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The many ways tarrifs will hit electronics

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Re: The many ways tarrifs will hit electronics

#161

Post by mindslight »

ssl-3 wrote: post #144
mindslight wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If clearing customs per-package is too expensive or inconvenient, I expect Aliexpress will tweak their managed logistics process to import items as bulk shipments in the cargo container at wholesale value and add estimated customs charges as a checkout fee on top of item prices. I don't think big print "free shipping" will be affected as it gets people to buy more often and it pads the margins when people buy more at…

They already do bulk imports, and they have have been doing it for years. With their "Standard Choice" shipping, for me where I am, that means that my stuff is sent from New York to me in Ohio with USPS. There's no customs forms attached when it comes my way, nor should there be: I didn't import anything. How it gets from wherever it started to New York is not my problem -- just as it isn't my problem with the other…

Ah, I didn't know that with Standard Choice they already did the importing themselves. I figured they were doing something like bringing the bulk containers into a customs free zone, splitting the individual packages up to get them ready for delivery, then brokering them as individual imports so they fell under de minimis and sending them out to be delivered.

Since what you say would imply that if I order something from Aliexpress right now (so it wouldn't clear customs until May 4th or so), that my package wouldn't get tariff-impounded but Aliexpress would just eat the increased tariff cost - how sure are you about this? The last Standard Choice packages I received I didn't really pay attention to if they had customs forms, and don't really know the rules around that anyway (ie could there just be an electronic customs form and not a physical one attached to the package)

Re: The many ways tarrifs will hit electronics

#162

Post by Whoppertime »

andsoitis wrote: post #25
Workaccount2 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump wants to get rid of income taxes for those earning under $150k. He most likely intends to pull out the financial pillar of income tax, and replace it with tariffs. He is likely waiting for the price crunch to blow up so he can step in an give everyone the "gift" of no income tax.

Income taxes are progressive while tariffs are regressive, so those under $150k are likely to be worse off.

How are tariffs regressive? Income taxes are obviously progressive. If you earn $100,000 you are going to be paying a higher percentage of your earnings compared to someone making $10,000 or $50,000. It's not intuitive that someone who makes $100,000 is going to be paying less in tariffs than someone making $50,000 though. How does that work?

Re: The many ways tarrifs will hit electronics

#163

Post by Whoppertime »

tempestn wrote: post #116
throw310822 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, just to play the devil's advocate a bit, this is definitely a crazy idea but it might have some logic to it: 1) taxing consumptions instead of income has the advantage of being much harder to evade. It puts an end to tricks like living off loans or even simply detracting expenses- you cannot detract anything if you're not taxed at all; 2) only taxing imported goods means that anything that benefits the local ec…

The problem is that you massively distort the economy, making it less efficient aka poorer. And that's even before considering the fact that other countries will retaliate.

Wasn't the income tax introduced as a temporary measure in WW1, and prior to that the majority of state income was generated via tariffs? Shifting the burden can certainly cause distortions, but we already caused those distortions getting into this situation in the first place.

Re: The many ways tarrifs will hit electronics

#164

Post by Whoppertime »

alabastervlog wrote: post #93
Isamu wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He wants to get rid of his taxes, reducing other people’s taxes is part of the deal. Tariffs are moving taxes around, everyone pays but he’s hoping that he will be the least affected.

Actually-rich people pay little or no income tax. Most of what they pay is capital gains, and usually the long-term rate (15% or 20%, depends), which is lower than all but the lowest two (0%, 12%) of seven brackets applied to people who actually work for a living. Plus they don't pay FICA on that, which is another ~7.5% for W2 and ~15% for contract workers. Also, they often manage to avoid even paying the long-term c…

It depends what you mean by rich people. Do you mean people like Doctors and Lawyers who work for their money, or do you mean investors and CEOs who created a company worth millions/billions, and the shares they own in that company mean they are also worth millions/billions. Because I can tell you the former certainly pay income tax, and I have heard from many doctors and lawyers that they weren't planning on working on that weekend because that marginal tax rate made the juice not worth the squeeze so they spent the weekend on the golf course instead

Re: The many ways tarrifs will hit electronics

#165

Post by Whoppertime »

energy123 wrote: post #48

These tariffs will have a deindustrializing effect for complex goods. - Exemptions for electronics - Unemployment at 4%, no labor to work in factories - Raw inputs now 10%+ more expensive, meaning worse international competitiveness - Policy uncertainty deterring investment

Looking at the labor force participation rate it seems like there is a lot of labor to work in the factories U-3, the official unemployment rate only includes people who were actively looking for a job in the last 4 weeks. Meaning if you've been out of work for half a year and you stopped sending resumes the last 4 weeks (because none of the local employers are responding to your resume) you are not included in the unemployment rate

Re: The many ways tarrifs will hit electronics

#166

Post by gamblor956 »

Whoppertime wrote: post #160
gamblor956 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment is so disingenous it's almost pointless to respond to. Previous presidents did things because they genuinely believed that what they were doing was the right thing for America based on their deeply-held beliefs. Trump has no beliefs. He does not act from rational thought. He does whatever makes him feel good in the immediate moment, without regard to the consequences or even his own prior words and deeds…

This comment is built on mind reading. Like you can tell what Joe Biden or Barack Obama genuinely believed, and what Donald Trump or George Bush were pretending to believe. No evidence can convince you one way or another because you've already read their minds and can tell who is genuine and who's an interloper

I don't need to read minds.

Bush, Obama, and Biden expressed coherent, reasoned ideologies and plans of action, and as presidents, acted consistently with their own words and deeds. I may have disagreed with Bush's policies, but I know that he actually believed that what he was doing was what he thought was best for America based on his ideological beliefs, because he was able to articulate why. (And those ideological beliefs didn't change on a whim and weren't centered around what was best for him personally.)

Trump doesn't issue coherent thoughts. He doesn't use reason. He can't explain why he does why he does because he doesn't act based on reason; he just goes base of whatever feels good in the second it's flashing through his brain. At the start of the month, he changed his mind on tariffs literally dozens of times in a few hours; so quickly and so frequently that even his own White House didn't know what the tariff policy was for several days. The Secretary of Treasury even said that the best place to find out what our tariff policy was is the President's twitter account (never mind that Congress determines tariffs, not the president).

Everybody is great until they're the worst ever. If someone disagrees with him for whatever reason, they're losers and traitors and maybe should go to jail. Every member of his first administration refused to come back the second time around, so he calls them all losers and traitors. He appointed Powell to the Federal Reserve chair, and now he's calling him Biden's puppet for not doing the stupid thing Trump is demanding that he do to bail him out of the other stupid thing Trump is doing. He appointed two of the justices to the SCOTUS and hundreds of federal judges and now he's calling them "out of control" because they won't just roll over and okay the unlawful things he's doing.

Re: The many ways tarrifs will hit electronics

#167

Post by mindslight »

carlosjobim wrote: post #158
bloomingeek wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ding,ding,ding! We have an AI bot.

Part of mob behaviour is also dehumanizing your opponent, like you just did. You are showing very predictable behaviour.

It's funny how the argument always comes back to how you're being "unfairly" written off, while the only objective argument you've actually offered is "tariffs can be good too" - presented as if you're some independent tariff enthusiast skeptical of Trump himself and not just a full on America-hating cult member.

Bot or not it doesn't really matter. It's clear you're not going to change your opinion of Dear Leader until this country is in shambles, at which point you'll grumble about how you were lied to while moving on to the next destructionist rallying cry. (I doubt tariffs were a main issue for you twenty years ago)

So it's not really about changing your mind, rather it's really about preventing other people from getting sucked in by the whirlpool of lazy unsubstantiated vibes.

Re: The many ways tarrifs will hit electronics

#168

Post by floxy »

tzs wrote: post #78
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #15

I've honestly never understood the point of the tariffs. 1. They're massively unpopular and likely to cause electoral losses in '26 and '28 which will immediately undo them 2. Consumers know the tariffs will likely cause a recession, and will likely be undone in 4y. Pretty much every major spending purchase that can be delayed, will. 3. Companies know 4y is not enough time to invest in new supply chains or new manufa…

> I can tell you, for myself? Any major purchases are now off the table. I will happily keep my 18 year old car running instead of buying a new honda civic. Aren't Civics made in the US, with mostly US and Canadian parts? They might come through the tariffs without too big a hit.

Apparently the hybrid hatchback Civic was made in Japan, but now Honda is moving production to the U.S.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/honda-shift-product...

Re: The many ways tarrifs will hit electronics

#169

Post by floxy »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #5

Yeah, my electronics hobbies are probably severely curtailed. I am assuming that the cancelling the de minimus exception is the real killer. I assume I can no longer afford PCBWay, AliExpress. Recent purchases I am not likely to be able to afford: NVIDIA TESLA M40 cards from China I found on eBay and a "mining rig" mother board from AliExpress. (Was putting together a, formerly, inexpensive local-Llama rig.) To be su…

OSH Park makes their circuit boards in the USA: https://oshpark.com/

Re: The many ways tarrifs will hit electronics

#170

Post by StackRanker3000 »

Whoppertime wrote: post #162
andsoitis wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Income taxes are progressive while tariffs are regressive, so those under $150k are likely to be worse off.

How are tariffs regressive? Income taxes are obviously progressive. If you earn $100,000 you are going to be paying a higher percentage of your earnings compared to someone making $10,000 or $50,000. It's not intuitive that someone who makes $100,000 is going to be paying less in tariffs than someone making $50,000 though. How does that work?

They’re regressive in the sense that people with lower income spend more of it on consumption than people with higher income or wealth, who can save or invest at a higher rate.
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