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

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131–140 of 339 posts

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

#131

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.

I think American car companies are orthogonal to the question. The larger point is that _Japanese and German_ cars for the American market are largely themselves American by many important metrics.

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

#132

There is only a debate on this topic because propaganda works. It's a regressive tax, which disproportionately hits consumers.

Exactly, it is regressive. Lower income spends higher proportion of income, therefore higher percent of income is hit by tariffs.

You know what all the poor people are bitching about right now? Power bills.

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

#133

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 hop…

Federal Gov't only spends its discretionary funds now on funding ICE with 70 billion dollars.

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

#134

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…

No. The point is to make foreign goods more expensive in order to bring production back to the US. People who don't realize this point out who is actually paying and claim its a problem. Will this bring manufacturing back? It seems to be working to some extent, but its a risk to manufacturers because the whole thing could get reversed after an election.

Tariffs can be used to support domestic production. But not with how Trump is implementing them. Pointing out that tariffs can be used this way is ignoring what's actually happening.

> its a risk to manufacturers because the whole thing could get reversed after an election.

It's a risk to manufacturers when Trump might wildly change tariffs for a country / set of goods / whatever, up or down, at any time, because someone said something he didn't like somewhere, or some other non-economic rationalization.

The instability and lack of cohesive direction mean it's impossible for manufacturers to respond to tariffs with investment even within Trump's term.

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

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone has been getting sold that these tariffs are on "China" Everyone? No, only the willfully ignorant.

Right. They're on goods from China. The intent is to make that stuff more expensive so we can compete.

> The intent is to make that stuff more expensive so we can compete.

This would seem to be an admission that the domestic product is inferior, otherwise why would it be necessary to burden the import with tariffs?

In any case, if that's the intent, it's not working out for fairly predictable reasons. Lots of imported goods have no domestic equivalent. The factories required to make them require years of investment, which is not forthcoming, because the longevity of these tariffs is highly dubious and the government is doing nothing to encourage business development. And even if there were new factories, they would have to import machines and raw materials, which are of course tariffed, driving up the cost of domestic goods, and defeating the alleged purpose of the tariffs.

There's no just explanation that can make the tariffs look useful to anyone. Like everything from this administration, it's about the appearance of action.

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

#136

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…

No. The point is to make foreign goods more expensive in order to bring production back to the US. People who don't realize this point out who is actually paying and claim its a problem. Will this bring manufacturing back? It seems to be working to some extent, but its a risk to manufacturers because the whole thing could get reversed after an election.

I work at a manufacturing supplier (packaging and logistics) and our business has been on fire since the trade war kicked off. Pre-COVID we were at ~$25MM yearly and now we are $150MM+ and growing steadily.

We just bought a million sq ft building (that was an old RCA plant) and millions in new machinery to keep up.

We are only a regional player, too.

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

#137

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…

No. The point is to make foreign goods more expensive in order to bring production back to the US. People who don't realize this point out who is actually paying and claim its a problem. Will this bring manufacturing back? It seems to be working to some extent, but its a risk to manufacturers because the whole thing could get reversed after an election.

The whole thing could get reversed on a daily basis as this admin commits massive graft, carving out loopholes & rollbacks for their buddies companies/industries/etc..

Not to mention the incoherence that one day its a tool to bring jobs back, the next day its just a negotiation tactic so they get reduced/dropped on a country by country basis over and over.

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

#138

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…

No. The point is to make foreign goods more expensive in order to bring production back to the US. People who don't realize this point out who is actually paying and claim its a problem. Will this bring manufacturing back? It seems to be working to some extent, but its a risk to manufacturers because the whole thing could get reversed after an election.

That’s not the way they are presented at all. And making foreign goods much more expensive when we don’t currently produce enough of those products domestically to offer actual alternatives is a clear harm to consumers, not a boon to domestic manufacturing.

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

#139
post #40

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…

It is baffling to me, as it is no different than thinking that "sugar taxes" are taxes that soda companies pay. There is even a straight forward analysis that shows it does impact the soda companies rather heavily. But it is objectively paid by the consumers. And nobody is really confused by that.

If rent or business taxes go up, the business may either eat the cost or eventually raise the main price, they don’t tack a “rent offset fee” on the final bill. But with tariffs, up to a point the business dgaf because they just pass it through as a separate “junk fee” line item.

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

#140

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…

Very, very few people believe that. This is how it works: Republicans willfully lie to their supporters, who know it is lie, and they then knowingly pass on the lie to you. This could be your conservative friends, family, co-workers. They are all knowingly lying to you. This is a pretty simple form of debasement and a loyalty test - will you repeat this lie for me? The bigger the lie, the more loyal.

you don't actually believe that is a one sided thing do you?
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