I'm not the OP, but this actually has the potential to depress prices of necessities (food/energy/housing), most of which are made locally in the US, especially if the Chinese stop buying from us in retaliation. This will act as a 20% import tax on new goods, basically a Federal VAT, which will make up for some of the revenue lost in our tax cuts. Poorer people who buy used will be less affected than wealthier people who buy everything new. This could actually be redistributive, especially if Congress goes blue in 2018/20 and social service cuts are reversed.
Clothing and footwear? Doubt it will affect me -- I'm that guy who doesn't know how to dress and buys half his clothes at Goodwill, then keeps them till they're full of holes. Same with shoes -- I mostly wear a few pairs, one of which I've had for 10+ years.
The cost of equipment in healthcare and education is frankly a fraction of the total cost of either. Education (at least the cheaper public universities and public schools) tends to keep their equipment well past its "sell by" date. Let's say that I still see some CRT screens in schools and universities, even in 2018:)
Playing Devil's advocate -- who needs the job more? The Apple middle manager with 50% equity in his home and a nice 401k, or an unemployed factory worker who'd jump at the chance to work with his hands again for $50 grand a year?
USENET is/was a purely peer-to-peer system with no effective censorship. The downside to this, of course, was massive quantities of spam, which killed it. If someone could effectively solve the spam issue without censoring...
Taxing consumption of new electronic goods and cars (via the parts in them) at 20% while lowering aggregate income tax rates might actually be slightly redistributive to the poor and lower middle class. At least to those with enough sense to buy those goods used on Craigslist.
It probably won't affect food, energy, or housing prices much, since most food is still grown in the US, we make a lot of gas and oil, and our building materials are also locally manufactured.
If anything, it might depress the prices of these necessities if the Chinese restrict purchases from the US or slap on reciprocal tariffs.
This isn't only VAT - this is frequently due to import tariffs. We're just doing as many other countries have done.
Here's the thing. This might not be terrible if we can lower income taxes while making up the revenue by taxing imported goods. Most food, energy, and lumber is domestically produced, so it won't affect necessity prices (food, water, housing, heat), but it will tax consumption of new goods -- i.e. tax those who can actually afford it.
This is oddly redistributive, even if Trump doesn't intend it to be.
Actually, the rest of the world DOES pay already.
Take Apple products. If you buy in most of Europe, you'll pay from 30% to 50% more than in the US. Same goes for Dominican Republic, St. Lucia, and T&T.
TV - I don't watch enough to care whether it's 19" or 55". Car - in a one-working-parent home or where one parent takes transit to work, one car is all that's needed. If anything, there are too many cars on the road today. 1970s were great in that only one parent had to work to make ends meet. Patched clothes - better than throwing away tons of textile waste as we do in 2018. Read about it. Small houses - how much square footage do we really need? I'd rather have a 1000 sf house in a walkable older area than a poorly-insulated 3000 sf McMansion in the middle of a soulless exurb.
The idea would be that, if devices were more expensive to replace, it would force makers to make them slightly more repairable. 95% of failures on smartphones are two parts. Digitizer and battery.
If they (zOMG) put a door or screwed-down cover in the back to enable painless battery replacement, and routed the screen cables/mounted the screen such that changing it took 5 minutes, phones could last 5-10 years with the occasional $25 outlay on a battery or digitizer panel.
Things like laptops (not Smurface junk) have replaceable circuit boards for a lot of things. Also, most failures are things like display cables breaking or power connectors coming unsoldered. They can typically be fixed with a bit of ingenuity.
I've picked up more than one piece of electronics from the street -- perfect working order except the AC plug had a broken prong. People can't even be arsed to replace a plug these days.
I'm not upset that Tech Bubble 2.0 might be pricked this year -- I'm hoping for more like a 25-50% NASDAQ correction. Too many companies whose entire business model is based on advertising, not a real product. Also, investors seem to love companies whose business model is to slurp up personal information for resale. If this puts the kibosh on this kind of poor corporate citizenship, good.
I'm no fan of Trump's authoritarian asshattery. But this may be good for the average Slashdotter, who's likely a tinkerer at heart. More expensive Chinese goods means that the repair-replace balance will be thrown to the left, and money can be made repairing existing hardware vs tossing it out and buying another special at Walmart.
Discouraging people from throwing hardware away instead of fixing it is also environmentally good. E-waste is a real issue, like it or not, and there's no need to make more e-waste if you can just upgrade existing hardware, fix the OS, whatever.
I.T. seems to be going in the direction of a better e-leash. How to better track your location via your phone, car, etc, how to track your habits to better throw ads in your face, how to sell things that used to be a one-time fee to you as a service paid monthly, how to keep connected to your boss 24/7, how to track citizens' travels as a government. Pardon my cynicism.
On the other hand, recent developments in biomedical science, electric cars, renewable energy and private space travel have been amazingly cool. So it really depends on the actual technology.
This isn't about limiting "trafficking". This is limiting all sex for pay among consenting adults, which is made easier/safer via peer-to-peer platforms. Someone who advertises on Backpage doesn't need a middleman (aka a pimp).
i.e. it's a law not created to help victims, but rather by marching moral majority morons, to control what consenting adults are allowed to do in their own bedrooms. Same deal as with alcohol and marijuana prohibition laws.
Throw the book at pimps who force people into prostitution or use children. But consenting adults should be able to decide for themselves. Nevada, Amsterdam, and Berlin are good examples of how the business should be treated.
Assuming you don't live in such a community, with other means of surveillance and work for Facebook...
Leave phone at home, running, with Facebook installed. Go out for a day at the beach. Sick people sleep, and sleeping people put their ringer on vibrate.
Better yet, leave the phone at home on WiFi so the FB app has GPS and Internet access. Swap your SIM to a cheap flip-phone, and use that while out.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not the OP, but this actually has the potential to depress prices of necessities (food/energy/housing), most of which are made locally in the US, especially if the Chinese stop buying from us in retaliation. This will act as a 20% import tax on new goods, basically a Federal VAT, which will make up for some of the revenue lost in our tax cuts. Poorer people who buy used will be less affected than wealthier people who buy everything new. This could actually be redistributive, especially if Congress goes blue in 2018/20 and social service cuts are reversed.
Clothing and footwear? Doubt it will affect me -- I'm that guy who doesn't know how to dress and buys half his clothes at Goodwill, then keeps them till they're full of holes. Same with shoes -- I mostly wear a few pairs, one of which I've had for 10+ years.
The cost of equipment in healthcare and education is frankly a fraction of the total cost of either. Education (at least the cheaper public universities and public schools) tends to keep their equipment well past its "sell by" date. Let's say that I still see some CRT screens in schools and universities, even in 2018 :)
Playing Devil's advocate -- who needs the job more? The Apple middle manager with 50% equity in his home and a nice 401k, or an unemployed factory worker who'd jump at the chance to work with his hands again for $50 grand a year?
USENET is/was a purely peer-to-peer system with no effective censorship. The downside to this, of course, was massive quantities of spam, which killed it. If someone could effectively solve the spam issue without censoring...
Taxing consumption of new electronic goods and cars (via the parts in them) at 20% while lowering aggregate income tax rates might actually be slightly redistributive to the poor and lower middle class. At least to those with enough sense to buy those goods used on Craigslist.
It probably won't affect food, energy, or housing prices much, since most food is still grown in the US, we make a lot of gas and oil, and our building materials are also locally manufactured.
If anything, it might depress the prices of these necessities if the Chinese restrict purchases from the US or slap on reciprocal tariffs.
This isn't only VAT - this is frequently due to import tariffs. We're just doing as many other countries have done.
Here's the thing. This might not be terrible if we can lower income taxes while making up the revenue by taxing imported goods. Most food, energy, and lumber is domestically produced, so it won't affect necessity prices (food, water, housing, heat), but it will tax consumption of new goods -- i.e. tax those who can actually afford it.
This is oddly redistributive, even if Trump doesn't intend it to be.
But your net trade surplus in your example should be positive -- if it's negative, you're borrowing money.
Re: Russia -- a rodent 1/20 your weight can give you rabies and kill ya.
(people buy electronics in the US all the time to bring back from trips abroad as a "personal item")
Actually, the rest of the world DOES pay already. Take Apple products. If you buy in most of Europe, you'll pay from 30% to 50% more than in the US. Same goes for Dominican Republic, St. Lucia, and T&T.
TV - I don't watch enough to care whether it's 19" or 55".
Car - in a one-working-parent home or where one parent takes transit to work, one car is all that's needed. If anything, there are too many cars on the road today. 1970s were great in that only one parent had to work to make ends meet.
Patched clothes - better than throwing away tons of textile waste as we do in 2018. Read about it.
Small houses - how much square footage do we really need? I'd rather have a 1000 sf house in a walkable older area than a poorly-insulated 3000 sf McMansion in the middle of a soulless exurb.
The idea would be that, if devices were more expensive to replace, it would force makers to make them slightly more repairable. 95% of failures on smartphones are two parts. Digitizer and battery.
If they (zOMG) put a door or screwed-down cover in the back to enable painless battery replacement, and routed the screen cables/mounted the screen such that changing it took 5 minutes, phones could last 5-10 years with the occasional $25 outlay on a battery or digitizer panel.
Wasn't an 80s Ford Escort actually a Mazda 323, or did that come later?
Things like laptops (not Smurface junk) have replaceable circuit boards for a lot of things. Also, most failures are things like display cables breaking or power connectors coming unsoldered. They can typically be fixed with a bit of ingenuity.
I've picked up more than one piece of electronics from the street -- perfect working order except the AC plug had a broken prong. People can't even be arsed to replace a plug these days.
Exactly. Though they're flouting the law, not flaunting :)
I'm not upset that Tech Bubble 2.0 might be pricked this year -- I'm hoping for more like a 25-50% NASDAQ correction. Too many companies whose entire business model is based on advertising, not a real product. Also, investors seem to love companies whose business model is to slurp up personal information for resale. If this puts the kibosh on this kind of poor corporate citizenship, good.
A $1 part will be $2. An entire $600 widget will be $800.
I'm no fan of Trump's authoritarian asshattery. But this may be good for the average Slashdotter, who's likely a tinkerer at heart. More expensive Chinese goods means that the repair-replace balance will be thrown to the left, and money can be made repairing existing hardware vs tossing it out and buying another special at Walmart.
Discouraging people from throwing hardware away instead of fixing it is also environmentally good. E-waste is a real issue, like it or not, and there's no need to make more e-waste if you can just upgrade existing hardware, fix the OS, whatever.
Assuming you were in a one-party consent state, you should have recorded the exchange and held it over them in court the next month.
Solution: Government or public university work. Job security and 4-5 wks of vaca are features, not bugs.
So limit it as hours per week with a limit of 15hr/day or something high. The problem isn't overtime laws, but rather a specific badly written law.
I.T. seems to be going in the direction of a better e-leash. How to better track your location via your phone, car, etc, how to track your habits to better throw ads in your face, how to sell things that used to be a one-time fee to you as a service paid monthly, how to keep connected to your boss 24/7, how to track citizens' travels as a government. Pardon my cynicism.
On the other hand, recent developments in biomedical science, electric cars, renewable energy and private space travel have been amazingly cool. So it really depends on the actual technology.
Logic and history puts a crash at about every 8-10 years -- it will happen, only question is this year, next, or in five years.
This isn't about limiting "trafficking". This is limiting all sex for pay among consenting adults, which is made easier/safer via peer-to-peer platforms. Someone who advertises on Backpage doesn't need a middleman (aka a pimp).
i.e. it's a law not created to help victims, but rather by marching moral majority morons, to control what consenting adults are allowed to do in their own bedrooms. Same deal as with alcohol and marijuana prohibition laws.
Throw the book at pimps who force people into prostitution or use children. But consenting adults should be able to decide for themselves. Nevada, Amsterdam, and Berlin are good examples of how the business should be treated.
Assuming you don't live in such a community, with other means of surveillance and work for Facebook...
Leave phone at home, running, with Facebook installed. Go out for a day at the beach. Sick people sleep, and sleeping people put their ringer on vibrate.
Better yet, leave the phone at home on WiFi so the FB app has GPS and Internet access. Swap your SIM to a cheap flip-phone, and use that while out.