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New WTO Trade Deal Will Exempt IT-Related Products From Import Tariffs (cio.com)
itwbennett writes: Under an agreement finalized Wednesday that applies to all 192 member countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO), tariffs on imports of consumer electronics will be phased out over 7 years starting in July 2016. The agreement affects around 10 percent of the world trade in information and communications technology products and will eliminate around $50 billion in tariffs annually, according to IT industry lobby group DigitalEurope. It expects a $190 billion boost to global GDP from the changes.
Why do you think large manufacturers of all the consumer electronics we use today are all located in Southeast Asia?
Some countries have an added tax (built on the tax revenue itself) towards RIAA like music industry groups whose mafia panel is a very small and locked lobby where the profit returns are guaranteed on every computing device with memory on it. Doesn't matter if they sell 100 copies or 100k they could even spend years releasing nothing and get a decent bonus at the end of the year to good chunk of tens of thousands depending on yearly IT related profits.
Why is this one less important than the import tariff? Is it because they can loop a slice of their yearly tax return in donations to the political powers that be?
This will clearly help the world redistribute wealth into everyone's pockets...
Bye!
Cheap Chinese routers for everybody!
There has never been a worse trade agreement ever signed by America. Sure, it's been fantastic for the Asian countries but - being an American - you'll excuse me for putting my country's interest first. Let's look at the results: destruction of American manufacturing; elimination of decent middle-class wages; tremendous profitability for the elite "owners" (and don't give me the crap about how - since pension funds invest in mega-corps it benefits retirees when they do this) of said mega-corps; and....the complete abrogation of national sovereignty that it brings. How many of you know that the WTO can (and has) declared American laws "illegal" under the WTO agreement due to a loss of profit to int'l corps and the American citizen has had to either: change our laws or pony up taxpayer $$$ for the "fine". Yeah, tell me again how this is great for America.....
The more IT equipment is traded between nations, the more they can all spy on each other with embedded malware and hidden backdoors. Makes complete sense.
And no, I don't wear a tinfoil hat, and this post is half joke, but only half... I'm sure that at least one NSA official nudged a bureaucrat somewhere that this would be good for national security.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
Doesn't really matter much to me. The Tarrifs OTOH help protect local business and when there is no local business fund my gov't. I read somewhere that a bunch of well-to-do kids from the ivy league were surveyed about their thoughts on the economy and what came out was they were only concerned with growing the economy. They weren't evil or anything. They were just completely focused on growing the economy. If they did good in the process bully for me, if they did bad oh well. They weren't immoral, they were amoral.
In a lot of ways that's worse. It tells me that they're focused completely on the share of that growth they get. There's a name for that, rent seeking. There's a less cheerful name for it too, parasites...
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Well.... It all depends on a given sociaty, if this is good or bad. Yes, it is allways good for the customer and the seller. But for a given state? Now... If you have a country, like Denmark, were you get import charges slammed on top of everything (no exeption) sold at 11,5 US Dollars. Then this is good news. Good because you as a customer get's more choices, than the ones that can only be bought locally. This again makes a certain kind of poison, if you'r state is based on a wellfare system, that is looking after those in need, by letting tarrif's and heavily taxing those who have/or earn more than they can use. The system is not geared towards that. If you on the other hand, have a system that does not care for those in need, in the same kind of way and matter. Well... Then it really does not make that big a difference. Other than more can be sold and bought. Reading on the WTO webpage, just tell's me that yes, these things are loosing import tarrif's. On the other hand, something else will get slammed with tarrif's instead. (can't remember what exactly). So this is not removing tarrif's. They have actually just pushed them from one kind of good's to another. Hence, not really removing them at all. Reading that.... Well.... Makes sence. It's is just a way of dealing with a changing global market, and making things suit the global need better.
They have a large number of tariffs that they agreed to drop which they have not done so.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The West exports jobs to the 3rd world and imports the citizens. Brilliant.
Without working through their figures, I have no doubt that they get to their staggering $190 billion "boost" by adding up the current tariffs around the world.
But that tariff money does not evaporate after payment, it goes into the economy of where it was paid. If you transfer money from Peter to Paul, there is no direct loss to any economy which includes them both - and in this case it does include both as it is the global economy they are claiming for.
Of course there can be secondary effects such as encouraging or discouraging manufacture here or there. In this case though it will only further discourage manufacture in the West and encourage it where wages are cheap, but that trend does not look to me like it needs any more encouragement.