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PortlandMom's comments:
on Canada-US Relations
I sell handmade products online, and have to say Canadian buyers have sadly become my biggest nightmare. Anything over 20$ sent to Canada lands my customers with duty fees, which often makes them come back and blame ME as though I had anything to do with it. I can ship twice that value to countries overseas without such concerns.
(Ironically, I purchase supplies from Canada not subjected to such tarrifs when sent to me, which then go back into those pieces that I sell, but find Canadians reluctant to purchase them or angry because I wont lie and call them "gifts" in order to avoid those duty fees)
Additionally, Canadian customs has become the most problematic of all the countries I regularly ship to. I do not understand why it takes sometimes 3 weeks, sometimes as long as 2 months , for items I ship to Canada to get to their final destination. One customer in Ottowa paid for Priority International mail so that she could add insurance to the package because, she said "Canadian customs is terrible", which was very expensive given the little item she was purchasing, and she also purchased an item for her friend in the Netherlands to be shipped regular first class mail - the package got to Netherlands 4 days before her package did. Similarly, mail sent to Australia takes 5 days, whereas a package sent to someplace I could drive to in 8 hours on average takes about 15 days. Why, if the borders between our countries are so great, does trade take so long? Businesses won't buy larger amounts for resale from me because of all the duty tarrifs - I have more luck with wholesale orders overseas than I do with our neighbors.
Why is the customs and duty fees so difficult for items made in the USA?
posted 4 years, 1 month ago
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on Black and White and Googled All Over
But I do not have the patience to read on a screen, given how much of my daily routine involves screens, to read full-in-depth stories online. As newspapers like the Oregonian convert to shorter AP length news clips in their printed page, my reasons for subscribing to the newspaper diminish - I can't curl up with a longer story on my laptop the way I can with printed material.
I have, however, found myself with new interest in publications that specialize in longer in-depth reporting - sources like The Economist, The Atlantic, etc.
Daily newspapers make a mistake when they drop the longer articles in their printed page, switching instead to try to compete with news-flash aggregators online - they would be better served putting their time-sensitive basic rundowns online and leaving their longer articles in the paper.
posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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on The Blazers Blackout
It is entirely reasonable to assume that there are folks out there who do not watch TV at that particular time slot.
posted 4 years, 6 months ago
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