Keyboard forums have taught me the value of free trade

[vivalarevolución]

Seriously. I have shipped/received things on this forum and Geekhack from these countries: Canada, Germany, Croatia, China, Sweden, England, Norway. I might be forgetting a couple. Probably will be more places in the future.

It has been great interacting with people from such far away places and different backgrounds. We are all united by a simple idea: the love of great keyboards!

Customs fees just strike me a way to raise a few extra coins for the government bureaucracy. I don't really see how those protect home industries if they make it more burdensome for businesses to sell outside their borders.

Thanks guys for the learning experience.

[Muirium]

Indeed. Customs duties were always about "protection" in the past. But who makes keyboards in Scotland any more? (IBM / Lexmark were the last, and are long gone.) No one's left to prop up against foreign competition.

What started as protectionism now merely remains as a lazy way to make free money. I'd compare it to a "protection racket" if those didn't involve guys showing up and burning your house down. It's not as bad as that. But still corrupt.

[Peter]

True, these hoodlums won't burn down your house -
They'll just seize it, sell it to the highest bidder .. And you STILL owe them the entire debt in the house !

[Muirium]

Indeed. Anyone who says <insert Mediterranean or Latin America country here> is "run by the mob" clearly does not understand the deviousness of basic legal governance.

[damorgue]

The countries do have reasons to protect their domestic economy by giving foreign companies a disadvantage. This is a whole political discussion of free market or degrees of it and which is best. It all appears differently when put in context of goods which can't be found locally, for instance old stuff no longer in production bought second hand as well as things not produced within the country. I do believe it is disappearing a bit since the lines between "us" and "them" are diminishing. EU are abolishing old laws and instead of having these limitations between countries, they are now between larger groups of countries.

[Muirium]

Indeed. The movement is in the right direction. The question here, however, is why do we tax imports of keyboards? There's only one clear answer, and it has nothing to do with protecting anyone.

If you're a government, this is just free money.