So far, every country in the world has had one of two responses to the Trump tariffs. The first one is: "Give Trump everything he asks for (except Greenland) and hope he stops being mad at you." This has been an absolute failure. Give Trump an inch, he'll take a mile. He'll take fucking Greenland. Capitulation is a failure.

But so is the other tactic: retaliatory tariffs. That's what we've done in Canada (like all the best Americans, I'm Canadian). Our top move has been to levy tariffs on the stuff we import from America, making the things we buy more expensive. That's a weird way to punish America! It's like punching yourself in the face as hard as you can, and hoping the downstairs neighbor says "Ouch!"

And it's indiscriminate. Why whack some poor farmer from a state that begins and ends with a vowel with tariffs on his soybeans. That guy never did anything bad to Canada.

But there's a third possible response to tariffs, one that's just sitting there, begging to be tried: what about repealing anticircumvention law?

If you're a technologist or an investor based in a country that's repealed its anticircumvention law, you can go into business making disenshittificatory products that plug into America's defective tech exports, allowing the people who own and use those products to use them in ways that are good for them, even if those uses make the company's shareholders mad.

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[–] 24 points 10 months ago (8 children)

It surprises me from time to time just how cheap some of these politicians sell out for. If I could get together with my neighbours all contributing $50 and buy a legislator or two, we could probably get funds for a stadium.

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  • [–] 16 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    "The former Royal Bank of Scotland submitter who was offered sushi rolls in exchange for helping try to rig the Libor rate-setting process has been banned by the UK's financial regulator." https://www.ft.com/content/23868e36-0095-11e6-ac98-3c15a1aa2e62

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    Without being able to read that article, I choose to interpret that quote as if a renown personal chef was on offer for a number of years to provide world class sushi rolls whenever the mood strikes.

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  • [–] 7 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    It's worse than that. It was one batch of rolls, specifically yesterday's rolls.

    Read the Bloomberg Chats That Got a Former RBS Libor Trader Paul White Banned for Life - Business Insider – https://www.businessinsider.com/read-the-bloomberg-chats-that-got-a-former-rbs-libor-trader-paul-white-banned-for-life-2016-4

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago

    People can get arrogant enough to think that they won't get caught.

    Emmanuel Clase was a Major League pitcher making ~$5M per year. He got caught intentionally flubbing pitches for $5000. 5M a year gone now to get a few thousand dollars. Why would someone be that stupid?

    Because they don't think they'll get caught.

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