
cuuupid wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone has been repeating this for months but inflation remains relatively normal so prices are not rising. Maybe it's a delayed effect that we won't see until later in the year, but at this point it is a theory and far from a fact, not something that needs to be repeated. We have already observed that the opposite does not hold - in 2017 we slashed corporate income tax by 14% across the board, roughly the same as…

Companies have reserves, local stock etc. Fixed prices are a bet on TACO and hoping to avoid the orange rage: see what happens when you blame price increases on tariffs. Lots and lots of bribes have been paid. This is yet another.

We will definitely see but it's still a theory at this point, and one that has not played out the other way in the past with a reduction on corporate tax _across the board_

> Fixed prices are a bet on TACO

Having been part of some of these conversations it's mostly a bet that democrats will win back control sometime in the next decade and do a full reversal. When that happens, you don't want to be caught out with less market share because you adjusted your prices to maintain your bottom line. Same logic as startups burning VC cash on offering free compute, 80% discounts on tokens, etc. to grab market share.

If you're in an elastic market, your priority is not to maximize profit, it's to make the market inelastic.

Re: Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States

#186

Post by bendbro »

Retric wrote: post #155
Gud wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no "level playing field" when you are competing with literal sweatshops though. Frankly tariffs get a bad rep because of from who and how they are implemented but can absolutely serve a purpose.

Automation consistently outcompetes sweatshops. What’s missing from these discussions is the idea of competitive advantage. It is inherently more efficient to grow crops in climates where they thrive, tacking a tariff to protect domestic production means intentionally lowering the standard of living of everyone both domestically and abroad to favor some tiny group doing something wasteful.

I don't want to compete with pollution, child labor, slaves, extreme hours, and poverty-tier living conditions

Re: Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States

#187

Post by Latty »

hdgvhicv wrote: post #180
ActorNightly wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You can support some of trumps policies while thinking the insurrectionist peadophile should be behind bars You can also support tarrifs in principal but not support the way they have been implemented (club not calpol, used as a political weapon or to extract mafia style favours)

The post being replied to says "the tarrifs", clearly referring to the current set of tarrifs implemented by this admin, not the concept of tarrifs in general, otherwise they'd have just said "tarrifs".

Re: Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States

#188

Post by nine_k »

zahlman wrote: post #151
coryrc wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your alternative? I'm serious. (Mine is multi-member ranked voting (NOT IRV)).

"Democracy" is the form of government; you are speaking of voting systems, which are an implementation detail, and not in the same natural category. "Alternatives to democracy" are things like despotism, monarchy, communism, fascism etc.

Aristocratic republics have been doing quite well for some time: Florence, Venice, Genoa in the Mediterranean, much of the Hanseatic league and places like Novgorod, and later the Dutch Republic, in the north.

Re: Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States

#189

Post by Scoundreller »

shortrounddev2 wrote: post #10

We should have something like the federal reserve, but for trade policy. A board of governors nominated and confirmed by the senate in 8 year rotations. Politicians cannot be trusted to craft economic policy. I am dubious that they should be crafting fiscal policy either since theyve shown they cant be trusted with that either

In theory, most countries are signatories to the Universal Postal Union and World Customs Organization (branches of the UN) to keep the post/customs system humming along.

I tried to read up on their “rules” on this topic and it’s a bunch of wishy-washy hot air other than some standardization of customs declaration forms, and I guess HS codes.

Otherwise the only way you get everyone to agree on something: by getting them to agree on nothing during their junket meetings.

Re: Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States

#190

Post by gruez »

throw0101a wrote: post #174
gruez wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Trump has the power to do anything that people (especially Congress) does not push back against. Elections are run at the state level, so it's not like Trump can direct state agencies to stop counting mail-in ballots. That said, the fact that elections are run at the state level, and the fact that only a handful of swing states matter means it only takes a few pliant election officials to change the outcome of the e…

> Elections are run at the state level, so it's not like Trump can direct state agencies to stop counting mail-in ballots. Trump asked Texas to redistrict that they were all for it.

That's mentioned in the second part of my comment:

>it only takes a few pliant election officials to change the outcome of the election. eg. if Georgia's governor caved in 2020.

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