European Commission To Raise Camera Costs in Europe 300
An anonymous reader writes "According to a recent CNET article, digital camera costs could increase in Europe as result of trade inequalities. 'At the moment, all digital cameras are manufactured outside Europe. They're all imported. All of them. Currently, there's a European Commission-imposed 4.9 per cent import tariff on camcorders, but not on cameras, whatever their video-recording abilities. The EC's Nomenclature Committee has cottoned on to this and wants to slap a tax on cameras that can record at least 30 minutes of video in one go, with a resolution of 800x600 pixels or higher at 23 frames per second or higher. The Nomenclature Committee has recommended the proposal but has not, as yet, garnered the required majority vote.'" Update: 07/23 02:18 GMT by Z : Took out a bit of hyperbole.
Phones? (Score:5, Insightful)
TLF
Re:Phones? (Score:5, Interesting)
My video camera is subject to inspection, but my camera is not, even though it can record every bit as well as the "video" camera, which incidentally can record stills too.
-nB
Re:Phones? (Score:4, Interesting)
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There is a distinct difference here. In the case of tariffs, the EU is attempting to encourage local manufacturing and reduce trade imbalances, whereas airline "security" is not about making flying safer, but about social engineering, making people more accepting of micro-management from a nanny state,
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trade (Score:5, Insightful)
In the case of tariffs, the EU is attempting to encourage local manufacturing and reduce trade imbalances
If the EU rally wanted to correct for a trade imbalance then what they need to do is get rid of the 100s of billions of euros in subsidies given to European farmers. Because of these subsidies food grown in Europe can be exported to third world nations and sold there retail for less than farmers there can grow food. That's a big reason the WTO meeting in Geneva fell apart in the summer of 2006. India walked out because first world nations, the EU, Japan, and the US wouldn't cut farm subsidies. India has literally thousands of farmers committing suicide because they can't compeat with farmers who collect hugh subsidies. Slashing US farm subsidies [indiatimes.com] to $13 billion a year is "unacceptable," a Bush administration official said on Wednesday. All these tariffs are is protectionism.
whereas airline "security" is not about making flying safer, but about social engineering, making people more accepting of micro-management from a nanny state, and introducing the perception of safety even though everyone knows that it won't do a lick of good.
Yeap, our overseer lords want us all to believe the only way to keep safe is by having a nanny state. What they're really doing is a power grab, they want to tell people how to live, and if the people won't then force them to live the way they say.
FalconRe:trade (Score:4, Insightful)
Not saying that it isn't true, but the (predecessor of the) EU was founded on a "never war and never hunger again" idea. So this means we need to keep our food production locally. Dependence for food on other nations is a big no-no. That said, I don't agree that they export the heavily subsidized stuff. They should just produce less, and that's often what happens: farmers are paid not to plant stuff. Overproduction is just as bad as underproduction...
Alas, many people have forgotten the original idea of the EU.
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The reasons we have the subsidies in the first place is to ensure a diverse enough food supply in case something happens to part of it. We started this idea back durring the dust bowl just before the great depression where farmers were already missing from a good portion of America and it played hell getting food to some areas with the stock mark
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My video camera is subject to inspection, but my camera is not, even though it can record every bit as well as the "video" camera, which incidentally can record stills too.
If this is true, then why are you bringing the video camera with you?
For me, this isn't the case, but that's because my camcorders are HD. My camcorders and camera are have about 3MP sensors. All devices do very well with their primary marketed function. The stills from the camcorders aren't as good
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK1romTcv4k#GU5U2sp HI_4 [youtube.com] forgive the youtube compression, but that's a video from the "still" camera. While certainly not HD it is quite passable for things like water slides in Costa Rica and other places where crushing/melting/fiery deaths are a real possibility. I do bring the camcorder when I want HD, but then I'm likely on assignment and the gear is in a Pelican or two with a lock and TSA pre-screened tag.
-nB
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The tone I projected onto your sentence there implies that your question is rhetorical, ie that there's no reason to take both.
It's easy to think of reasons why the posted might want to take two, even if they're identical devices.
In any case, I don't think he said he took both on the same trip - did he? The bit you quoted didn't make that explicit anyway.
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I feel really bad because I worry a little about publishing the second sentence of that answer...
camcorders and SRLs (Score:2)
It's probably because they've got all that extra space in them (where the cassette goes) that a digital camera just doesn't have . It doesn't take a large explosive to do a whole lot of damage on an airplane.
Well since the GP said "my camera is not" and doesn't say what it is the camera could very well be enough space for explosives. I could take my film camera as well as the lenses for it and pack enough C4, semtex, or another plastique to bring down an airplane. My biggest lenses, which isn't big, is
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I don't think the N95 or N93 are quite there yet (both VGA, IINM), but it isn't long, I'm sure...
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N95,E90, and possibly some others can do VGA @ 30fps, and fill up a 2gb memory card with it.
No doubt in a year or so, at the rate nokia releases new handsets, they will qualify.
Go the protectionism (Score:5, Funny)
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The one that directly benefits you. Duh!
Re:Go the protectionism (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm confused, are we only against protecting local markets when it's in the software/IT industry? It's bad that Europe is trying to place a duty on camera's made outside of Europe. It's good when the government takes action to prevent outsourcing software development, and Tech Suport to India and Brazil? What side of this issue am I supposed to be on?
No, it's all bad.
FalconRe: (Score:2)
Re:Go the protectionism (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Go the protectionism (Score:4, Interesting)
No. That is the world according the 18th century theory of Adam Smith, which is partly true, but hardly the whole of the story.
Selective protectionism and its reduction after the build-up of a competitive industry with high value products was/is key to the success of large parts of Taiwan, ROK and China.
That, of course, doesn't mean that I support the tariff, because who, but nationalists, cares, that the EU doesn't produce digital cameras, when the EU already is a region with high grade products and has a stable trade surplus.
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Care to share? It isn't clear...
willing, huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
If a country had actual slave labour, would you argue against tariffs on products from that country too?
Things are cheap in China for a lot of reasons:
- no labour standards
- no environmental standards
- no intellectual property standards
- no rights generally
- poverty and desperation amongst the poor
Allowing unfettered access to domestic markets only rewards China for doing nothing to change those things.
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Why should Europeans (Score:2)
Free trade with places like China amounts to absolutely nothing else but the total undermining of our Western democracies and our respect for human rights. Trade with China says one and only one thing: Western Democracies and Values are not profitable, and the way to be competitive is to be a hell hole like China.
As an American, I say we quarantine the sweatshop block - all nations that are undemocratic and which routinely
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Consumer choice is the real power, and if enough consumers feel the same way, they can effect change.
-nB
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But perhaps you have a great idea. How about governments put an import tax on any product that is made by children in sweat shops and then actually give the money they collect to human rights organizations..
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If Nazi Germany used slave Jewish labor to build cheap lamps and cars, would you still buy from them? I can show documentation that shows that you could change Nazi Germany for China and Jews for women, and find China to be far worse in every possible way.
The living conditions of China's people is of no consequence to me, any more than the living conditions of Americans are of any consequence to China or the globalists who are enriching China at our expense. As far a
trade and protectionism (Score:2)
Yes, I know, it's protectionism, it's nationalism. But until you're willing to declare that we should all be a one world Government, protecting your own country and its people from being sucked dry economically, is a virtue. And if you believe we should be a one world Government, you're asking for much bigger horrors than protectionism and nationalism.
I both believe in international trade and in supporting the local economy. I buy imported stuff as well as local produce, actually as a member of two loca
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Go on.
Their living conditions are a choice (Score:3, Interesting)
That is how you are supposed to sustainably ind
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To say that a refusal to buy goods made a slave-labour prices in China is somehow harming Chinese workers is twisted capitalist b.s.
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Over where now? Certainly not to the EU. They aren't letting them in. Not to the US. We aren't letting them in. I don't know what world you are living in, but even among those who can afford to get into the US or EU, or for that matter are even allowed to leave their country of origin, they have no where to go because legal immigration is restricted to a
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It hurts the Chinese, not us. (Score:4, Informative)
What is going on here? The Chinese government is selling labour at below market cost to increase its global influence and finance a rapid build up of industrial infrastructure. In the mean time, Chinese citizens are getting shafted by being forced to work more to gain less personal benefit than other people in the industrialized world. In other words, the government is accumulating power on the backs of Chinese citizens.
Of course, it is impossible for us to reform this situation, since only the Chinese may put a stop to it by telling their government they won't stand for it any longer. Refusing to trade with China will only slow their industrial progress and make the Chinese less willing and able to stand up to these blatant governmental abuses.
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Or, you know, maybe the EU - unlike the US - will stand up for its principles in the world by negotiating trade deals with these countries that are tied to human rights, to having a representative, participatory democracy, and to their people being free from government infringement upon their liberties?
But then who are we to intervene? Af
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But then who are we to intervene? Afterall, it's not our fault these poor saps over in China flunked out of interdimensional soul-school and got themselves born into the world as dirt poor factory laborers in a communist regime, right? Sucks to be them, amirite?! Damn right you should be smug! I mean, you wouldn't have been born in the good old US of A if you didn't deserve it.
In regards to this... as much as I understand the point you're trying to make.. where I was born and who I am wasn't a lottery. My parents and their parents and their parents worked to make the world I was born into. I think it kind of sucks that you ignore all their hard work and belittle it into some sort of cosmic lottery.
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What exactly is wrong with promoting a regional economy instead of depending on a complex web of corrupt globalist ties?
Corrupt local politicians with guns? As long as I'm not harming anyone the government should have no say in how I live. If I have to have government approval all I am is a slave.
Falcontax = bad (Score:3)
your logic = bad (Score:3, Insightful)
Claim: "The less tax the better"
Evidence: "because at it's core government is horribly inefficent"
Conclusion: "so the less money going to them the better."
Even if, "at its core", government is horribly inefficient, that does not mean it's not useful, or even necessary. Of course, sometimes government is exceptionally *efficient*. Your evidence does not support your conclusion, which is just a rewording of your claim.
Then you continue: "Sure, they are required to pay
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1. i never contradict myself at all. i made the point that there are somethings where taxation is requried, because todate it's the best method we have of dispersing the funds to pay for them, and i gave the example of police and military, because i'm hoping your clever enough to imagine what would happen if we stopped defending the country and allowed private armies to take on the roll and bid for our mo
Hypothetical anecdote != analysis or data (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm afraid you do, though I think it's a matter of not expressing yourself clearly.
Sometimes protectionism can benefit a country. Witness the success of MITI [wikipedia.org] in Japan. Beyond that, however, you must ask the question "bad for whom"? What is it that your economics is trying to maximize? Equality? National wealth? Global wealth? Well being? Sustainability? That's a moral choice, whose answer depends on your ethical framework.
Finally, you provide a hypothetical illustration of one form of bureaucratic inefficiency. This is nothing more than anecdotal evidence... except it's not even anecdotal. It's about on the level of, "Take an American worker who watches some TV. If he's watching TV, he's not working. But the poor Chinese peasant seldom watches TV - he's always working. The Chinese also has to focus on the bottom line, because if he is inefficient he'll starve - the American will just end up on welfare."
If you want to show that goverment is "horribly inefficient" - or, more importantly, that it is less efficient than the market - then you need to compare more than just one possible form of government behavior. There are many ways of organizing economic activity, corporations, and governments. Each has its strengths and weaknesses, which vary depending on the government, th esociety in which it operates, the specific activity in question, etc. - and which must be judged relative to what ever standard you choose for efficiency (which is again an ethical question). If you want to show that government is "horribly inefficient" - or that it is more or less efficient than the market for a particular activity - you need to explain what you mean by "inefficient" and then you need to actually make a comparsion - not just cherry-pick an example, then smack your hands together with glee exclaiming: "see! they're horribly inefficient!"
It may be attractive to look for cute "laws" like "the less tax the better". But they don't exist. What you're stating there is not an objective characterization of the worth of goverment: it's a subjective ethical claim. If you really care about this kind of thing, you would be well advised to read some thoughtful arguments by people with varying perspectives, not run around calling people "dolts".
As it happens, I'm with you in this particular case: I susspect it's pernicious corporate welfare. Though frankly, it's small beans compared to many other goverment activities (software patents, copyright extension, barriers to third world agricultural products, etc.).
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TheTheorem of Comparative Advantage [wikipedia.org] proves that it is beneficial to both parties to specialize in production of the goods that each party is most productive at (even if one party is better at producing all goods).
It should also be noted that all taxes incur a deadweight loss [econmodel.com] to the economy.
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Taxing to create scarcity is ridiculous.
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And funneling your wealth out of the country is *good* economics?
So, we shouldn't export anything?
Extreme anti-protectionism protects only two classes: the multinational corporations and the extremely wealthy
Anti-protectionism allows people to afford more, whereas protectionism protects inefficiency as well as raises prices.
If you are not in either of those two classes, you are arguing against your own best interests.
So, you get to dictate what my best interests are?
Falcon
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Imposing import tariffs in order to penalize countries that oppress their laborers, that deny them basic human rights, that deny them democratic participation and representation in their government, in my opinion are exactly the sort of cases when countries should impose tariffs.
Do you think those laborers want to be there? It's not their fault they were born there. And where else are they going to go, even if they could afford
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i agree, countries that oppress their people and violate humans rights need to be dealt with. thats what SANCTIONS are for. If anything, tariffs will make life worse for poor laborers in those countries because now the company h
The trouble is... (Score:2)
The sounds pretty noble, and maybe an interesting way to promote life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The trouble is, they aren't doing this on general principles, they're doing it to promote and protect specific local indu
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Let's say EU camera company makes a camera with 80 Euros worth of parts and Japanese camera company makes one worth 82 Euros worth of part. So the Japanese camera is better. Camera shopper in EU shops around and is notices the small price difference but the extra 2 Euros worth of features is worth it to him. The EU camera company just lost a sale.
After the tax, the Japanes
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Well that's clearly a winning plan (Score:5, Insightful)
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I foresee special "EU edition" cameras with the video recording function switched off in firmware so it won't qualify for the tariff. Of course manufacturers will "forget" certain cheat codes in the firmware that will permanently enable said functionality. These codes will of course be mysteriously "leaked" to the internet.
Or better yet, they ship 'without the capability' but there is a firmware upgrade 3 months later that enables it. Do they tax the firmware update? How is this even enforced?
So why camcorders... (Score:2)
follow the money (Score:2)
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If you'll remember, there were quite a few European camera manufacturers before they were completely decimated by competition from the East, mainly due to cost-cutting measures that could be taken in China and Japan, but not in Europe.
As a result, many of these companies, Zeiss and Leica among them, were decimated. Ask any seasoned photographer who made the better products, and you'll likely hear testaments to the quality of Leica and
The world's going to end over a 4.9% tax? (Score:5, Funny)
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4.9 percent is not crazy, it is a small bump in price. Even if it is for a bullshit reason.
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In Spain, for example, you get a 13% tax to get plates. If your car is a gas guzzler, you pay more than that. Add VAT, and 30% of a car's price is just tax. There are few items in which you'd pay more tax, like cigarettes and blank CDs.
Tax overhaul time? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Do digital SLRs even shoot video?
eBay (Score:3, Interesting)
tax for online sales (Score:3, Informative)
I know that most online purchases here in the US aren't taxed, but how about the good old EU?
Actually taxes are supposed to be paid for online purchases, it's the buyer's responsibility to report the purchase to the state and pay the tax. These taxes go back to catalogue mail orders, however many people don't know this and even if they do not many will report it.
FalconWhy have a tariff if... (Score:2)
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There used to be a domestic industry. (Score:2)
EU policy is to use tarrifs to induce industries to locate facilities within the Single European Market. That's what the EU is all about. They're trying not to make the mistake the US did, of losing manufacturing to low-wage countries.
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Right, the EU prefers high unemployment rates and slow economic growth (outside of the UK anyway).
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The big European manufacturers, though, are Nokia and Sony-Ericson. Cameras on phones are the by far largest segment of photography equipment today, no matter what actual photo hobbyists think of them. Go to a tourist spot and camerap
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Hmmmm... (Score:2)
Simple solution (Score:3, Insightful)
Then buyers can change the firmware after they get the cameras.
So limit your cameras to 22 fps (Score:3, Funny)
I Hardly Consider This... (Score:2)
About that Update... (Score:2)
Not that I can tell.
Pay up if firmware crippling is counted. (Score:2)
It will take the manufacturers all of a blink of an eye to create Euro only models by changing the firmware to limit video capabilities.
Then buyers can change the firmware after they get the cameras.
If that tax accounts for hardware capability down to anything that can record video that is capable of/over 800x600/23fps, in any way (including firmware modification?), pay up.
Simple workaround: (Score:2)
the real question (Score:2)
And the best solution to this "horrible" inconsistency is to abolish the tax on video cameras, not to arbitrarily extend it to other devices.
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Wait for WTO to veto this as an unfair tariff.
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Corollary: There should be a law that punished with death penalty any attempts to raise prices.
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Taxation in general is an inefficient allocation of resources with significant deadweight losses.
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It's because of people like you that the US has no universal health care and most students spend half their lives paying of their loans.
Taxation in general is an inefficient allocation of resources with significant deadweight losses.
It's funny. You wrote that as though it's a meaningful response.
Regardless, it seems you are stuck on the assertion that taxes are a generally inefficient way to allocate resources.
Let's assume that's true. Two questions arise:
- What about the situations where it *isn't* inefficient?
- Is the inefficiency in the more common cases worse than the alternative?
Interestingly enough, on the topic you replied to, public healthcare in the US is actually *more* efficient than private healthcare. And, even if it were
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US private healthcare is over-regulated. Every state has different regulations (imagine if your computer had to have 512MB of RAM in Maryland and 256MB of RAM in New York). There are too many state requirements for what health insurance covers to provide affordable coverage for most people. These regulations can add as much as $2000 to health care premiums [byu.edu].
And there is the WWII era Federal Tax laws that make employer-provid
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That's a load of Republican propaganda (i.e. bullshit). Taxes build the infrastructure (roads, schools, firehouses) that allow the markets to exist.
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Actually the market has been around a lot longer than socialist schools and firehouses.
Roads, well, you got me there. There really are too many transaction costs for roads to be generally private (with the only a few notable exceptions, and those are usually short highways). Even the Roman government built roads.
Of course most US tax dollars go to Social Secur
taxes (Score:2)
Taxes build the infrastructure (roads, schools, firehouses) that allow the markets to exist.
Taxes should not pay for all infrastructure, user fees should pay for some. Those roads for instance, they should be built and maintained with a user fee or tax on fuel, which we already pay when we get fuel. As for schools, firehouses, and some other things, property tax should pay for those.
FalconRe: (Score:2)
Yey! I prefer to avoid government-run health care, and like the ability of poor people to be able to borrow to get a good private education at the best colleges in the world.
Re:just another way the EU is screwing their citiz (Score:2)
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Any device in the hands of a creative person can be classified as a "creative device"