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Feds Killed Polestar and Spared Volvo

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Re: Feds Killed Polestar and Spared Volvo

#51

Post by bagels »

walrus01 wrote: post #43
mixologic wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read up on the "chicken tax" for how long the auto industry has navigated weird assemvly games: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax

I think my favorite part would be where they were unbolting entire seats and feeding them directly into industrial shredders. "Ford imported all of its first-generation Ford Transit Connect models as "passenger vehicles" by including rear windows, rear seats, and rear seat belts.[1] The vehicles were exported from Turkey on ships owned by Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics (WWL), arrived in Baltimore, and were converted…

I wonder if manufacturers are using LLMs to find all the dumb loopholes in the laws that they can.

Re: Feds Killed Polestar and Spared Volvo

#52

Post by khuey »

walrus01 wrote: post #43
mixologic wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read up on the "chicken tax" for how long the auto industry has navigated weird assemvly games: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax

I think my favorite part would be where they were unbolting entire seats and feeding them directly into industrial shredders. "Ford imported all of its first-generation Ford Transit Connect models as "passenger vehicles" by including rear windows, rear seats, and rear seat belts.[1] The vehicles were exported from Turkey on ships owned by Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics (WWL), arrived in Baltimore, and were converted…

Ford ended up paying $365 million (roughly $2200 per van) to settle a lawsuit from the government over that.

Re: Feds Killed Polestar and Spared Volvo

#53

Post by YokoZar »

onion2k wrote: post #31
catigula wrote: post #14

[flagged]

The alternative to Chinese goods is not locally made goods for the majority of people. It's either Chinese goods that we pretend are locally made, or it's nothing because they can't afford the local stuff. Cheap good for decades has meant companies have been able to depress wages to the point no one can really live without them. Removing the cheap goods without also giving up massive corporate profits would just mean…

If companies have been "depressing wages for decades" how come they're at an all time high? https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N

People make stuff like this abroad because wages are too high here to make a profit, not too low.

Re: Feds Killed Polestar and Spared Volvo

#54

Post by ifwinterco »

mattas wrote: post #38
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #17

What makes a car ‘made in China’ (therefore over 100% tariffs) vs ‘assembled in the USA’ (therefore no tariffs)? The battery, engine and everything else is absolutely Chinese made. I don’t know how much assembly there is honestly but i feel the Geely, err i mean Polestar was a little close to that line. I will say the laws around this indicate just how ridiculous tariffs can be. There’s always some line to press up a…

Reminds me of this. There's a whole industry around reverse engineering tariff classifications to find ways to minimize all-in manufacturing cost. For example, let's say you sell air purifiers. Option 1 is to import an air purifier and pay the 25% tariff (or whatever the actual duty rate is) on air purifiers. Option 2 is to import a widget that gets classified as a fan (with 5% duty) and import a widget that gets cla…

The solution is to tax the capital account instead (tobin tax) or at the very least put the same tariff on everything.

But politicians can never resist exceptions and carve outs and then the game starts again

Re: Feds Killed Polestar and Spared Volvo

#55

Post by DangitBobby »

fsckboy wrote: post #39

> Polestar is done in the U.S. market. Its sister brand Volvo, owned by the same Chinese parent company, was spared. No one has explained why. The U.S. Federal Government is meddling with the automotive industry, the free market, and capitalism. I'm not saying "trust the government", not at all. But meddling in China trade is absolutely not meddling with the free market.

How is preventing a Chinese brand from selling here not meddling in the free market?

Re: Feds Killed Polestar and Spared Volvo

#57

Post by tancop »

YokoZar wrote: post #53
onion2k wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative to Chinese goods is not locally made goods for the majority of people. It's either Chinese goods that we pretend are locally made, or it's nothing because they can't afford the local stuff. Cheap good for decades has meant companies have been able to depress wages to the point no one can really live without them. Removing the cheap goods without also giving up massive corporate profits would just mean…

If companies have been "depressing wages for decades" how come they're at an all time high? https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N People make stuff like this abroad because wages are too high here to make a profit, not too low.

real wages in western countries are down because 1. regressive inflation on essential goods like energy is faster than both wages and luxury goods and 2. rent and house prices (= mortgage costs) are up because of corporate lobbying and rich nimby homeowners.

that means if employers want to pay workers fairly they need to pay a lot more than in other countries with a cheaper economy. but even the inflated wages are not growing fast enough to catch up with cost of living. so yeah wages are too high compared to the rest of the world but also too low relative to the gdp and growth rate and corporate profits.

Re: Feds Killed Polestar and Spared Volvo

#58

Post by chvid »

If you go to China you will see plenty of KFC, Starbucks, Apple, and Tesla. American companies that all make billions out of the Chinese market.

Yet the US government seems happy to play games like this; there must be someone thinking - hey the shoe could soon be on the other foot? Maybe we should cool it a bit ...

Re: Feds Killed Polestar and Spared Volvo

#59

Post by AnthonyMouse »

ifwinterco wrote: post #54
mattas wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of this. There's a whole industry around reverse engineering tariff classifications to find ways to minimize all-in manufacturing cost. For example, let's say you sell air purifiers. Option 1 is to import an air purifier and pay the 25% tariff (or whatever the actual duty rate is) on air purifiers. Option 2 is to import a widget that gets classified as a fan (with 5% duty) and import a widget that gets cla…

The solution is to tax the capital account instead (tobin tax) or at the very least put the same tariff on everything. But politicians can never resist exceptions and carve outs and then the game starts again

> The solution is to tax the capital account instead (tobin tax)

Isn't that just going to further advantage multinational corporations that don't have to move currency in order to move resources because they're all within the same corporation?

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