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Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

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Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#61

Can Amazon please also list every subsidy and incentive, state, federal and local, tax evasion loophole and proportion of it passed to consumer?

Why would (should) they? The tarrif is biggest contributor to the would-be price increase, and they want to offload the blame to the policies that enacted it.

Why do you think you get a breakdown of governmental fees in your electric or phone bill, but not the tax subsidies?

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#62
post #46
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sure it would be off in some cases, but “quite misleading” seems like an exaggeration: the economy was steadily growing and there weren’t any major drivers of inflation other than Trump’s massive tax hike.

There are other sources of price changes - commodities prices, exchange rates, taxes in originating countries, costs of transport....

Yes, but how many of those dramatically jumped recently? Two years from now, sure, you’ll have to ask about other things but it’s not like the commodities market had other massive upsets this month.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#63

Over half of Amazon's third party sellers are Chinese companies who regularly false report to dodge tariffs on their products in ways that American competitors can't. Amazon claims to police them but they're extremely reliant on them at this point and the Chinese sellers just start up new brands if penalized. https://x.com/zackkanter/status/1908343624464576666

The best way to avoid this kind of behavior is to avoid shopping at stores where you can’t trace the origin of their products.

Stop buying “brands”, and looking for “deals” and acting like a consumer. Do research and find high quality products, pay more for those products, buy less disposable junk. This isn’t just a “China” thing it’s in general.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#64

Tariffs are good. Tax the consumers and pass them as tax breaks to the rich. /s

You don't have to put the "/s", it's literally what happened. It's not like they're hiding it. Trump wants to get back to the Gilded Age (he's said so many times), were the only form of taxation were tariffs on foreign imports, and the bourgeoisie was able to amass unparalleled power and wealth domestically, at the expense of everyone else.

As far as I'm concerned, this is dumb as shit and straight reverse-robinhood.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#65
post #55
post #4

Presumably they can determine this for items directly imported, but for all other cases (such as a made-in-the-USA product that is built using made-in-China tools, or from made-in-China components), surely the cost impact on the final product could be extremely complex to work out, if they even have access to that level of supply chain detail?

Surely they will have receipts for the tariffs paid…

This doesn't help; e.g. if you buy sneakers made in the US, those might be affected by leather import tariffs, but Amazon is not gonna know by how much and manufacturers are gonna be cagey with exact numbers.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#66
post #63

Over half of Amazon's third party sellers are Chinese companies who regularly false report to dodge tariffs on their products in ways that American competitors can't. Amazon claims to police them but they're extremely reliant on them at this point and the Chinese sellers just start up new brands if penalized. https://x.com/zackkanter/status/1908343624464576666

The best way to avoid this kind of behavior is to avoid shopping at stores where you can’t trace the origin of their products. Stop buying “brands”, and looking for “deals” and acting like a consumer. Do research and find high quality products, pay more for those products, buy less disposable junk. This isn’t just a “China” thing it’s in general.

I buy cheap things at Harbor Freight now instead of on Amazon because at least then I know I can return it if it breaks.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#68

Tariffs are good. Tax the consumers and pass them as tax breaks to the rich. /s

I absolutely hate the fact that you can go read "Protection or Free Trade(1)" by Henry George and learn that this is exactly what will happen. Tariffs are a tax on the poor, it will never benefit them, in any shape or form. It won't bring them jobs, it won't increase their pay, tariffs only serves to line the pockets of the already wealthy manufacturers. For everyone else this is just an increase on the products they consume. Then realise that Henry George published that book in 1886. It is an incredibly relevant piece of work that shows EXACTLY what will/is happening in the US. It's also terrifying that a book that's almost 140 years old describes the problems with current policies so well.

1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_or_Free_Trade

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#69

Over half of Amazon's third party sellers are Chinese companies who regularly false report to dodge tariffs on their products in ways that American competitors can't. Amazon claims to police them but they're extremely reliant on them at this point and the Chinese sellers just start up new brands if penalized. https://x.com/zackkanter/status/1908343624464576666

When are we going to realize this is a form of dumping by the Chinese? People love cheap goods but as QoL in China improves, they won’t be able to churn out cheap goods for long. That’s why CCP is hellbent on trying to monopolize global supply chain. In fact, I believe we are first slowly and then drastically headed toward global equilibrium in labor cost. We might be looking at significantly cheaper labor in the US and double or triple labor costs in China and India.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#70
post #15

Trump will certainly consider this provocation, so perhaps the news here is that Amazon considered this worth it, even given the inevitable retaliation.

Isn’t Trump the one doing the tariffs? Isn’t the point to get you to buy products without tariffs? I’d think this plays directly into what Trump wants.

Trump has at least 3 contradictory goals that he has spoken at length about with his tariff policies so it’s not clear what exactly would make him happy that you could consistently work towards other than I guess capitulating to whatever demands he has that day.
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