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Bikes in the age of tariffs

renehersecycles.com

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Re: Bikes in the age of tariffs

#21

Post by beloch »

sandworm101 wrote: post #2

>> Our rulers seem to think that the U.S. imports more than it exports, so the net effect will be positive. It is eye opening to see people so casually speak of American "rulers". Not politicians. Not business leaders. Rulers. That's new.

It reflects the nature of the current trade war. It's not congress levying import taxes. It's not the secretary of commerce. (Lutnick has been completely out of the loop at times during the Canada-U.S. trade-war.) It's Trump declaring spurious emergencies to abuse IEEPA and unilaterally pass tariff's without the approval of congress.

At the same time, the Trump administration has taken issue with the independence of judiciary branch. When a judge ruled against one of their deportations, the executive branch ignored the ruling and argued that the judicial branch is subordinate. i.e. The king is above the law. So far, there have been no consequences. This is, quite literally, rule of a sort that hasn't been enjoyed by European monarchs since people became serious about enforcing the Magna Carta.

For the moment, Trump is ruling as an absolute monarch. It remains to be seen if there will be a response to assert the supremacy of law and the independence of the judiciary branch, or if the Republican controlled congress will assert it's right to control economic policy. If the law is not enforced, then Americans have a de facto king. Institutions do not defend themselves. People do.

Re: Bikes in the age of tariffs

#22

Post by whynotmaybe »

mtmail wrote: post #5
sandworm101 wrote: post #2

>> Our rulers seem to think that the U.S. imports more than it exports, so the net effect will be positive. It is eye opening to see people so casually speak of American "rulers". Not politicians. Not business leaders. Rulers. That's new.

That phrasing is weird indeed.

As a non native English speaker, "rulers" isn't problematic for me.

Is it really that pejorative ?

Re: Bikes in the age of tariffs

#23

Post by yzydserd »

whynotmaybe wrote: post #19

> Let’s do the math: Take a kid’s bike that retails at a big box store for $ 150. Let’s assume that bike costs $ 30 to make. The rest of the cost is shipping to the U.S., warehousing, transport to the store, marketing, admin costs, customer service, warranty, retailer profits, etc. Whether the bike is made in China, Vietnam or Cambodia, the new 34-38% tariffs will increase the cost by ‘only’ $ 10-12. (The old tariffs…

And consumers will pay the $12. It won’t make it viable to make the bike in the US for < $40.

Re: Bikes in the age of tariffs

#24

Post by eesmith »

mullingitover wrote: post #13

I've never been a political donor, I might've thrown $20 into a small donation a couple times. However, it seems financially irresponsible not to pour everything up to the legal limit into punishing everyone involved in this tax hike to the maximum extent.

All I've gotten from my donations has been being added to mailing lists asking for more money to help fund the next election.

Not for building grass roots organizations. Not for building resiliency. Not for active protests, and organized opposition by the politicians.

I'm sure the political consultants got paid well though.

Re: Bikes in the age of tariffs

#25

Post by 9rx »

mmooss wrote: post #14
giraffe_lady wrote: post #4

> That is a factor that’s often overlooked: The Civic Type R—and also many high-end bicycle components—barely make sense from a strict business perspective. ... International trade has made it possible to pool the global demand for such niche products and make them all in one place, achieving economies of scale that make them (almost) cost-effective. This is such an interesting insight that would never have occurred…

Of course there are enormous benefits to globalization: economies of scale, efficiency and lower prices, quality from specialization (wine from France, beer from Germany, etc), increased competition, etc. To think protectionism will benefit the economy is ignorant. The global system of free trade and human rights has been the most free, prosperous, and peaceful era of humanity by far. Whole nations lifted from deep p…

> Why are we throwing it away again?

Because we haven't figured out how to square allowing people the freedom to work in the industries they please, no matter where in the world that industry has found itself, with allowing countries to strictly limit who is allowed inside its borders.

The "just learn to code" message never sat well with those who have no interest in coding and now they are rising up to try and take back, so to speak, the work they actually want to do. The far reaching consequences that go along with that are not of their personal concern.

Re: Bikes in the age of tariffs

#26

Post by bobchadwick »

typeofhuman wrote: post #16

"the age of tariffs" ah yes, typical ethnocentric point of view of the US. Does the author not know other nations have been engaged in charging tariffs for a very long time?

I think the author, Jan Heine, is originally from Germany. He does own and operate a US-based company, so it's not that surprising that he's writing from that perspective.

Re: Bikes in the age of tariffs

#27

Post by OtherShrezzing »

whenc wrote: post #18
rstarast wrote: post #11

With the huge differences in per-country tariff, there seems to be a large incentive to reroute and relabel imports. E.g., build a bike frame in China, export it to a sister company in Japan, and export it to the US from there, claiming production in Japan. How effective are existing controls against that? (And what are they even, I'm ignorant.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_origin

It's trivial to get around these rules. Northern Irelnd is (or was at some point) a country of origin for both the EU and the UK. So a company could produce something in Greece, ship it to Dublin within the EU, then truck it to Belfast in Northern Ireland, and export it to the US with a UK certificate of origin.

Re: Bikes in the age of tariffs

#28

Post by mmooss »

An essential question is, what is the political angle for Trump and the right wing? They know what they are doing. They know it will cause economic calamity.

They often seek to create calamity and crisis - with Covid; spreading fear (of immigrants, etc.), hatred and violence; disrupting health, education, and housing; international peace and security (NATO, Ukraine, etc.). You never see them spreading calm and peace - crisis seems necessary to their movement.

Tanking the economy does the same thing, but it is a much bigger step that impacts many of their supporters. What is their exit plan?

I expect part of their plan is to blame others: They will blame Democrats somehow, and other political enemies - it doesn't need any basis because the Dems don't have any effective means of refuting it to the public; whatever the GOP says becomes reality. I suspect they'll use it to ramp up hatred and fear, blaming their current objects of hatred such as immigrants, minorities, certain religions (a traditional object of blame, the right has already been normalizing antisemitism and general prejudice - which makes antisemitism inevitable. Rogan recently hosted a conspiracy theorist blaming Jewish people for 9/11, for example - how long before does he blames them for the economy, 'undermining President Trump'), liberals, etc.

Edit: I did some rewording

Re: Bikes in the age of tariffs

#29

Post by teddyh »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #4

> That is a factor that’s often overlooked: The Civic Type R—and also many high-end bicycle components—barely make sense from a strict business perspective. ... International trade has made it possible to pool the global demand for such niche products and make them all in one place, achieving economies of scale that make them (almost) cost-effective. This is such an interesting insight that would never have occurred…

This – eliminating costs and other negative effects of transportation – is one of the major reasons people started living in large cities, instead of spreading themselves out in small tribes across the land.
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