291–300 of 305 posts
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What makes you think that if apple paid "fair" prices, that it won't get siphoned off to pay management/shareholders?
If Apple was willing to pay fair prices, they would do the work in a country with strong laws and strong unions not allowing such things to happen.
Generally, how far downstream does the US State Department expect companies to vet vendors for sanctions violation? Due diligence this many layers deep is expensive, especially if hostile (investigative work to proactively discover dishonest sourcing reports.) I would think it would vary by industry--e.g. animation is obviously less stringent than medical devices so would have fewer reporting and certification struct…
So all that's required would then just be to outsource it to a bunch of companies who then outsource it and then claim you have: "no knowledge"? You're the one outsourcing, so it's your responsibility. The entire chain.
Do you have to check that the tablets, keyboards and mice used by your employees and those of outsourcing companies were not made in North Korea? Do you have to check that the ink used on the keyboards weren't made in North Korea? Do you have to check that the coal for the power station for the keyboard factory didn't come from North Korea?
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What do you mean with "syndrome"? Of course business customers can not be held responsible for what other businesses do. If Amazon buys floor tiles for their factories from a company that provides floor tiles to many other companies, how can Amazon be held responsible for any of their unethical practices? Or is it the faith of hackers that any misdoing in the world should always be traced back and blamed on a tech gi…
If Amazon sells me floor tiles full of asbestos, they should sure as hell be held responsible, they can't just absolve it with "oh but we bought it from another company, go complain to them" So why is it different if they sell me floor tiles made with slave labor? Global retailers like H&M and IKEA do do audits of their supply chain to try to stop labor abuse (although how effective they are at that is up to debate)
But if you unknowingly buy floor tiles that have been made with unethical practices, should you be held responsible as a customer? Of course not.
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The entire chain all the way down is sanctioned, the US can and will climb up and down that chain to punish sanctions violations. A company like Disney will have to have a Sanctions Compliance Program and like any other compliance regime, there are standards, external auditors, etc. to make sure enough is being done, and "enough" can be a bit of a moving target. If you get caught having sanctioned suppliers, those st…
> How guilty you are is a function of how good a job the state department thinks you're doing trying to avoid sanctions violations. Is the standard for this codified in clear language anywhere, or is it merely based on the whims of some federal prosecutor/judge? If I make digital watches, and I buy coin cell batteries from a supplier who buys battery precursors from a supplier who buys LiCoO2 from a manufacturer who…
They can let you keep making money until it's promotion time, or an example needs to be made for an election campaign or they find out your watches seem to be the chronometer of choice of the latest insurgency.
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Feds have 99+% conviction rate and infinite money and time, meanwhile you sit in cage and deal with frozen accounts while trying to pay your attorney. They imprisoned weev for doing arithmetic on wget'ing a public website. Worst sin is angering the gods. I would imagine most the time theyll probably just ask nicely for you to stop, then bury you if you don't, but for political or convenient targets they seem fine goi…
The main reason the Feds’ conviction rate is so high is they’re lazy cowards who only try cases that are extremely easy to convict. It’s not that they do nothing but there are shitty incentives in place to only put cases in front of judges that are certain.
Seems like a difficult problem to solve. It shows the importance of paying close attention. NK has shown to be quite good at bypassing sanctions but it seems that the link is almost always through China. It would seem that the best way to go about this would be through stricter negotiations with them, since they are already acting as a significant intermediary. Either they know about this or the great firewall is not…
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Maybe, but what if it’s basically slave labor and the money goes to the regime?
Are you describing Europe? Our taxes definitely feel like they are going to the "regime", making politicians and the wealthy richer, not the everyday worker.
Taxes go to the regime, anywhere, that’s the definition of taxes. You get benefits from them like infrastructure.
Payment for animation from North Korea goes 100% to Kim so he can fund things like his harem.
Why is the USA sanctioning the citizens of North Korea? It's not like theyre happy about a dictator running the country doing international crazy stuff and oppressing them. I feel like we should be supporting any capitalistic effort they make so that they can build up resources to combat their dictator from within.
At the end of the day though, politics is complex, and it's also tied to the people who participate in it. So while many people can suffer as result of a systemic change, the people who brought that to action might have different incentives, might not had the foresight, might have weighed the pros and cons and calculated with it, might sacrifice short-term good for a longer good... might be corrupt even.
TL;DR it's complicated, and it probably has an official, and a real reason as well.
Isn't North Korea working on something like cartoon animation, a good thing?
Why is the USA sanctioning the citizens of North Korea? It's not like theyre happy about a dictator running the country doing international crazy stuff and oppressing them. I feel like we should be supporting any capitalistic effort they make so that they can build up resources to combat their dictator from within.
One wonders where (ugh) Kissinger's Realpolitik would have led us. Regardless, what we do know is that the Norks are hardly pro-american after years of indoctrination.
>It's not like theyr'e happy about a dictator running the country doing international crazy stuff and oppressing them.
As are we. It'd be way worse too if not for The Leader's clearsighted vision in acquiring nuclear capability, against our best efforts.