This is not a tariff issue, unbelievably, but one about reducing competition.

I’m not sure I’m following the argument here, because tariffs are all about protectionism, which is a form of reducing external competition

It is not a tariff issue because there are no tariffs.

The author says so, if you take the time to read the actual article:

>I say this isn’t a tariff issue, and it’s not—these are existing customs charges that were waived for these low-cost shipments.

It is US companies having to pay VAT just like EU companies (the author seems surprised EU member states have varying VAT rates, but it is the same across the US), and private shipment companies deciding to push administrative costs to the customers. And inflation and energy costs soaring, due to a certain (US) administration going all-in on AI and foreign wars (which also affect intra-EU shipping).

But guess what: it costs less to ship something between two neighbouring European countries than across the Atlantic ocean. That's still not a tariff.

> It is US companies having to pay VAT just like EU companies

I volunteer with a small US-based non-profit, and we only mail really inexpensive items ($4.50 each). We've been prepaying the VAT for a few years now [0], but our printer still informed us that we need to pay this new €3 fee, on top of the VAT and shipping fees that we're already paying [1].

We have no problem at all with paying taxes (even 30% of $4.50 is still really cheap), but a fixed €3 fee per item is brutal on an item that we're selling for less than €4. And the typical methods to reduce the impact of this fee like shipping in bulk don't really work for us, because timeliness is important for a periodical and most people only want a single copy of each issue.

> and private shipment companies deciding to push administrative costs to the customers

Our printer was rather evasive when we asked about this, but as far as I can tell, the €3 fee is imposed by the government, and then the shipping intermediaries will charge some undisclosed additional amount on top of this fee.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48246014

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49796808

Yes, but the lag time is crucial. The NY Times estimated that China has 10% the compute capacity of the US. They may catch up, but by that time the US labs could have too much of an advantage

This isn’t exactly correct. Cancer is not (typically) caused by a single DNA mutation, but multiple accumulated errors.

This may not be true in all jurisdictions

Exactly, that's only one-party consent

The operators of the phone system are consenting to the call being recorded by informing you that the call is being recorded. You are consenting to the call being recorded by continuing with the call.

How is that not two party consent?

It's not a consent, because the options are "Yes" and "Yes", you cannot opt out unless you quit the call.

I mixed it up and GP is right. But you are also right (which illustrates the point GGP was making)

If you and I are in a phone call (the target of the phone call located in a one-party consent jurisdiction), I can record it or you can record it without telling the other: that's one-party consent, because one of the parties of the call consents to it

At first glance that may sound pointless, but it means a third party outside the call (e.g. phone company) could not record it without one of us consenting

By notifying that the call is being recorded, that now can create two-party consent because you are still on the line (and thus implicitly agree to the recording, but as you and GGP point out that's not always considered consent enough) -- one-party consent would have been if the company on the other side of the line simply recorded the call without telling you

Laws are different in different jurisdictions, but often the law only requires notification, not consent.

Perhaps during various east Asian famines as well..

Honestly, no. These weird states of matter have extremely different properties to ordinary matter. Weird properties is how we get things like superconductors, magnets, semiconductors, photovoltaics.. so strange state of matter with weird properties could very well produce some magic

Also net population loss of working age adults via deportation and self deportation.

The reason the US can’t take the strait is that the war is unpopular and the American people don’t want it to happen. The US military could absolutely 100% invade and take the street, but it would be extremely unpopular and very expensive.

I don’t know, the US is the world‘s largest oil producer, and there’s a lot of people in America who are very happy about the high oil prices. Doesn’t exactly trickle down to the average American though. But there are many other industries is that matter a whole lot more to the US economy, for example, if Taiwan stop selling chips to the US, we would be really screwed.

Nit-but Apple has fallen to Nvidia and Alphabet, which is a sign of the times.

From what I saw, it's been leapfrogging for the past few weeks. Even if Apple is currently behind them, I don't think it's particularly fair to say it's "fallen to" them.