Electronic, e-ink, price tags.

Centrally linked to a shop back office workstation. You can turn the entire shop upside down twice a week and the actual work to change the tags would be negligible.

And for what it matters, lets assume a very large nation wide chain, like Target. The stock leaves their supply wharehouses unmarked, as it should. The cargo is then delivered to the stores, the tags printed (waste of paper), with full price, and the shelves restocked. Each store has to deal with their local taxation or absence of it.

It is not a very complex endeavour.

Agreed

Regardless. It had a better chance to it. And nowadays a bunch of countries with wildly varying cultures, completely different languages and a lot of unsolved baggage is doing it better.

If it was to be another group of independent nations, fine. But the moment federation is considered and considering the duress it had to take from the start, against a common enemy, true, organized union would be easier and simpler.

I risk computers can deal with the brunt of the work, if will to do so exists.

Tax harmonization is an ongoing struggle.

The Nederlands and Ireland have extremely low taxation rates for companies, which is causing many companies to move to these countries and effectively undercutting their country of origin. And now that I think about it, Luxembourg has the same issue.

But completely waving taxation is not legal, at any level.

I’m aware the american states could be considered countries. Unfortunately, the US being a somewhat more homogeneous country at its inception, never took the opportunity to create a good legal super structure. The end result is the conflicting federal and state level.

That is an entire level of idiocy and corruption by itself.

You want gold? Tons of it? Go mine the asteroid belt. But if it is to become plentiful what value will it hold?

Will cheap gold plated circuitry be back?

That is awful.

No prices? Things are getting worse.

I’m aware of that qwirk in your system. No such thing here. And I have a mortgage to pay.

No amount of cashback is enough to convince me to sign up to one.

Well… maybe 100%.

And I keep thinking my country’s tax system is weird.

No way! That is ridiculous. That is essentially equating to create tax havens inside your own country. What is stopping people from high taxation states to just go for a shopping spree on a non-taxation one? Or even a city or town? Nothing. It makes no sense.

My country has a mainland and two autonomous regions. All taxation is designed centrally. VAT, special taxes, income, private and corporate, vehicles, land, house, etc, everything is established centrally. The autonomous regions do have the freedom to fine tune the end % of tax but really nothing else. They can’t exempt a tax, just because.

How so?

We can’t see what the man is sporting from under that shirt neck line.

For all we know the man can put to shame Donkey Kong.

Why would that be?

I think that builds into the credit card trap.

You should not need to guess-timate how much you’re going to spend, that is the issue.

If you want to pay in cash, that’s it. Pick up the items, add it in your head, that’s it. Witholding how much you are really going to spend by not applying all charges holds you hostage.

Yes, you can just put it to your card and pay it later but why?

Buying from them energy will be mostly gas, which is destined for the gas hungry northern europe countries, for heating. This is counter intuitive but it makes sense. The dollar is on a sharp decline facing the euro, so more gas is bought for less money. The objective should be to stockpile gas reserves while moving away from russian gas imports and expand the sustaible energy grid and power reserve infrastructure.

The Big Orange is placated for the imediate time and life goes on.

The EU does not have the authority to mandate companies to establish bridge heads in foreign soil or anywhere, for what that may matter. So, if some companies decide to invest there it will be to soak up money from that market. But considering the political instability there, it will be a high risk endeavour. And lla long term one, as well. So long that it will be easy to camouflage intended delays with accidental ones.

What equipment? The planes deals are running away, to countries already in european soil, like France, Sweden and even Turkey. Maybe ammunition? What else? Factories are being retooled in Germany to produce weaponry. I think Austria and Poland are doing the same. Sweden and Finland… well.

These “negotiations” are laughable, at best. I refuse to accept the notion that all the people at those meetings did not realize it was for show and at the first opportunity all will be discarded, by any side.

I’ve seen a tag change price but that price would only take effect the next day, as the store would be having a promotion on peaches. I simply asked for a clarification and the tag was rolled back.

On the day price changes are only done to clear perishables that otherwise will end in the trash, like fresh pastries or bread. And such changes can only take effect near to the closing hours of the store. Price variations throughout the day is a crime and stores have been heavily fined for it.

Take the hat off. Weirder theories exist.

Meanwhile, electronic price tags have been introduced in the market.

It’s these small e-ink devices that are tethered to a central input station in the backroom, where a person inputs prices.

I’ve seen tags change in front of my eyes, updating price, adding promotional info or changing the product available on shelf.

Inventory movements are not an excuse, I’d say. Regardless the end sale price, if a product is not sold, it is just inventory, which value is fixed for the company.

Lidl moves tons of non perishable inventory from central wharehouses to stores, daily, and they could not care what the end price was at the store. A given item may cost an X amount in a given season, disappear for a couple of months, then return to the shelves with a different price. The inventory value does not oscilate.