Maybe. I believe that ordering products from American web sites will still be difficult due to currency conversions and possibility of credit card fraud.
Returns are another even more complex problems. In many European countries, laws provide for much more generous return and refund regulations. In Germany, for example, you have the right to return any purchase within 14 days of arrival *at the cost of the seller*. The seller is not allowed to charge for the shipping cost of returning the product. Also, the general warranty term is two years in which the customer has the right to exchange, refund or repair if the product stops working as expected.
Demand? If the products are manufactured in the US, it might cost a lot of money to ship the entire range of products overseas for distribution. So they might be more selective in what they offer to cut down shipping charges. Add to that the outrageous prices for land in Europe and you'd rather keep as little inventory as at all possible.
This reminds me of something that happened to me. My bank in Germany needed some signature on a form for tax purposes. They send it to my address here in the US. Unfortunately, the mailbox here said "Will only accept mail to the **** family." So they returned it and sent it back to Germany. We lost over a month because of that.
NATO is a military alliance and has close to no influence on local trade regulations. Once it becomes part of the EU common market, however, this situation should get a little better.
Um, this is all fine and dandy but I think you forgot the fact that Dell has shipping and assembly centers in Europe as well so none of the OP's statements apply in the first place.
Many banks will accept postal money orders from many different banks. They will usually also accept foreign checks but won't clear the funds until the check has cleared.
The main reason checks are unpopular for online ordering is because once the money's cleared your account, it's almost impossible to get it back if you are dealing with an uncooperative vendor. Money orders are even worse because they are even harder to track or revoke.
Nationalized banking industry? Europe has at least as many local, regional and national banks per capita as the United States.
Direct debitting is already possible in the United States. One of the main lobbyists against that is the Postal Services which makes millions every year with checks sent through it. Direct debit is a superior method of payment comapred to checks because you don't have to deal with the hassle of people writing hot checks.
So you accept the shipment and refute the charge afterwards on your credit card. It's almost impossible for any company to recover those damages. If you were a US customer, there's the civil court system to get them their due or the product back. If you have to deal with foreign jurisdictions, it becomes much more difficult.
Supreme Court justices aren't elected. And they are who decides what the constitution means. When you took an oath on the constitution, you also acknowledge that it provides for the US Supreme Court to interpret it and that you have to respect their interpretations as much as the constitution itself.
Griswold v Connecticut, Roe v Wade and Lawrence v Texas are all cases where the Supreme Court determined that there is indeed a right of privacy. Maybe a constitutional amendment is in order to spell out exactly how people can be guaranteed freedom from government influence on their lives.
Constitutional amendments have to pass Congress first before the states get to ratify them. Of course, we could just be calling for a constitutional convention. Either way, if that many states were in favor of the amendment it would probably not be too hard to push it through Congress, not that there's any chance that this would happen.
Germany is the only other system I'm familiar with in that regard. When a law passes parliament (Bundest and Bundesrat), there's usually two ways to get the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) to rule on the law.
One way is to basically sue parliament for passing an unconstitutional law. Theoretically anybody can do this but it's usually some kind of interest group that will attempt this. Based on the merits of the case, the court will decide to hear it and make a ruling. The consequence, if the verdict is affirmative to the plaintiff's position, is usually that the law is nullified and parliament is instructed to pass a new one. This is what happened several times with the abortion law. It's important here to realize that the constitutional court does not usually say how the law should be although it might hint at some possible implementations. Specifically, the court didn't decide how abortion was to proceed in contrast to the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision.
A second way is through somewhat called a "Normenkontrollklage". The term is typical of German legalese and means literally "norm control suit". The purpose of it is to challenge whether a unit of the government has violated the constitution in its actions. If, for example, one of the house of parliament votes on a bill and that vote is invalid for whatever reason but the president of the parliament at the time of the vote determined it to be valid, a Normenkontrollklage can be filed with the constitutional court to determine if the parliament followed the rules correctly.
In the case in question two years ago, an immigration law was before the Federal Council (similar to the US Senate as it is a body representing the states). The German constitution says that all delegates of a state have to vote the same for the vote to be valid. Well, during row call, the "governor" of one of the states answered in the name of the state with yes, the deputy governor asnwers with no. The Federal Council president asks again to clarify. The governor again says yes and the deputy says something like "you know my vote on this". The Federal Council president then counted the votes of that state as yes which led to quite a stir in the council chambers. The Christian Democrats (in the opposition at that time) filed a suit with the constitutional court challenging the outcome of the vote and won. The immigration law was thus nullified and had to go through the parliamentary process again. It's now sitting in conference committee, if I remember correctly.
1: If the constitution doesn't say anything, it's up to congress.
That's not quite what the constitution says. The founders put rather strict limitations on the power of congress and enumerated its specific ressponsibiliies. It also stated that all powers not enumerated in it would belong to the states.
In reality, Congress has assumed more power out of the interstate-commerce clause which led to minimum wage and other labor standards, social security, etc.
One word: standing. The Supreme Court only hear cases where the parties have standing. That means, some damage has to be done to you as a result of the Patriot Act. The Supreme Court does not test laws for constitutionality without a plaintiff who has standing.
Here's the trick though: if you fall victim to the Patriot Act, you may not have access to the judicial system. That means, you will never get a chance to challenge it in court.
This is considerably different from many other republican systems where the highest court can often test laws for constitutionality based on a single complaint of a citizen or a branch/agency of the government.
Nah, they don't necessarily have more money per capita. There are just significantly more in number that makes up for it. It's the same reason why almost all mainstream movies tend to center around white people: they are just a bigger audience to market to.
Slashdot Mirror
There's no such thing as long long in the C++ standard. That g++ allows that is an invalid extension.
Maybe. I believe that ordering products from American web sites will still be difficult due to currency conversions and possibility of credit card fraud.
Returns are another even more complex problems. In many European countries, laws provide for much more generous return and refund regulations. In Germany, for example, you have the right to return any purchase within 14 days of arrival *at the cost of the seller*. The seller is not allowed to charge for the shipping cost of returning the product. Also, the general warranty term is two years in which the customer has the right to exchange, refund or repair if the product stops working as expected.
Demand? If the products are manufactured in the US, it might cost a lot of money to ship the entire range of products overseas for distribution. So they might be more selective in what they offer to cut down shipping charges. Add to that the outrageous prices for land in Europe and you'd rather keep as little inventory as at all possible.
This reminds me of something that happened to me. My bank in Germany needed some signature on a form for tax purposes. They send it to my address here in the US. Unfortunately, the mailbox here said "Will only accept mail to the **** family." So they returned it and sent it back to Germany. We lost over a month because of that.
"The final irony? I'm originally from Maine. These folk won't even sell to one of their own!"
I hope that answers it.
NATO is a military alliance and has close to no influence on local trade regulations. Once it becomes part of the EU common market, however, this situation should get a little better.
Um, this is all fine and dandy but I think you forgot the fact that Dell has shipping and assembly centers in Europe as well so none of the OP's statements apply in the first place.
Name the capital of Australia (no, not the country in Europe, The big one near tho bottom of the Pacific. No, it's not Sydney)?
Canberra, in the capital district. Not that it matters
Name two states (we have six and two territories). Come on. Most of them are "bigger than Texas" as the saying goes.
Queensland and New South Wales, not that it matters.
Many banks will accept postal money orders from many different banks. They will usually also accept foreign checks but won't clear the funds until the check has cleared.
The main reason checks are unpopular for online ordering is because once the money's cleared your account, it's almost impossible to get it back if you are dealing with an uncooperative vendor. Money orders are even worse because they are even harder to track or revoke.
Nationalized banking industry? Europe has at least as many local, regional and national banks per capita as the United States.
Direct debitting is already possible in the United States. One of the main lobbyists against that is the Postal Services which makes millions every year with checks sent through it. Direct debit is a superior method of payment comapred to checks because you don't have to deal with the hassle of people writing hot checks.
I stand corrected: IBM History. Strange. I could have sworn it was Industrial. Oh well.
For example, IBM (International Business Machines) allows
Um, that's Industrial Business Machines.
So you accept the shipment and refute the charge afterwards on your credit card. It's almost impossible for any company to recover those damages. If you were a US customer, there's the civil court system to get them their due or the product back. If you have to deal with foreign jurisdictions, it becomes much more difficult.
I don't remember seeing any spanish passports in the US either.
How is this degrading Human Rights exactly?
Where exactly in the constitution do you find that?
Supreme Court justices aren't elected. And they are who decides what the constitution means. When you took an oath on the constitution, you also acknowledge that it provides for the US Supreme Court to interpret it and that you have to respect their interpretations as much as the constitution itself.
Griswold v Connecticut, Roe v Wade and Lawrence v Texas are all cases where the Supreme Court determined that there is indeed a right of privacy. Maybe a constitutional amendment is in order to spell out exactly how people can be guaranteed freedom from government influence on their lives.
Constitutional amendments have to pass Congress first before the states get to ratify them. Of course, we could just be calling for a constitutional convention. Either way, if that many states were in favor of the amendment it would probably not be too hard to push it through Congress, not that there's any chance that this would happen.
Germany is the only other system I'm familiar with in that regard. When a law passes parliament (Bundest and Bundesrat), there's usually two ways to get the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) to rule on the law.
One way is to basically sue parliament for passing an unconstitutional law. Theoretically anybody can do this but it's usually some kind of interest group that will attempt this. Based on the merits of the case, the court will decide to hear it and make a ruling. The consequence, if the verdict is affirmative to the plaintiff's position, is usually that the law is nullified and parliament is instructed to pass a new one. This is what happened several times with the abortion law. It's important here to realize that the constitutional court does not usually say how the law should be although it might hint at some possible implementations. Specifically, the court didn't decide how abortion was to proceed in contrast to the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision.
A second way is through somewhat called a "Normenkontrollklage". The term is typical of German legalese and means literally "norm control suit". The purpose of it is to challenge whether a unit of the government has violated the constitution in its actions. If, for example, one of the house of parliament votes on a bill and that vote is invalid for whatever reason but the president of the parliament at the time of the vote determined it to be valid, a Normenkontrollklage can be filed with the constitutional court to determine if the parliament followed the rules correctly.
In the case in question two years ago, an immigration law was before the Federal Council (similar to the US Senate as it is a body representing the states). The German constitution says that all delegates of a state have to vote the same for the vote to be valid. Well, during row call, the "governor" of one of the states answered in the name of the state with yes, the deputy governor asnwers with no. The Federal Council president asks again to clarify. The governor again says yes and the deputy says something like "you know my vote on this". The Federal Council president then counted the votes of that state as yes which led to quite a stir in the council chambers. The Christian Democrats (in the opposition at that time) filed a suit with the constitutional court challenging the outcome of the vote and won. The immigration law was thus nullified and had to go through the parliamentary process again. It's now sitting in conference committee, if I remember correctly.
1: If the constitution doesn't say anything, it's up to congress.
That's not quite what the constitution says. The founders put rather strict limitations on the power of congress and enumerated its specific ressponsibiliies. It also stated that all powers not enumerated in it would belong to the states.
In reality, Congress has assumed more power out of the interstate-commerce clause which led to minimum wage and other labor standards, social security, etc.
One word: standing. The Supreme Court only hear cases where the parties have standing. That means, some damage has to be done to you as a result of the Patriot Act. The Supreme Court does not test laws for constitutionality without a plaintiff who has standing.
Here's the trick though: if you fall victim to the Patriot Act, you may not have access to the judicial system. That means, you will never get a chance to challenge it in court.
This is considerably different from many other republican systems where the highest court can often test laws for constitutionality based on a single complaint of a citizen or a branch/agency of the government.
Nah, they don't necessarily have more money per capita. There are just significantly more in number that makes up for it. It's the same reason why almost all mainstream movies tend to center around white people: they are just a bigger audience to market to.