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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

#261

Post by anigbrowl »

philwelch wrote: post #8
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?

De minimis allows people to evade tariffs by simply drop shipping each individual product all the way from China or wherever, so long as the retail price is below the threshold. I’m skeptical of tariffs in general but if you’re going to have them, it makes sense to close the loopholes.

Baby, bathwater. For every person abusing it by splitting shipments (easily detectable and prosecutable) I'd bet there are many more taking their first small steps into entrepreneurship with goods or parts worth $100 or $500.

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

#263

Post by bsimpson »

schmookeeg wrote: post #211
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…

Ignoring the massive political elephant that exists in all of this stuff -- isn't this a good trigger, as demand for the "updated standards" products will force these companies (or resellers of these products) to either validate their products for sale in the US or force the US to recognize these EU standards? I suppose an immediate counterpoint is that the US Consumer seems unwilling to clamor for high-quality produ…

If motorcyclists had the power to demand common sense policy improvements, filtering would be legal everywhere, and cities would start adding PTW (powered two-wheels: motorbikes and e-bikes) lanes alongside the current acoustic bike lanes.

It's a relatively small constituency. Most politicians don't want to upset the status quo to advocate for them. A lot of non-riders have enough negative experience (hearing scary stories or being startled by delivery drivers working within the current system) to actively add friction to the conversation.

For instance, NYC's current chief-of-police is a nepobaby. Her mom is a high society type who is afraid of bicycles, so the police have been actively abd specifically harassing cyclists this year.

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

#264

Post by bamboozled »

wnevets wrote: post #128

How can you be an American and not be embarrassed by this? Is stopping the "woke mind virus" really that important to you?

For some people yes, no matter the cost, as long as cruel things happen to people they don't like, it's worth everything and if you asked them whether or not this matters, they will tell you no, because America doesn't need anyone else.

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

#265

Post by Scoundreller »

ethbr1 wrote: post #200
cuuupid wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 les…

It's not a theory -- every business that imports product from international sellers is staring at their current import prices and their remaining pre-tariff inventory numbers right now. (See the huge import volume burst pre-tariffs) What they're trying to decide is (a) do they eat the cost of tariffs in margin or (b) do they raise prices? That's a decision that doesn't need to be made until they burn through warehous…

> But a 15%+ price hike is going to be an uncomfortable narrative for those in power who insist tariffs won't raise prices... so I'm not betting that conversation goes logically.

As someone selling on eBay from notUSA, the cost increases won’t just be the tariff, but some additional fixed and variable fee for the privilege of determining the tariff and potential loss of the cheapest shipping options.

Friction begets friction!

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

#266

Post by bigyabai »

ericmay wrote: post #242
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…

> Closing these de minimus exemptions is making it harder for discerning consumers to buy higher quality goods than are currently available in the US right now. Everything has a trade-off. On the other hand, it also prevents companies from dumping artificially cheap and crappy goods (TEMU) on US markets and making it nearly impossible for others to compete. Unsuspecting consumers buy a super cheap (subsidized) crap p…

> and we wind up with pollution, additional landfill, and relentless consumerism that's harmful to the country

But that happens regardless of whether or not you import manufactured goods, doesn't it?

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

#267

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

czzr wrote: post #243
georgeplusplus wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s disingenuous to consider one’s total income when weighing the fairness of a tax like sales tax. The thought that a sales tax is somehow benefiting one group over the other is ridiculous far left extreme thinking. You pay for a service and that service has a rate. To think that the only good kind of taxation are those that are progressive is the dumbest thing I ever heard.

It’s very, very basic economics - the marginal utility of money decreases, so progressive taxation is better than regressive taxation.

It's basic economics in the sense that it's an oversimplified toy model. In the real world, every country I'm aware of gets a substantial amount of its tax revenue from consumption taxes, and indeed the US's lack of VAT means it's currently much more dependent on progressive income taxes than peer countries. (https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/topics/policy-sub-i...)

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

#268

Post by righthand »

wnevets wrote: post #128

How can you be an American and not be embarrassed by this? Is stopping the "woke mind virus" really that important to you?

Consider that the people who believe in “woke mind virus” aren’t intelligent enough to know what a virus even is, then they’re too unintelligent to understand why they should be embarrassed.

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

#269

Post by johnbrodie »

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 DOT standard isn't good, but the US doesn't disallow helmets that meet other standards. You can buy Bell and Alpinestars MIPS helmets in the US today, no gray market needed: https://www.revzilla.com/mips-motorcycle-helmets

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

#270

Post by stouset »

hdgvhicv wrote: post #252
Latty wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

That's not even what's being argued here.

What's being pointed out is the retcon that "the whole damn point of the tariffs" is to end rampant consumerism. It's clear that the grand^{n}parent poster is flailing about and desperately trying to find the comfort of some coherent and intentional narrative behind a set of inherently incoherent and unintentional actions.

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