87. Nasruddin and the Tall Tree
The village boys wanted to trick Nasruddin and steal his new shoes.
“Look at this tall tree!” they shouted. “We’re too small to climb it, but maybe you can.”
Nasruddin looked at the tree, smiled and said, “That would be fun. I’ll try!”
So, Nasruddin took off his new shoes. Next, he tucked the shoes inside his belt. Then he began climbing.
“Wait!” shouted the boys. “Why are you taking your shoes with you?”
“This tree is so tall that it might lead all the way to heaven,” Nasruddin replied, “and I’ll need my shoes to walk around up there.”
This Tale is from “Tiny Tales of Nasruddin” by Laura Gibbs. The book is licensed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. © 2019-202The2 Laura Gibbs
The article I have quoted singles out the three large online Chinese retailers but there are a lot of other companies that also sell online to the US market that will also have serious increased prices. Want to buy a cheap laptop directly from China, well they are not cheap anymore.
Many Americans might not have felt major effects from President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs — until now.
That’s because a major shipping loophole expired at one minute past midnight on Friday [2 May 2025]. The de minimis exemption, as it’s known, allowed shipments of goods worth $800 or less to come into the United States duty-free, often more or less skipping time-consuming inspections and paperwork.
The loophole helped reshape the way countless Americans shop, allowing ultra-low-cost Chinese e-commerce sites like Shein, Temu and AliExpress to pour everything from yarn to patio furniture, clothes to photography equipment and more into US homes. — De Minimis Package Tariff
There is also bad news for two of the restaurant chains that are operating globally.
The brand that popularized modern coffee culture and grew into the second-largest restaurant chain in the world (after McDonald’s) finds itself at a familiar crossroads, coping with a familiar boardroom melodrama. The latest crisis at Seattle-based Starbucks began with three consecutive quarters of disappointing results, including declining same-store sales and earnings in its two most recent quarters. The recent revenue misses are the first in about 15 years, when the 2007-2008 Great Recession was ravaging the economy. The challenge today, according to a recent Bloomberg report, is in part due to inflation—the company “is bleeding customers who no longer want to shell out for high-priced coffee drinks.”
McDonald’s is experiencing financial trouble due to a decline in sales and customer traffic, particularly in the United States and globally. Sales at US stores open at least a year fell 0.7% in the last quarter compared to the same period a year earlier, and sales at stores open for at least a year fell 1% globally, marking the first time sales fell by that measure since the last quarter of 2020.