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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

#321
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not talking about trade imbalance. I'm simply saying, tax incidence is predicted by elasticity, and in the long run suppliers have very high elasticity. You can possibly improve trade imbalance with tariffs (though retaliation makes it hard). But it's hard to escape your consumers paying most or all of the costs of those tariffs.

I think we agree if I'm understanding you correctly, yes the Suppliers have more elasticity and must ultimately absorb this. I'd say the remaining problem left in our analysis is massive inequality in America leading to enormous consumer elasticity in a small ultra-wealth portion. This I can't figure out

That's the opposite of how tax incidence works.

Elasticity means you can change your amount produced in response to changes in price.

Producers can’t easily change output, so they bear more of the tax burden themselves. But in the long run, producers can reallocate or exit until they’re producing at minimum(average total cost), which makes supply more elastic and shifts most of the burden onto consumers.

This is stuff that's covered in week 4 of a basic microeconomics class. It gets a little fancier with imperfect competition or heterogenous agents, etc, but predicting tax incidence is basically dominated by this even in advanced microeconomics.

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

#322
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

One alternative that has been tried (and is, arguably, still being tried) is Constitutional Republic. The difference is that some things get hammered into a Constitution and are indisputable without a significant process. That counterweights the populist "half of everyone is below average" effect. Someone convinces a whole bunch of people that maybe slavery is actually super useful sometimes? Thirteenth amendment. A…

> The difference is that some things get hammered into a Constitution and are indisputable without a significant process.

Yes, but there's an alternative 'significant process' which is to simply have a political party capture the body which interprets the constitution, and then an elite group of powerful insiders captures the political party, and then you're just an oligopoly but with additional steps.

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

#323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One alternative that has been tried (and is, arguably, still being tried) is Constitutional Republic. The difference is that some things get hammered into a Constitution and are indisputable without a significant process. That counterweights the populist "half of everyone is below average" effect. Someone convinces a whole bunch of people that maybe slavery is actually super useful sometimes? Thirteenth amendment. A…

> The difference is that some things get hammered into a Constitution and are indisputable without a significant process. Yes, but there's an alternative 'significant process' which is to simply have a political party capture the body which interprets the constitution, and then an elite group of powerful insiders captures the political party, and then you're just an oligopoly but with additional steps.

Definitely. But, for what it's worth, that's a process that takes decades and requires an electorate profoundly asleep at the wheel. Like one that fumbles an election during a pivotal year that decides the timbre of their judicial system for a generation.

Certainly not impossible though.

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

#324
post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

I don‘t think it is a spectrum either (if we are even more pedantic), or at least no a linear scale spectrum, but rather a system of government where democratic institutions ensure certain rights and privileges to common citizens and residents. So maybe a multidimensional spectrum where if you fail to meet a vaguely defined and constantly evolving threshold you are not a democracy.

The USA today will probably (and hopefully) not be considered a democracy by some future standard. Disqualifications may include:

* limited suffrage,

* limited or unequal access to health care and education for a significant portion of the population,

* convoluted voting system where certain demographics have little to no chance to pursue public office,

* large constituencies,

* non-state territories/districts with little to no representation at the national level,

* unincorporated populated areas, with little to no representation at the local level,

* a lack of clear separation of power between the different democratic institution,

* failure to enact popular policies,

* police violence,

* the death penalty,

* a large wealth gap,

* a lack of consumer protection,

* a lack of worker rights,

* failure to prosecute the rich and powerful for their crimes,

* a large nuclear armed military which constantly engages in imperialist actions,

* failure to respect the sovereignty of other states,

* etc.

I think describing this system as a Democratic Republic offers no insight into whether it is democratic or not (or how democratic it is on this spectrum). Republic just means that there is a president which holds some the executive power.

There is far more insight into calling the USA a capitalistic aristocracy, a two party state, a militaristic imperial superpower, a flawed, unequal, and underrepresented democracy, a police state, etc.

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

#325
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…

[dead]

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

#326

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…

Thanks for sharing info about MIPS, it looks great.

Short animation of how it works for anyone else who's unfamiliar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvyoSzAPIBE

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

#327

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…

> reason why every capitalist you know is complaining about tariffs isn't because they make the rich richer

…which capitalist is complaining? These tariffs are a regressive tax that rewards political proximity and power. They are also a massive subsidy to our services sector, which is dominated in compensation by finance, insurance, real estate and tech.

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

#328
post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Billionaires still pay property taxes etc so it’s worth separating how regressive various tax schemes are.

They don't really. They misreport the value for tax purposes, they own it through some other legal entity that is all negative, they own it through a company that negotiated tax rates to have some other business happen there, they own it in countries that don't to property taxes, etc. etc. You can be damn sure they're paying at most a tiny fraction if not zero of any tax rate you'd be paying for that asset as they'd…

> They misreport the value for tax purposes

Regular people also commit fraud which can make some differences here. But in general it’s the state who decides what something is worth for tax purposes not the individual.

> they own it through some other legal entity that is all negative

Unpaid property taxes result in forfeiture, so again the state’s getting paid here. It’s financial voodoo around other taxes which causes such structures.

> they own it in countries that don't to property taxes

So do regular people, the important bit is where such property is located not who owns it.

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

#329
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)

Yall missing the point.

If your manager at work acted like a legit insane person, but said one true thing, you wouldn't be there saying that he/she is smart in that particular area.

If by some chance in hell tarrifs actually work, its due to pure luck, not due to any strategy. Which is what the original person I am replying to made it seem.

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

#330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If we used a similar methodology for testing cars, we’d be blasting watermelon heads from a cannon against windshields and sacks of potatoes against steering wheels. We’d benefit from more realistic models. But I guess our helmets would then cost $500.

Is the methodology that bad? What's wrong with it?

From their test protocol (https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/5e7...), it looks like they simulate a fall (with a model head inside it) against a target at an oblique angle, at six different impact locations and two speeds each. They go through 4 of each helmet model for the rest.

It seems a lot better than nothing (which is what we had before them, at least outside of manufacturers own private tests). Their research was initially funded by the IIHS, the group that does the highway crash tests.

How would you like to see it improved?

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