4 ms·
It's not hardly an exploit when the taxpayer is the one benefiting
by behringer 2mo ago
It's not hardly an exploit when the taxpayer is the one benefiting
- Sharlin 2mo agoIt’s a classic negative externality. Not every taxpayer partakes in this pathological consumerism.
- throwaway27448 2mo agoImagine how dysfunctional society would be if we each individually got back precisely the value to capital we put in.
- Sharlin 2mo agoSubsidizing giant Chinese webshops over local vendors and supporting unsustainable consumption of single-use plastic garbage is not exactly the sort of public service that governments are supposed to provide.
- throwaway27448 2mo agoAnd that's exactly how we use USPS to subsidize amazon. Or did for a long time, anyway. To be clear, this is the smart thing to do—package delivery SHOULD be subsidized. Amazon should pay into this disproportionately through taxes, though.
- bit-anarchist 2mo agoOn the other hand, subsidies do cause actors to make otherwise unsustainable decisions. In this case, excessive consumerism.
- throwaway27448 2mo agoOne might even refer to it as a "public service".
- fn-mote 2mo agoThis amounts to a subsidy of Chinese manufacturing over local manufacturing. I can’t see how a market distortion is a net benefit to the importing country. It seems self-destructive.
- ThrowawayTestr 2mo agoIt's self destructive that I can get cheap crap that has no chance of being made locally with free shipping?
- inigyou 2mo agoNo, it's self destructive that the government takes my money to pay for your cheap crap, creating a game where everyone individually benefits from buying cheap crap but everyone else suffers from it, creating a race to the bottom.
- andai 2mo agoIf everyone bought from Temu then the net benefit would be zero relative to just including it in the price right? In practice the value flows from people who don't buy cheap crap from China to people who do.