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US businesses and consumers pay 90% of tariff costs, New York Fed says

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Re: US businesses and consumers pay 90% of tariff costs, New York Fed says

#71

Everyone has been getting sold that these tariffs are on "China" or fill-in-the-blank on what country we're "getting" with them. The reality is that's a fundamental misunderstanding of what a tariff is. There is a reason you will find tariffs drop off after the great depression. They make everything more expensive for businesses and in turn, the end consumer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tariffs_in_the_Un…

Of course they increase the price of goods - that's the whole point!!!

> is like fighting your neighbor who's dog keeps peeing in your yard by lighting your own couch on fire.

it's more like buying your own dog to pee in your yard, and keep out the neighbor's

What is missing from the convo is where the tarriffs go - they go to fund the federal gov't, which spends on Goods and Services for the American People (you hope).

What you would want to see is a reduction on income taxes concomitant with the increased tarriff revenue. US Gov gets the same amount of money, US consumers pay the same in taxes + tarriffs, but American industries get protection from overseas competition, strengthening key sectors of the US economy.

Re: US businesses and consumers pay 90% of tariff costs, New York Fed says

#72

I think blanket tariffs are dumb don't get me wrong. But tariffs have been used in the car industry for decades. If you got rid of them completely within 5 years the American car companies would be closing plants. The whole reason Japanese auto manufacturers build plants in the US was to avoid tariffs. Shipping costs are actually incredibly minimal for a vehicle. So in my opinion, we've seen where they can work. If y…

What if, instead of all of us paying in order to have a car industry, we take that tax money and pay to an ecological restoration industry or functioning healthcare industry or whatever. Have you seen the map of superfund sites? Statistically speaking, you are almost certainly living within 10 miles of a superfund

https://epa.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=...

There is a LOT of other work we could be doing if we stopped trying to uphold existing uncompetitive industries

Re: US businesses and consumers pay 90% of tariff costs, New York Fed says

#73

I think blanket tariffs are dumb don't get me wrong. But tariffs have been used in the car industry for decades. If you got rid of them completely within 5 years the American car companies would be closing plants. The whole reason Japanese auto manufacturers build plants in the US was to avoid tariffs. Shipping costs are actually incredibly minimal for a vehicle. So in my opinion, we've seen where they can work. If y…

Don't American cars have some of the lowest levels of reliability?

I'm not super educated on all the happenings in the car industry globally, but I've seen a few videos of Chinese EVs that put anything Ford, GM or other US brands have put out to absolute shame.

Re: US businesses and consumers pay 90% of tariff costs, New York Fed says

#74
post #8

Yes. This is what a tariff is.

Exactly. You make it more attractive to do business with someone domestically by increasing the cost of doing business with nations that subsidize their exports or undercut your companies with slave labour or lax environmental regulations. Over the long term, domestic capacity either grows or emerges to take advantage of business models that were unprofitable due to impossibly cheap imports before.

> by increasing the cost of doing business with nations that subsidize their exports or undercut your companies with slave labour or lax environmental regulations

This is why the ”overregulated” EU got hit with a 30% tariff?

Re: US businesses and consumers pay 90% of tariff costs, New York Fed says

#75

Everyone has been getting sold that these tariffs are on "China" or fill-in-the-blank on what country we're "getting" with them. The reality is that's a fundamental misunderstanding of what a tariff is. There is a reason you will find tariffs drop off after the great depression. They make everything more expensive for businesses and in turn, the end consumer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tariffs_in_the_Un…

I think the misunderstanding is in a combination of wording + practical application. Tariffs in the legal sense are technically paid by the importer who sells a product. It's their responsibility to pay it... always. The importer could technically eat that cost, and the consumer wouldn't see a difference on their price tag. But what happens in practice, the vast majority of the time, is the importer passes that extra…

IMO the people claiming that "technically the importer pays the tariff" are deliberately using the letter of the law to confuse and distract the main thrust of the arguments.

What we mean when we ask who is paying the tariff is this: when we increase tariffs, who becomes poorer?

And the answer to that is obvious.

Re: US businesses and consumers pay 90% of tariff costs, New York Fed says

#76
post #22

Tariffs are import taxes. The pre-Maga republican party used to be against taxes.

Pre-maga republicans also used to be pro open borders! A lot has realigned in the past decade or so.

calling everything that isn't hypermilitarized border control "open borders" is getting old

Re: US businesses and consumers pay 90% of tariff costs, New York Fed says

#77

Congratulations Trump fans --- you voted for a big new tax --- on yourself. Stupid is as stupid does.

The different between taxes (you -must- pay (unless X loopholes applies to you)) whereas tariffs are voluntary and even more so then sales tax. You may chose not to buy any products or goods that requires you to pay tariffs. Which is the primarily goal to begin with. Influence consumer behaviour. I realize that for some products and goods there may not be a an alternative choice of products or goods that do have tari…

> Once tariffs are in place for a year or two it is possible that, domestic producers have expand capacity

That's how tariffs would work if wielded for the right reasons. But now domestic producers have to pay tariffs on the very machines and inputs needed to expand capacity.

Re: US businesses and consumers pay 90% of tariff costs, New York Fed says

#79

Everyone has been getting sold that these tariffs are on "China" or fill-in-the-blank on what country we're "getting" with them. The reality is that's a fundamental misunderstanding of what a tariff is. There is a reason you will find tariffs drop off after the great depression. They make everything more expensive for businesses and in turn, the end consumer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tariffs_in_the_Un…

> Everyone has been getting sold that these tariffs are on "China"

Everyone? No, only the willfully ignorant.

Re: US businesses and consumers pay 90% of tariff costs, New York Fed says

#80

I think blanket tariffs are dumb don't get me wrong. But tariffs have been used in the car industry for decades. If you got rid of them completely within 5 years the American car companies would be closing plants. The whole reason Japanese auto manufacturers build plants in the US was to avoid tariffs. Shipping costs are actually incredibly minimal for a vehicle. So in my opinion, we've seen where they can work. If y…

> It does get hard to math out when you have to weigh the money the average consumer would save over the 10 million auto jobs in the US. Not that hard to math out, the deadweight loss of tariffs is always non-zero. IIRC there was a pretty good paper that mathed out the impact of Obamas tire tariffs and concluded that it cost the economy significantly more jobs than it saved.

That's pretty much impossible. If it costs a company 1% less to make a widget that takes 1000 hours of labor to make it overseas instead, the company is incentivized to move overseas.

The thousand of hours labor, the material to source the widget, the real estate for the factory, the transportation now all occurs overseas.

At the very least, you can't spew something like that then not even bother to link a source.

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