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European Commission To Raise Camera Costs in Europe
An anonymous reader writes "According to a recent CNET article, digital camera costs could increase in Europe as result of trade inequalities. 'At the moment, all digital cameras are manufactured outside Europe. They're all imported. All of them. Currently, there's a European Commission-imposed 4.9 per cent import tariff on camcorders, but not on cameras, whatever their video-recording abilities. The EC's Nomenclature Committee has cottoned on to this and wants to slap a tax on cameras that can record at least 30 minutes of video in one go, with a resolution of 800x600 pixels or higher at 23 frames per second or higher. The Nomenclature Committee has recommended the proposal but has not, as yet, garnered the required majority vote.'" Update: 07/23 02:18 GMT by Z : Took out a bit of hyperbole.
So does this affect phones? Slapping arbitrary technical specs on something might later on bleed over into emerging technologies. Hell, I think my phone is almost capable of that... It's not, but it can't be long before your average phone is... So, what's the plans for that?
TLF
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
I foresee special "EU edition" cameras with the video recording function switched off in firmware so it won't qualify for the tariff. Of course manufacturers will "forget" certain cheat codes in the firmware that will permanently enable said functionality. These codes will of course be mysteriously "leaked" to the internet.
I'm confused, are we only against protecting local markets when it's in the software/IT industry? It's bad that Europe is trying to place a duty on camera's made outside of Europe. It's good when the government takes action to prevent outsourcing software development, and Tech Suport to India and Brazil? What side of this issue am I supposed to be on?
This signature would be better if I was creative.
Personally, I'm for outsourcing of software development too.. probably because I'm in Australia and that's one of the places that US companies outsource to :)
How we know is more important than what we know.
It will take the manufacturers all of a blink of an eye to create Euro only models by changing the firmware to limit video capabilities.
Then buyers can change the firmware after they get the cameras.
Try, "with no choice but" instead of "willing" in your statement and you're closer to the truth.
If a country had actual slave labour, would you argue against tariffs on products from that country too?
Things are cheap in China for a lot of reasons:
- no labour standards
- no environmental standards
- no intellectual property standards
- no rights generally
- poverty and desperation amongst the poor
Allowing unfettered access to domestic markets only rewards China for doing nothing to change those things.
Read Pynchon.
What exactly is wrong with promoting a regional economy instead of depending on a complex web of corrupt globalist ties? I'd say an investment in your own people and your own culture rather than perpetuating a globalist materialist culture is well worth the "cost".
With protectionism, Europe still doesn't build cameras, the rich man pays $15 plus higher taxes for the unemployed working man who can't afford the camera. Without protectionism, Germany sells the precision instruments to produce the optics, Japan designs the semiconductors, Taiwan fabs the chips and the Chinese assemble them with equipment bought from the West. Everyone benefits, is employed and makes enough money to buy a $10 camera. That's reality. Anything else is fiction and ignores how the global economy works.
Let's look at what you said more closely:
Claim: "The less tax the better"
Evidence: "because at it's core government is horribly inefficent"
Conclusion: "so the less money going to them the better."
Even if, "at its core", government is horribly inefficient, that does not mean it's not useful, or even necessary. Of course, sometimes government is exceptionally *efficient*. Your evidence does not support your conclusion, which is just a rewording of your claim.
Then you continue: "Sure, they are required to pay for things we couldn't be trusted to pay for ourselfs like police and the military,"
This completely contradicts your conclusion above. If "the less money, the better", then you can't get better than zero. However, zero and the above are contradictory.
Finally: "but taxation to protect local manufacturers who can't compete is crappy economics."
And funneling your wealth out of the country is *good* economics? Extreme anti-protectionism protects only two classes: the multinational corporations and the extremely wealthy. If you are not in either of those two classes, you are arguing against your own best interests. Congratulations.
"BTW there is nothing in what I said that says Chinese people are bad - those who want to come to the West and participate in Western values, come on over."
Over where now? Certainly not to the EU. They aren't letting them in. Not to the US. We aren't letting them in. I don't know what world you are living in, but even among those who can afford to get into the US or EU, or for that matter are even allowed to leave their country of origin, they have no where to go because legal immigration is restricted to a trickle.
In the case of tariffs, the EU is attempting to encourage local manufacturing and reduce trade imbalances
If the EU rally wanted to correct for a trade imbalance then what they need to do is get rid of the 100s of billions of euros in subsidies given to European farmers. Because of these subsidies food grown in Europe can be exported to third world nations and sold there retail for less than farmers there can grow food. That's a big reason the WTO meeting in Geneva fell apart in the summer of 2006. India walked out because first world nations, the EU, Japan, and the US wouldn't cut farm subsidies. India has literally thousands of farmers committing suicide because they can't compeat with farmers who collect hugh subsidies. Slashing US farm subsidies to $13 billion a year is "unacceptable," a Bush administration official said on Wednesday. All these tariffs are is protectionism.
whereas airline "security" is not about making flying safer, but about social engineering, making people more accepting of micro-management from a nanny state, and introducing the perception of safety even though everyone knows that it won't do a lick of good.
Yeap, our overseer lords want us all to believe the only way to keep safe is by having a nanny state. What they're really doing is a power grab, they want to tell people how to live, and if the people won't then force them to live the way they say.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I'm confused, are we only against protecting local markets when it's in the software/IT industry? It's bad that Europe is trying to place a duty on camera's made outside of Europe. It's good when the government takes action to prevent outsourcing software development, and Tech Suport to India and Brazil? What side of this issue am I supposed to be on?
No, it's all bad.
FalconShould there be a Law?
That's a load of Republican propaganda (i.e. bullshit). Taxes build the infrastructure (roads, schools, firehouses) that allow the markets to exist.
Actually the market has been around a lot longer than socialist schools and firehouses.
Roads, well, you got me there. There really are too many transaction costs for roads to be generally private (with the only a few notable exceptions, and those are usually short highways). Even the Roman government built roads.
Of course most US tax dollars go to Social Security outlays (a Ponzi scheme that funnels money from the poor to the rich), the military (as if we needed another war), and the existing socialized medicine of Medicare (often for rich retirees) and Medicaid (medicine for actually poor people who may actually need some help).
Schools, firehouses, and roads are WAY down the list.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I'm afraid you do, though I think it's a matter of not expressing yourself clearly.
Sometimes protectionism can benefit a country. Witness the success of MITI in Japan. Beyond that, however, you must ask the question "bad for whom"? What is it that your economics is trying to maximize? Equality? National wealth? Global wealth? Well being? Sustainability? That's a moral choice, whose answer depends on your ethical framework.
Finally, you provide a hypothetical illustration of one form of bureaucratic inefficiency. This is nothing more than anecdotal evidence... except it's not even anecdotal. It's about on the level of, "Take an American worker who watches some TV. If he's watching TV, he's not working. But the poor Chinese peasant seldom watches TV - he's always working. The Chinese also has to focus on the bottom line, because if he is inefficient he'll starve - the American will just end up on welfare."
If you want to show that goverment is "horribly inefficient" - or, more importantly, that it is less efficient than the market - then you need to compare more than just one possible form of government behavior. There are many ways of organizing economic activity, corporations, and governments. Each has its strengths and weaknesses, which vary depending on the government, th esociety in which it operates, the specific activity in question, etc. - and which must be judged relative to what ever standard you choose for efficiency (which is again an ethical question). If you want to show that government is "horribly inefficient" - or that it is more or less efficient than the market for a particular activity - you need to explain what you mean by "inefficient" and then you need to actually make a comparsion - not just cherry-pick an example, then smack your hands together with glee exclaiming: "see! they're horribly inefficient!"
It may be attractive to look for cute "laws" like "the less tax the better". But they don't exist. What you're stating there is not an objective characterization of the worth of goverment: it's a subjective ethical claim. If you really care about this kind of thing, you would be well advised to read some thoughtful arguments by people with varying perspectives, not run around calling people "dolts".
As it happens, I'm with you in this particular case: I susspect it's pernicious corporate welfare. Though frankly, it's small beans compared to many other goverment activities (software patents, copyright extension, barriers to third world agricultural products, etc.).