• 6 Posts
  • 167 Comments
Joined 5 months ago
cake
Cake day: February 27th, 2025

help-circle









  • No doubt about it. And I’m actually glad to read that is, and that there are banks who are happy to just hop on something that they didn’t make themselves, and don’t necessarily have control over, which many banks around the world are very keen to do as, well, most major banks are extremely conservative (small c of course) organizations, all over the world.

    In Japan, afaik, none of em have really worked with any of the transit cards in any meaningful way, despite us actually seeing some of these cards becoming more and more universal, ie their systems are becoming more predominant than what the Japanese banks use (can’t remember the name right now). That said, Japan is still a mostly cash-reliant country, esp the older shops, many of which just don’t care about adopting technology.

    In Malaysia, one of their major banks have instead tried to mimic what TouchNGo does, allowing people to transfer money via scanning a QR code, and essentially use their status as a major bank to sort of compete with the original toll card. Some other players (non-banks tho) have sort of just joined in the bandwagon and so you end up seeing some shops ending up with a bunch of different QR codes plastered on their counters. Despite the fragmentation, because QR codes are just super easy for even a small roadside stall to set up, it’s actually gotten really good adoption even in smaller, near rural places. Carrying cash is still a good recommendation, but you really just need a few bills of different denominations (there are only a handful), and can generally go without using cash.



  • That’s not always bad though, but you definitely need a strong leverage. And a strong leverage is not something the US really has these days. In fact, they’re working really hard to get rid of their leverages. That’s some smart politics there. /s

    So this rando just came here and just said something like “I’m gonna make it harder for people in your neighbourhood to do business with mine if you don’t stop the fighting.” Like, sure bro. Like that’s gonna work.

    Sure, Thailand exports 19% of its products to the US, might hurt em a lil, but I don’t think that’d stop them from fighting Cambodia if they’re serious about it, and they were. Cambodia does export 42% of its stuff to the US, so it’d hurt em, but if Thailand isn’t gonna be bothered, it’s not like they have a choice.

    So much for the self-proclaimed master negotiator.





  • Believe he talked about that in a bit more detail in another video about trams. I think that video was titled “Trams are the G.O.A.T” or something to that effect.

    But essentially, and iirc, trams and subways serve subtly different purposes. Sure, at the end of the day, they move people between points, but the difference lies in what you can get between those points. Running trams at ground level close to shops means that they facilitate local foot traffic, and makes it easy for people to just get off and go get what they want to easily, sometimes at the moment they see what’s on their way. They can do that without the need to get up and down via stairs / escalators / lifts. Sure, you could check out a map to know where you wanna go, but where’s the serendipity in that?

    Subways are great for faster point-to-point travel, especially if you don’t need to visit any of the areas between those points. Trams are generally slower than subways cause, at the end of the day, even if you give it priority on the surface, you are still close to humans on foot traffic, and there are points where you’ll have to slow down to not make people feel unsafe, even if their path is predictable.


  • Subscript5676toTorontoThis is just sad.
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    19 days ago

    Let’s make us all feel worse… courtesy by NJB https://youtu.be/HhQxNHrD6fA

    I know some people absolutely dislike the guy for essentially dumping Canada and emigrated to the Netherlands, but seriously, if I go through the episodes he did: trying hard at advocacy and planning hard to improve the city, only to be met with unreasonable car-brained suburbanites throwing absolutely ridiculous arguments against the plans and essentially pouring cold water all over everyone, all in the face of facts, and you end up having to just watch things go to the shitters like you expected, you flip the table, and you leave. I can say that cause I’ve went through something similar. You end up not being able to just stay at that place anymore, no matter how much you loved it.




  • I’m adding this as a sub comment cause I think this would be extra points, but I guess it might be interesting for some, if they’ve never really read or thought about it.

    But do first note that I’m no expert of governments or foreign trade relations. I’m just an observer.

    You might be wondering if tariffs is the only way for governments to protect local industries, and you’re most probably thinking that that shouldn’t be the case. And you’re right. That said though, keep in mind that a tariff is a pretty simple tool for governments to use, and fairly good too: you fork out some money upfront to set up the tariff and all its supporting processes, and you get to earn money for the country. What actually happens is that you’ll tax any imports on the exporter, but what ends up happening is that exporters just add that to their cost and thus increase their prices, so it is typically like a tax on your own citizens. There are exporters who do just sort of eat that cost themselves, but that’s not common afaik.

    Another option you could support a local industry is by providing subsidies, which can be done in a myriad of ways: materials, procurement, research, labour, etc, and you can even mix and match some of them. The problem here, though, is that the government has to fork out that money — that’s why it’s a subsidy. The Chinese government loves doing this for any industry that they deem strategic, and they can do so a lot more freely than most democratic countries, because, well, they just don’t have to worry about an election if people aren’t happy with where the investment went. Here in Canada though, people do get mad when subsidies are offered for industries that they don’t like, and that affects the polls.

    You could also outright ban the import of certain products from certain countries, but that usually triggers very negative reactions from the affected countries, unless you have a clear law that literally bans the consumption or use of that product; people want to make money after all, and you’re literally making it impossible to do so. Examples of “okay” bans that most countries have over Canada are like cannabis, cause that’s deemed illegal in their country, and Canada doesn’t really have the desire to make those exports. It’s definitely a strong tool though, with potentially negative consequences.


  • Tariffs are used by countries very commonly and isn’t a Turnip original (yeah I spell his name however I’m feeling like).

    The reason why tariffs are used is generally to protect a local industry, typically one that’s weak, either because they’ve fallen behind, or that it’s a new budding industry and fierce competition will just obliterate its chances of even growing.

    Think of, say, our EV sector, which is essentially in its infancy. Sectors like these tend to have higher prices on their products because they’ve not reached a critical point and can enjoy the benefits of economies at scale, where they’ve can operate efficiently while mass producing their products; they’re still trying to figure out what works and works well, and so their stocks are limited, which usually means that their means of production is also not as efficient as an established company or sector. Now imagine if we don’t have tariffs against Chinese EVs, which is a mature Chinese industry at this point, and still enjoys massive government benefits to subsidize a lot of its production processes, i.e. their costs are low and they can sell their EVs for cheap. Imagine them just exporting a bunch of EVs to Canada. Without tariffs inflating their prices, most people would probably just buy Chinese EVs cause, well, that’s the economic thing to do individually in these unstable times. Our local EV companies would easily be beaten by cheaper Chinese rivals, especially when our own quality is not even close to competing with Chinese standards, i.e. they can’t make enough of revenue to cover their business operations and ongoing developments, and so the local industry would either die off because people may be discouraged to work in that sector, or it’ll take forever to grow.

    If you look around what other sane countries are doing, you’ll see that a lot of them have some level of tariffs in various industries levied against enemies and allies alike, because, well, you, as the government, generally have an incentive to protect your local industries, or people would have a hard time finding jobs and earning money, and if they can’t do that for a long enough, you can kiss your government seat goodbye.