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It should be much higher. The amount of shit that gets shipped from China to Europe (world) is fucking ludicrous, and people should be taxed heavily for the st
by danielovichdk 1mo ago
It should be much higher.
The amount of shit that gets shipped from China to Europe (world) is fucking ludicrous, and people should be taxed heavily for the stupid shit they often don't need.
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- FpUser 1mo ago[flagged]
- bryanlarsen 1mo agoYou're replying to a comment that proposes a market-based solution. Shipping has externalities. Those externalities should be included in the cost of shipping. Then the market will make the right decision.
- Betelgeux 1mo agoWell, if some bureaucratic governing body provides decisions based on some opaque system, and forces these upon market participants - usually that is regarded just the opposite of market-based solutions in economics. Those decisions do have zero chance of internalizing external costs, but most likely will just add an other layer of externality and move the process even more into the field of non-market based coordination mechanisms.
- timmmmmmay 1mo agoEvery time I see somebody make an argument about "externalities" it's never actually backed up with any fact-based analysis about the magnitude of them. It's always exclusively vibes-based, "this thing you like is too cheap, it should be prohibitively expensive to make up for the thing I just thought of"
- anigbrowl 1mo agoHow do you expect people to discuss them across the scale of a whole economy without giant spreadsheets? Externalities are a well understood economic concept whose study goes back a century. https://www.acton.org/node/6427 https://www.acton.org/node/6427
- timmmmmmay 1mo agoI'm not saying externalities don't exist, I'm saying that basically every time somebody makes an argument relying on the concept, there's no attempt to quantify the externalized cost, it's just a vibe. Just go upthread, the argument is just "the stuff you're buying is crap that I don't think you really need, therefore it should be more expensive, however much more it takes for you to stop buying it". The economic concept implies that we're going to have an evidence-based discussion about how we're tracking specific dollar cost amounts of pollution or something, and then in practice that essentially never happens and it's just "I've decided you don't really need that thing you want"
- DiggyJohnson 1mo agoThat’s because it would not be possible to discuss reasonably these things without writing a thesis. It’s better to hand wave the cost of the externalities and those that are familiar with the domain will understand - rather than writing a thesis on “the externalities of manufacturing and distributing <product> in this <industry> <subsector> in <country> and relative cost to export versus produce locally.” How do you see it differently?
- s1artibartfast 1mo agoThey did not make the argument of externalities. My impression was that they tax the shit out of things they don't like personally, to minimize their consumption. This is much closer to a sin tax.
- trinix912 1mo agoRight, so tell me where in Europe can I buy replacement parts for random electronics when I need them? Often very specific ICs, last time it was a cassette deck pinch roller, etc. Preferably somewhere where it’s cheaper than the value of the thing being repaired.
- danielovichdk 1mo agoYes, and that's a whole different problem, which in itself does not equal stupid shit. The reason the price for parcels from China is going up in Europe is not shipping chips or component, it's from shipping stupid fucking shit people do not need, from e.g Temu and copied goods such as clothing, shoes and what not. The toll offices in the airports are being drowned in cheap crap. Shut it down by making people pay more for the shit they buy. That will of course hurt everyone else, but that is how it works.
- murderfs 1mo agoClothing, famously less important on Maslow's hierarchy of needs than semiconductors.
- prmoustache 1mo agoWell, clothing that doesn't last or made of plastic is indeed less important.
- rwyinuse 1mo agoUnfortunately, if you want to fix electronics more often than not China is the only place you can buy spare parts. I don't think buying spare parts to devices counts as "stupid shit".
- eptcyka 1mo agoIf you were to interpret the comment you’re responding to charitably, you’d understand that electronics components are a minuscule minority of all of Chinese exports.
- roywashere 1mo agoSure! I understand that everyone buying stuff on Temu and Shein is horrific. At the same time, me paying $$$ for ordering electrical components from China is rough for me. And also, I find it mind-blowing and ridiculous that Ali offered free shipping for small orders for so long whereas if I'd buy local I need to pay up for shipping, and if I'd start a small business in the Netherlands, shipping to the rest of the EU for small parcels is prohibitively expensive, not even taking into account PPWR
- inglor_cz 1mo agoThe problem with overarching regulations is that they kill the good along the bad, which is the original topic of the article being discussed...
- dvdkon 1mo agoI'm tired of being told I don't matter because I'm in a minority. You'd never dare imply a tax making gypsy folk singing unviable is fine because it's a "miniscule minority" of all music played, so why do it for electronics repair?
- inigyou 1mo agoBut a ban on making loud noises after midnight would also impact a gypsy who likes to folk sing after midnight and it would be pretty ludicrous to cite that as a reason not to do it.
- wolvoleo 1mo agoNot everything is unnecessary and a lot of it will be bought anyway but now through EU resellers that charge a lot more for the same shit.
- victorbjorklund 1mo agoPretty much everything is made in China. Maybe you are just mad at the companies cutting out the European middle men making a large cut?