Louis Vuitton made some really ugly looking iPhone cases. https://www.ebay.com/itm/40493...

Russia can withdraw from Ukraine and this wouldn’t be an issue.

That is true of everything sold as protectionist in developed countries. Developing countries do have a real need to protect their fledgling growing industries, but that is only true for significantly struggling developed countries. If you are among the top 10 economies in the world, 100% of everything your politicians tell you is done for protectionist purposes is hogwash.

The second half of this quote is the most critical part. You still see some hesitancy to trust German leadership in Europe, and that country has long since accepted their fascist past. Until the US has accepted what we have done thoroughly enough that our history books label Trump a fascist, I don't see how other countries can regain the level of trust they had in the US a decade ago when Trump descending that escalator was considered a joke.

https://9to5mac.com/2025/11/14/new-iphone-pocket-now-available-to-order-but-its-selling-out-fast/

"Many of the iPhone Pocket color and size combinations are already sold out, though."

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/hs8j2zm/a/iphone-pocket-by-issey-miyake-short-black

Since the article was posted, all variations are sold out online.

Not as bad a call as the original Slashdot take on the iPod, but just goes to show that Slashdotters are not an important demographic.

One can also study the Smoot Hawley Tariff Act to see how poorly that went. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

I appreciate the UK being a guinea pig and providing more concrete data for future researchers to understand just how bad protectionist acts like Brexit are. While economists could simulate how bad things would be, that would never be as good as studying the real thing.

Unfortunately now my country, the US, will be giving even more data points showing the same thing a decade from now.

Oh, I don't disagree with that at all. My state is a bit of an outlier, in that our teachers ARE more lowly paid than national averages, but then my locality is one of the higher paying supplements to teacher pay.

Why do I say pay is a problem? I've seen what happens to many good teachers. They get burned out from having to deal with trouble maker kids who if they get disciplined or get bad grades the parents go ape shit with allegations of racism, sexism, abuse, whatever. They get burned out from dealing with helicopter parents. They get burned out from, in most parts of the country, being governed by elected shitty school boards. They get burned out because some miscreant has an IEP and a 504 plan and so his stealing from classmates and being constantly disrupted is considered a manifestation of his disability and everyone else just has to deal with it.

Good teachers have job flexibility. I've seen multiple _great_ teachers go to work for companies like IXL where their starting salaries are always higher than what they were making as seasoned teachers. Others go the administrator route and become principals, superintendents, etc. Others go to teach at private schools where the pay is often better.

What I would propose is basically 3 things:

1. Get rid of habitually low performing teachers--every year get rid of your worst teachers
2. Increase pay for high performing teachers
3. And the kicker that I have no idea how to do--allow schools and teachers to apply standards and discipline without fear of lawsuits.

*Citation needed.

"I like things simple. I really don't deal with milage, or all the other things I consider minutiae. I deal with simple numbers. What this means is not filling out milage reports and the other stuff that clutters up to work. Perhaps I'm eccentric. But I like simple because my actual work is quite complex."

As is my work -- however, my mileage report isn't "minutiae". It' averages $300-$500 every two weeks (I do a lot of driving --- particularly for projects). And the process isn't complicated. Basically a date, destination and total miles per line. In a text file. No clutter -- just a review of my travel calendar for 5 mins every two weeks and another 2-5 mins to transfer that to my expense report. Automagically appears in my pay check 8 days later.

Whoever signed up for that list should get perma banned from running Firefox.

I think that plays into it too. In many--most--school districts, teachers effectively have tenure--it takes serious malfeasance or illegality to get fired.

Years of bad performance isn't enough.

I think part of the solution has to be dramatically increasing teacher pay but you also have to make the working environment better.

There is basically no, or very little, support for this position, and even stating it publicly would get you called a racist.

I just don't see a solution.

Pretty much all of the US ethnic groups do better than those from the "origin" countries do. US Asians outperform East Asian Asians. US Euros outperform Europeans. US Africans outperform African Africans (though there is a less data for the continent).

You chose to post this anonymously. I don't blame you. Even discussing the possibility of this is a hard thing to discuss. I don't see a societal solution.

No they're not. You're exaggerating. The majority of these developments are still empty. China's declining birth rates coupled with the increased mortality from COVID have thrown in a monkey wrench into their planning. Up to 80 million units are still empty, with slim prospects for ever being bought or even used as social housing. Most of them are just crumbling ruins at this point. Even where people have moved in (often with heavy government subsidies, essentially turning units into an eastern Section 8 housing project), occupancy is still under 10%. They simply built too many units, and there aren't enough people to live in them. Some developments are being reclaimed for agriculture, with farmers grazing livestock and plowing fields on the strips of land between crumbing concrete structures.