Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States

post.japanpost.jp

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 459 posts

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

#251

Post by ethbr1 »

pphysch wrote: post #236
ethbr1 wrote: post #226

Hot take: good The de minimis treatment has been abused beyond original intent. Specifically by China, but you can't fix that without fixing the general case. Fast fashion and other low-value drop air shipping across oceans is ecologically insane: as a planet we literally can't afford to keep doing this. And the US, by virtue of population + relative consumer wealth, is the biggest customer for this. Furthermore, the…

Small D2C packages aren't necessarily worse ecologically than a big US retailer importing a bunch of junk to store in warehouses and maybe sell to customers (else landfill).

There's a very thin possibility window where the inefficiencies of individual packaging + shipping don't outweigh the efficiencies of bulk importing, even accounting for bulk wastage.

If we want to argue the former, I'd say we need to start with non-negotiable 100%-biodegradable, 0%-plastic packaging.

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

#252

Post by hdgvhicv »

Latty wrote: post #187
hdgvhicv wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Sure. You can support these exact tarrifs and not support trump in general

If you have to be against everything Trump does to be against Trump that’s a problem, and you’d be a hypocrite (like Trump)

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

#253

Post by hypeatei »

pessimizer wrote: post #227
bsimpson wrote: post #198

There was chatter about this in one of the NYC subreddits over the weekend. Apparently ending the de minimus exemption is closing the grey market for e.g. sunscreen; places that used to sell Japanese sunscreens on American shelves no longer are. There's a frustratingly long list of goods that the US decided to put requirements on in previous generations, and then stopped maintaining. Sunscreen is one; other countries…

I don't understand the argument that it's bad that the government is suppressing grey markets in goods that aren't approved in the US. I get it from a selfish point of view, as in I want a particular helmet and I think the design is safer, so I'm upset when I can't have it at the price I want it. I don't understand it as a political argument. If our government isn't meant to do anything, shut it down entirely. Don't…

The government can't solve for everything at all times. That's why free markets exist and are important. You could have the best most awesome helmet safety regulation get passed on Friday and have it completely blown up by a new discovery on Monday. How long will it take for regulators to catch up?

> The way you fix that is by fixing regulatory processes

Well, that kinda hand waves away a lot of the roadblocks you run into with government and elected officials. In an ideal world, yes, we have regulatory and legislative bodies that can react quickly and do the right thing everytime but that isn't reality.

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

#254

Post by solardev »

Scoundreller wrote: post #231
bsimpson wrote: post #198

There was chatter about this in one of the NYC subreddits over the weekend. Apparently ending the de minimus exemption is closing the grey market for e.g. sunscreen; places that used to sell Japanese sunscreens on American shelves no longer are. There's a frustratingly long list of goods that the US decided to put requirements on in previous generations, and then stopped maintaining. Sunscreen is one; other countries…

The funny thing about MIPS is that it makes the same helmet safer, but it might have been a garbage helmet to begin with. Throwing away your non-MIPS helmet and replacing it with a MIPS may be a safety- reducing decision, unless you’re buying the exact same model.

For anyone who wants more data, Virginia Tech runs a helmet impact testing lab and publishes results and rankings: https://www.helmet.beam.vt.edu/bicycle-helmet-ratings.html

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

#255

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

favflam wrote: post #57
monero-xmr wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see why we should allow 0% imports but be shut out of exports. Yes yes according to some chart this is actually a good thing but I find it unfair. For centuries the theory was mercantilism which is the highest imbalance of trade in your favor is good. The last century was Keynesian “deficits don’t matter” where taken to its conclusion, the worst possible imbalance is good, because that means they have to rein…

My middle school 7th grade civics class told me that this conversation happens in Congress in Congressional hearings. I get to hear my Rep ask questions. There is a Congressional research office that acts as a kind of neutral arbiter of truth allowing for evidenced based instructions. Then, after weeks or months, a consensus builds and Congress passes a law and tells the President what to do (hence Congress=Article O…

Our middle school 7th grade civics classes taught us a heavily simplified version of civics suitable for 7th graders. The canonical story of how legislation works bears no resemblance to, for example, the process around NAFTA when some of us were in 7th grade - Congress was not invited to participate in negotiations nor permitted to substantially amend the agreement.

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

#256

Post by johannes1234321 »

pessimizer wrote: post #239
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.

> This needs to be repeated. Tariffs are a tax on ordinary citizens. Unlike regular taxes, tariffs are not progressive and therefore benefit the wealthy. No, people need to stop repeating it, because it's an extremely stupid anti-tax argument. Tariffs are meant to onshore production and raise wages. Telling half the story is simply lying. You might as well complain about buying food because it costs money. You might…

Using tariffs is A common way to protect local industry. However it is a dangerous weapon, which has downsides. In history tariffs have show to lead to high prices on the domestic market and products which are subpar to globally standards. Domestic companies don't have pressure to innovate, while global market has more competition.

Consequence of that is protection by product group for key products one wants to have locally and not per origin on all kinds of goods.

This can lead to short term wins, but backfire after a while.

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

#257

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

monero-xmr wrote: post #14
favflam wrote: post #3

This situation feels dumb. I feel like I am watching idiots cheer on someone doing parkor and that person getting his teeth smashed on a wall. Like, what is the point?

I don’t see why we should allow 0% imports but be shut out of exports. Yes yes according to some chart this is actually a good thing but I find it unfair. For centuries the theory was mercantilism which is the highest imbalance of trade in your favor is good. The last century was Keynesian “deficits don’t matter” where taken to its conclusion, the worst possible imbalance is good, because that means they have to rein…

> The last century was Keynesian “deficits don’t matter” where taken to its conclusion, the worst possible imbalance is good, because that means they have to reinvest their dollars which supports the US, blah blah.

You're blaming the wrong economist. Keynes believed that trade deficits are a big problem and tariffs are an effective policy to remediate them.

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

#258

Post by bsimpson »

pessimizer wrote: post #227
bsimpson wrote: post #198

There was chatter about this in one of the NYC subreddits over the weekend. Apparently ending the de minimus exemption is closing the grey market for e.g. sunscreen; places that used to sell Japanese sunscreens on American shelves no longer are. There's a frustratingly long list of goods that the US decided to put requirements on in previous generations, and then stopped maintaining. Sunscreen is one; other countries…

I don't understand the argument that it's bad that the government is suppressing grey markets in goods that aren't approved in the US. I get it from a selfish point of view, as in I want a particular helmet and I think the design is safer, so I'm upset when I can't have it at the price I want it. I don't understand it as a political argument. If our government isn't meant to do anything, shut it down entirely. Don't…

Two things are happening at the same time.

On the one hand, government is broken writ large. It's been dominated by politicians who care more about power than improvement for as long as I've been alive. The problem becomes worse and feels more intractable every year. I'm not convinced there's anything individuals can practically do to help resolve it. (Those in power would ruin your life if you actually did a good job at making the world better in a way that impinged on their power.)

On the other hand, technology is enabling rules to be enforced in a more automated way. You see this with speed cameras, and now also with these stricter shipping requirements.

These rules were written to have an exhaust valve: for speed limits, that's police discretion. For imports, that's the de minimus exemption. Nobody cares what individuals do; they care what markets do (which is part of why bans are usually bans on selling, not on owning).

I touched on this a little bit about self-driving cars the other day too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44987516

The ratcheting of rules into automated policy is dystopian.

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

#259

Post by coryrc »

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.

It's a spectrum. If we're being pedantic, the US is already not a Democracy, but a Democratic Republic.
Post reply on HN