pembrook

38 ms·

571.
by pembrook 2y ago
The laws are specifically designed to target US firms without affecting EU ones and enforcement of fines and the size of them is highly selective -- the most attractive targets with the highest willingness to pay without getting to the poin
572.
by pembrook 2y ago
De minimis exemption expiring has been a planned thing for years through administrations of both parties. Trump admin has been delaying the already planned expiration during the Biden years to use as a negotiating carrot. Basically it just
573.
by pembrook 2y ago
This is down from $23B in 2019, and is basically just fertilizer and minerals used to make fertilizer. Fertilizer is not sanctioned due to the fact it’s needed for food security in the EU (surprise suprise, the EU is not just insecure domes
574.
by pembrook 2y ago
Great example. Your government has decided they will levy additional fees for parking in geographic areas deemed undesirable. This is also what a tariff does for manufacturing (US firms also have to pay tariffs on imported goods). Let’s con
575.
by pembrook 2y ago
Listen I get this is wildly counter-narrative on HN (all tech legislation = good and EU = default good on this forum) so I will never win this argument. But I’ve dealt closely with EU compliance on these matters, and the fines are absolutel
576.
by pembrook 2y ago
I see this devolving into a circular argument. But you can rebrand tariffs as “fines” all you want. When they’re applied wildly disproportionately to certain firms in a certain industry from a certain 3rd party country…it’s a defacto tariff
577.
by pembrook 2y ago
We’re talking many 10s of billions in “fines” specifically levied against US tech firms where there is no EU competitor. I don’t necessarily disagree with all of the laws themselves (some are incompetent EU risk aversion, some are good prot
578.
by pembrook 2y ago
Current US sanctions on Russia make trade a moot point, that’s why.
579.
by pembrook 2y ago
On a trade weighted basis it’s more like 3%-4%. The US is indeed lower on average, but marginally by like 1-2% on average. But I think the concern is more key industries for the US like autos, tech (EU never ending fines are essentially tar
580.
by pembrook 2y ago
Agreed. You can't even trust Wirecutter anymore due to the incentives of affiliate revenue driven content. While everybody hates display ads, at least they are clearly ads, and aren't usually mistaken for authentic content. Affili
581.
by pembrook 2y ago
Always question whenever a highly educated and thoughtful (and likely wealthy) person like this commenter is telling you poor people are too stupid for their own good and can’t make decisions for themselves. This is the definition of the pr
582.
by pembrook 2y ago
I have lived in both countries, and 300K in the US goes much further than 100k in Finland (we're talking FIRE money vs. paycheck-to-paycheck living). The people saying this are likely Nokia transfers who only have experience living in
583.
by pembrook 2y ago
This is ironic since I actually live in Finland, and know exactly how wrong your comment is. 1. Finnish nurses need to learn to speak Norwegian to work there (nursing is not tech, you can't get by speaking english with your 75 year old
584.
by pembrook 2y ago
So you find ad hominem attacks with zero points of discussion or argument to be more compelling?
585.
by pembrook 2y ago
It’s amusing that you acknowledge your comment is hysterical hyperbole preemptively as if that will defeat any rebuttal. Guess I’ll just take your word for it then! The truth is you still have a far greater chance of getting in trouble for
586.
by pembrook 2y ago
And most people dramatically underestimate what a death sentence a low trust society is for economic development. Countries that allow a culture of scamming are all poor because a low trust society will never develop into a first world econ
587.
by pembrook 2y ago
Read up on how economic development works. Ask any of the Asian tiger economies that were formerly victims of colonialism how they economically developed out of poverty. Developing trusted institutions leads to outside investment. Outside i
588.
by pembrook 2y ago
Ask Nigerians how they feel about economic opportunity living in a low trust society full of scammers. I hope you’re aware scammers don’t have a moral code (they are most likely to be sociopaths) and do not exclusively target the wealthy. O
589.
by pembrook 2y ago
Scammers prey on the most vulnerable, mentally handicapped people, and even their own neighbors. Ask Nigerians how they feel about the fact they can’t interact with most western institutions or develop economically due to the actions of the
590.
by pembrook 2y ago
Who said that? Can easily inflict pain via sanctions and other means to get the corrupt Nigerian government to meaningfully do something. Nigeria is not like Russia, they do not have super valuable energy resources nor a scary military they
591.
by pembrook 2y ago
Certain cities in countries like Nigeria and Morocco have become fraud “Silicon Valleys” where there’s quite literally tens of thousands of people collaborating and sharing best practices on how best to scam Americans and Europeans. This wi
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by pembrook 2y ago
I prompted GPT for stereotypes of the current left/right culture wars, and simply edited down the LLM weasel language and wordy equivocation on each bullet point in the novel it wrote. Fascinating indeed.
593.
by pembrook 2y ago
Nothing about US healthcare resembles a free market in any sense of the word. The US in fact has government healthcare for anyone over 65, anyone under 22, anyone disabled, anyone who has been in the military, and anyone who is poor (essent
594.
by pembrook 2y ago
The current zeitgeist according to chatgpt in the west: Right-wing coded: Practical education, Hard skills/trades, having children, personal responsibility, entrepreneurship, exurban community orientation, traditional morality/re
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by pembrook 2y ago
You can certainly go overboard on the “teaching only practical skills” thing, but id argue the pendulum has swung way too far in the other direction. The point of teaching useful skills is so people can be helpful to other people. While c
596.
by pembrook 2y ago
Sundar did a great job pivoting Google from a product-focused B2C company into a Microsoft-style B2B-oriented monetization deathstar (Google Cloud & Workspace and Ads Ads Ads with packages of Ads on the side). The problem is, ditching t
597.
by pembrook 2y ago
Certainly a good point, but largely overstated. It's fundamentally incorrect to act as if the private sector didn't do the bulk of the development of computing and the internet itself, commercializing and evolving the software and
598.
by pembrook 2y ago
A whole lot of words to justify an emotional feeling that's going to change in less than <2 years when the mid-terms inevitably flip the senate and house towards the democrats, as always happens when the pendulum swings one way in U
599.
by pembrook 2y ago
Joe Biden on the floor of the US senate over 30+ years ago complaining about how Europe has no coherent common strategy on defense: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA9eMKNCRuQ
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by pembrook 2y ago
Your argument might hold some more weight if it weren't the exact same flavor of hysterical rhetoric that we all saw back in 2016...where...not much changed. But I totally get it, this time is different! The US is in crisis! How could

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