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American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

kielinstitut.de

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Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

#171

Post by pmontra »

senorrib wrote: post #24
sensanaty wrote: post #13

Isn't this literally economics 101? How did we ever even end up imagining that tariffs are somehow paid by the exporter??

No, it isn’t that simple. Who bears the most weight depends on the elasticity of the curve on each side. This is confirming demand is more inelastic, which causes it to bear the burden, but could have been the other way around.

An Asian factory of imperial rulers and scales might have had to bear the burden because they have only the USA to sell to. However if they have products that they can sell to all the world and they manage to, why lower the prices to the USA instead of selling more to other markets?

Countries geographically closer to the USA might reason differently because close countries usually trade more and they have more to lose. But even in this case, if a Mexican or Canadian company can find other markets or discovers that it can keep selling at the same price, they will not bear any of the burden of the tariffs.

Russian like sanctions were applied to Italy about 100 years ago because of colonial wars in Africa. Despite the sanctions lasted only 6 months, Italy discovered that they ended up trading less with the usual partners and more with others. Tariffs are somewhat similar to sanctions as they apply friction to trading.

Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

#173

Post by pixl97 »

dzink wrote: post #132
bartread wrote: post #56

I'm glad they've done the work here and put a figure on it - the impact absolutely needed to be quantified - but I also have to say... to the surprise of absolutely no-one with even the most basic grasp of how economies function. People, lots of people, lots of people who have a really deep understanding of national and global economics (unlike me), have been warning about this since talk of tariffs became common cur…

The election is a state at a moment in time. Before the election, to affect the state, propaganda machines target whatever is lower on the maslow hierarchy of needs for the voters - pesky tariffs are a tiny issue compared to that boogeyman that wants to target your children. Someone’s freedom is a pesky thing compared to that immigrant boogeyman going after your retirement savings. Once people have voted because they…

>that boogeyman

It's depressingly funny too when you ask these people if they've ever been directly affected by said boogeyman and they'll say no, but the know someone that has. Meanwhile you can ask them things about healthcare, local government, and other matters that affect their daily life, and they'll swear the trans-immigrant-boogeyman de jour is has far more affect on their lives.

Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

#174

Post by bartread »

benj111 wrote: post #122
bartread wrote: post #56

I'm glad they've done the work here and put a figure on it - the impact absolutely needed to be quantified - but I also have to say... to the surprise of absolutely no-one with even the most basic grasp of how economies function. People, lots of people, lots of people who have a really deep understanding of national and global economics (unlike me), have been warning about this since talk of tariffs became common cur…

As a Brit who studied history, the parallels to 1930s Germany are too strong for comfort. So I would suggest reading up on that for some answers. Although as the comparison hopefully makes clear, you worrying about tariffs is missing the point, it's more a question of basic democracy at this point. I'm also somewhat concerned about your (edit: as in the USs) new found lust for Lebensraum, because again, that went wel…

> I'm also somewhat concerned about your new found lust for Lebensraum

I beg your pardon?!? Who the hell do you think you're talking to? Read my comment again.

Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

#175

Post by toomuchtodo »

nathan_compton wrote: post #167
BanAntiVaxxers wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I don't buy this - Harris had a big bump in the polls as soon as she entered the race and I think she could have won if she had offered voters anything . This bullshit that American's won't vote for a woman is just an excuse not to run women and to deflect blame towards a culture war issue and away from the fact that the democrats don't actually have popular policies. I voted for Harris, I even canvased for her, but…

I will confirm what the person you replied to said. I have had white collar colleagues and blue collar truck drivers (one who is a family member) say the same thing, that they wouldn’t vote for a women. You severely underestimate racism and misogyny in the US electorate imho.

I did not bother canvassing or donating to the Harris campaign for this reason, for the same reason I did not help pro vaccine non profits during the pandemic trying to convince antivaxxers. You aren’t changing someone’s belief system and mental model on timelines that matter for election outcomes. Mamdani was able to win NYC because young people and women turned out in force and ranked choice voting. The electoral college overweights rural, lower education parts of the country in US voting influence.

Based on the above, it will be a long time before enough of the US electorate has turned over before you can run a women presidential candidate imho. 78% of farmers voted for him, and still support him, even as he destroys their way of life, for example. Progress occurs one funeral at a time (Planck).

I recommend the recently released book “The Vanishing Church: How the Hollowing Out of Moderate Congregations is Hurting Democracy, Faith, and Us” by Ryan P Burge (ISBN13 9781587436697) as a contributor to understanding this topic, as well as “Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are” by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz (ISBN13 9780062390851).

Edit: This comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46681760 touches on this as well.

Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

#176

Post by bjelkeman-again »

PaulRobinson wrote: post #116
hirako2000 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't US specific and what goes into people's head is what propaganda wants it to be. Economics tell people the clear impact, but it doesn't make the news. We get fed with whatever the political influencers decide to tell us. Did the brits expect the consequence of brexit? No but that's because they deemed whatever the news said to be unreliable on this topic. Which for once happened to be true.

Actually, it's pretty clear to those who have been paying attention that the main influence that swung the polls by about 4% from Remain to Leave in the last 2 days was a £10m advertising campaign on Facebook packed with lies, paid for by a Brexiteer who can't quite explain to the Electoral Commission where that money came from, but it did seem to just "appear" a few days after he allegedly met with the Russian ambas…

Is it this one you are talking about? https://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/news/public-statement...

Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

#177

Post by nozzlegear »

dominicrose wrote: post #149
bartread wrote: post #56

I'm glad they've done the work here and put a figure on it - the impact absolutely needed to be quantified - but I also have to say... to the surprise of absolutely no-one with even the most basic grasp of how economies function. People, lots of people, lots of people who have a really deep understanding of national and global economics (unlike me), have been warning about this since talk of tariffs became common cur…

I'm not American but tariffs might be a way to "make America great again" because it makes it harder to trade with other countries. This means that it makes it relatively easier than before, to trade within the USA. Another effect is that it serves as a tax. Easy for me to say but I think Americans aren't taxed enough.

Globalism evokes scary thoughts for a lot of people, but globalism is what made America great. Nobody wins when protectionists come to power.

Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

#178

Post by Marazan »

nathan_compton wrote: post #167
BanAntiVaxxers wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I don't buy this - Harris had a big bump in the polls as soon as she entered the race and I think she could have won if she had offered voters anything . This bullshit that American's won't vote for a woman is just an excuse not to run women and to deflect blame towards a culture war issue and away from the fact that the democrats don't actually have popular policies. I voted for Harris, I even canvased for her, but…

> that the democrats don't actually have popular policies.

Democrat policies polled better than Republican policies at the last election.

Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

#179

Post by embedding-shape »

MonkeyClub wrote: post #164
bartread wrote: post #56

I'm glad they've done the work here and put a figure on it - the impact absolutely needed to be quantified - but I also have to say... to the surprise of absolutely no-one with even the most basic grasp of how economies function. People, lots of people, lots of people who have a really deep understanding of national and global economics (unlike me), have been warning about this since talk of tariffs became common cur…

> but I also have to say... to the surprise of absolutely no-one with even the most basic grasp of how economies function. Exactly: tariffs are taxes in another guise. They only serve to create an (artificial) price advantage of local over imported goods for as long as they're levied. > What were you thinking? What was going through your heads? I'm genuinely curious. I also can't fathom why the crowd (not just a HN s…

> I also can't fathom why the crowd (not just a HN subset) that was clamoring for tariffs thought it'd be anyone other than them shouldering the increase. Perhaps their influencers didn't spell it out for them?

Now I'm neither in the US, American nor Democrat/Republican, but as far as I understand their argument, is that they know it means higher costs for those products for them, and it'll eventually lead to companies wanting to produce things within the border, and only after that is in place, will things actually get cheaper (and better?).

So I think for these people with that perspective, the idea is: everything cheap -> tariffs to make imports expensive > People buy less imports and companies start selling within the border > Eventually things get cheap.

Again, this is just me trying to understand their perspective.

Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

#180

Post by dfee »

virtualritz wrote: post #162
dfee wrote: post #17

Americans will rightly be suspicious when a think tank in Germany writes about tariff relief that benefits them. Of course, we should all be critical always – that's the first word in the term "critical thinking".

LGTM [1] What source would you trust on this matter? Or rather: who has published something we could look at that contrasts these findings? [1] https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/kiel-institute-for-the-world-...

You misunderstand me. I'm not saying that the Kiel Institute shouldn't be trusted, but there will appropriately be greater scrutiny applied due to its location.

Which sources would I trust? I feel it's important to read broadly, and (on a long scale) improve your ability to discount biases. To that end, I'm not recommending anything, but everything in proportion.

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