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What if tariffs?

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Re: What if tariffs?

#111

Post by throw0101a »

Borealid wrote: post #59
exe34 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The exporter gets paid the same as before. The buyer pays more. There's a subtle difference, can you spot it?

Let's imagine, hypothetically speaking, that demand is perfectly inelastic. The price of a good is $10, and buyers will absolutely refuse to pay more than $10 under any circumstances. Before a tariff is imposed, the seller sells the good for $10 and keeps $10 in revenue. If a tariff of $1 is imposed under these hypothetical circumstances, does the buyer pay more? Does the exporter get paid the same as before? Clearly…

> In reality because demand is neither 100% elastic nor 100% inelastic, what tends to happen is that the cost of the tariff is split in some ratio between the buyer and seller.

That is the argument of the Administration:

>> Kevin Hassett's theory of tariffs: "China has got to sell a lot of stuff to us to maintain political stability. And so if we put a tariff on their stuff, then they cut the price so that our consumer is basically still able to demand as much stuff as they need to sell to be politically stable."

> If he were right, the import price index (which measures pre-tariff prices) would have fallen by enough to offset the sharp tariff hike. It didn't.

> [graph of said index]

* https://twitter.com/JustinWolfers/status/1981928861547041162...

Re: What if tariffs?

#112

Post by blitzar »

nurettin wrote: post #106

At first I thought tariffs were just more inflation. Import prices increase, sales prices balance it out and people will buy anyway. But no, it hurt import businesses in unforseen ways. I saw entire shipment crates get discarded because it was suddenly too expensive to get into the country overnight and too expensive to ship back. Just senseless, pointless waste.

It hurt import businesses in foreseen, expected and one must assume desired ways

Re: What if tariffs?

#113

Post by bregma »

charcircuit wrote: post #86
exe34 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The exporter gets paid the same as before. The buyer pays more. There's a subtle difference, can you spot it?

I don't see it. Exporter pays: Consumer ends up paying price + tariff, then seller pays the tariff to the shipping company, which pays it to the government. Importer pays: Consumer pays price, then later pays the tariff to the shipping company, which pays it to the government. In both cases the consumer is paying price + tariff. A small difference is that some consumers could be psychologically tricked by the lower p…

To simplify: if the exporter lowers their price, the consumer pays the same, the exporter gets less, and the consumer pays the tariff to the government.

If the exporter charges the same price, the consumer pays more, the exporter get the same as before, and the consumer pays the tariff to the government.

The consumer always pays the tariff. The exporter never pays the tariff.

Re: What if tariffs?

#114

Post by Ekaros »

croisillon wrote: post #15
intermerda wrote: post #9

The number 39 refers to the 39% tariff rate on Switzerland. Kind of insane that the American President just made up a lie that tariffs are paid by foreign countries and rest of the administration just went along with it. It flies in the face of any common sense.

it's thanks to the lying that he was elected in the first place, and no one around him dares to contradict him, what would be the incentives to stop?

I wish there was simple three strike policy on any elected official. Three proven lies and they are remove from office for life. And these can be anything. And not knowing at time does not change it.

Only silence or absolute truth should be accepted.

Re: What if tariffs?

#115

Post by jopsen »

d1sxeyes wrote: post #55
onion2k wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine some manufacturers used tariffs as a reason to lower the price of their products that imported into the US while also raising the price outside of the US to balance that change, but that doesn't mean the manufacturer or their customers outside of the USA are paying anything towards tariffs. The entire tariff transaction is between the customer and the US government, and it's all transacted within the USA. T…

Let’s say I’m a widget seller in the US, and my widgets cost $100 to import from Switzerland before tariffs. I retail them at $150 USD in the US, but I sell internationally. In the UK for example, I retail them at £113 (simple conversion, obviously it doesn’t really work like this). Now tariffs are imposed, my import cost per widget is $139. Not only do I have to jack up my US price to $189, I have to jack up my UK p…

It's very likely that for luxury items the price is what people are willing to pay. And it's adjusted for each country accordingly.

Thus, the change may simply be that profit margin for sales into the US drops (or rather than it skews that way).

But there are still many commodities where you're not pricing the product based on branding.

These commodities will likely still have the same price on the international market. And thus, consumers in the US will see the effects of tariffs in the price.

Such commodities could be finished goods, but also parts, machines or feedstock for industry in the US.

I'd also guess that if you look at what middle class people buy, these commodities make up a larger percentage of the expenditure -- than it does for wealthy people. Making tariffs a very regressive tax.

Most people won't care about the price of luxury watch. But most people will buy aluminum cans, etc.

Re: What if tariffs?

#116

Post by immibis »

d1sxeyes wrote: post #55
onion2k wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine some manufacturers used tariffs as a reason to lower the price of their products that imported into the US while also raising the price outside of the US to balance that change, but that doesn't mean the manufacturer or their customers outside of the USA are paying anything towards tariffs. The entire tariff transaction is between the customer and the US government, and it's all transacted within the USA. T…

Let’s say I’m a widget seller in the US, and my widgets cost $100 to import from Switzerland before tariffs. I retail them at $150 USD in the US, but I sell internationally. In the UK for example, I retail them at £113 (simple conversion, obviously it doesn’t really work like this). Now tariffs are imposed, my import cost per widget is $139. Not only do I have to jack up my US price to $189, I have to jack up my UK p…

Switzerland would sell the same widgets to the UK for much less, since they wouldn't be hit by the tariffs and also wouldn't be paying to ship Europe->America->Europe.

Re: What if tariffs?

#117

Post by fainpul »

louthy wrote: post #7

Do the hands tick counter clockwise? I am assuming so to make 3/9 swap work, but it’s not mentioned.

Boring answer: no, because that would require modifications to the movement and would make the watch much too expensive.

The whole idea of Swatch is based on simplicity, reduction of parts count and automated manufacturability.

Re: What if tariffs?

#118

Post by mlrtime »

Swoerd wrote: post #30
croisillon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's thanks to the lying that he was elected in the first place, and no one around him dares to contradict him, what would be the incentives to stop?

And now that the U.S. has a tyrannical government, there’s no one left to stand in its way, the Second Amendment has proven to be a paper tiger.

Can you expand on what you mean exactly? I see these sentences like your littered throughout reddit, vague notions of violence/war?

Re: What if tariffs?

#119

Post by carlosjobim »

charcircuit wrote: post #86
exe34 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The exporter gets paid the same as before. The buyer pays more. There's a subtle difference, can you spot it?

I don't see it. Exporter pays: Consumer ends up paying price + tariff, then seller pays the tariff to the shipping company, which pays it to the government. Importer pays: Consumer pays price, then later pays the tariff to the shipping company, which pays it to the government. In both cases the consumer is paying price + tariff. A small difference is that some consumers could be psychologically tricked by the lower p…

> In both cases the consumer is paying price + tariff.

Consumers pay all of the operating costs and taxes of a company. That's not the debate.

With tariffs, the cost of an imported product becomes higher than a domestically produced product, making consumers purchase the domestically produced product. This is the purpose.

The long-term purpose is that foreign companies start making their products in your country to avoid tariffs and be able to compete.

The discussion about if the buyer or seller pays the tariffs or taxes is non-sensical and a distraction.

Re: What if tariffs?

#120

Post by estearum »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #109
hshdhdhj4444 wrote: post #99

It’s actually quite shocking to leave the U.S. and experience the drastic fall in respect. The U.S. has over a century’s worth of dominance and control built in, so it’s not gonna unravel anytime soon and countries will need to grovel along for a bit. But the decoupling has begun, is almost certainly irreversible and is gonna hit Americans hard at most a decade from now. We have no idea the the chain of motion that h…

> It’s actually quite shocking to leave the U.S. and experience the drastic fall in respect. My only vantage point is from inside the U.S., but I find the loss of prestige completely believable. What amazed me was discovering that my own countrymen would vote in, and continue to support, someone like Trump. My political views are pretty centrist, and I thought I understood the views of most liberals and conservatives…

Try on the "it's a cult" model. It explains pretty much everything. This has almost nothing to do with politics or policy or even economics.

It's a cult around Trump and then a (quite diverse) set of politically/culturally/economically-motivated opportunists surrounding him and trying to leverage the Donald's cult-building magic into whatever future United States they dream of.

Whoever speaks to him most recently before he steps in front of a microphone gets policy priority for the next media cycle!

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