Well, in a perfect world, it shouldn’t matter where in the world you are. Dangerous materials should be prohibited everywhere. Fair trade should be mandatory. But sadly, we are not there yet.

The article mentions aliexpress and wish. Those things are not sold in the EU. They are sold in China. The customer imports them directly from China. The customer is circumventing the regulations and should be aware of that.

Germany is not one person. Ditching Microsoft is the effort of more regional politics. Talking about the US and things as a whole, that is national politics, which has just been elected and are currently showing that it was not a good election.

I use Pushsafer for this purpose

It is not only fraud I am talking about. There are plenty legal loopholes for the rich to just pay absurdly low taxes.

What „leeches“ are you talking about? The ones evading taxes? Or the ones in the social security system that depend on the money?

So because people are becoming poor they can not afford the high prices? How does that solve anything other than the number on the price tag going down? The end result is even worse, no one can buy housing.

I just talked to a colleague of mine today who declined to have fiber internet installed at no extra cost. Because his DSL is fast enough.

So yes, some (a lot) people do put up with it.

Jeans have been around 100€ for quite some years (~10) now… at least in Germany