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

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

#211

Post by WillPostForFood »

thisisit wrote: post #160
heratyian wrote: post #78

If tariffs are bad, why does every country tariff US-made products so heavily?

Maybe you have been fed a lie? In most free trade agreements many products are without tariffs, some have quotas and others yet have tariff. For example, under CUSMA Canada have no tariffs on US made apparel and footwear, diary is under quota and steel has 25-50% tariffs. But then if you hear someone who lies a lot and has an agenda they will only tell you about steel tariffs and make you think that all US made produ…

So why is there a 25-50% tariff on steel?

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

#212

Post by callamdelaney »

The point of tariffs is that domestic products are more appealing isn't it? It's expected that foreign selelrs just add the tariff to the cost of their product so..

1. 90% instead of 100% is pretty good 2. kind of irrelevant, a better question is how much more money went to domestic companies rather than foreign?

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

#213

Post by pirate787 »

curun1r wrote: post #114
SunshineTheCat wrote: post #13

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…

What’s obnoxious about them isn’t tariffs conceptually, it’s the implementation. There’s an argument that some sort of tariffs are actually necessary. The world is changing and the US has become reliant on countries who increasingly have divergent interests from the US. Additionally, some countries have aging populations that will make them more and more unreliable places to manufacture stuff in the next couple decad…

Plenty of Americans are ready and able to do the work if the conditions and wages are at the market rate. We're addicted to abusing the illegal immigrant underclass. Returning undocumented people to their homes is the moral issue of our time; Trump is ending a system of neo-slavery.

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

#214

Post by ourmandave »

ohyoutravel wrote: post #45
Refreeze5224 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flat out lies about how tariffs work from the leader of the country might be part of it.

Yes, but people have to have a modicum of awareness of how things work, even though the administration is lying.

Or take the easy way and just assume that everything the admin says is a lie and can't be trusted.

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

#215

Post by tastyfreeze »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #33
sejje wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly, the people loudly protesting tariffs are traditionally for higher taxes.

Those people are generally for higher taxes on the rich. Tariff are a flat tax that dis-proportionally affects the poor.

Every tax ever implemented by government has been initially sold as a tax on the rich. The people voting for it assume they will never be taxed because they aren't currently rich. But, there is never enough of other peoples money to spend. So, taxes expand and/or increase to include more people.

The original income tax was sold as 1% on mid income and 2% on high income. At the time more than half the country was not going to pay any tax.

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

#216

Post by jqpabc123 »

ThinkBeat wrote: post #30
jqpabc123 wrote: post #5

Congratulations Trump fans --- you voted for a big new tax --- on yourself. Stupid is as stupid does.

The different between taxes (you -must- pay (unless X loopholes applies to you)) whereas tariffs are voluntary and even more so then sales tax. You may chose not to buy any products or goods that requires you to pay tariffs. Which is the primarily goal to begin with. Influence consumer behaviour. I realize that for some products and goods there may not be a an alternative choice of products or goods that do have tari…

Once tariffs are in place for a year or two it is possible that, domestic producers have expand capacity

Once tariffs are in place for a year or two it is possible that consumers will be paying higher prices for inferior goods from providers that can't compete elsewhere.

In other words, there are both positive and negative effects --- and no clear way to predict which will prevail.

It's 19 century economics applied in the 21st century --- it's direct government interference in the marketplace --- the opposite of what Republicans spent decades railing against.

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

#217

Post by irishcoffee »

hananova wrote: post #194
newfriend wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If one country has labor protection and pollution regulations, and another country has near-slave labor and dumps chemicals into rivers, would you consider the former inferior? Unable to compete?

It’s fairly funny to a european that it isn’t immediately clear which half of the comparison is intended to apply to the US, and which half is supposed to apply to China.

It's funny as an American that Europeans are either this ignorant or think this kind of comment is clever.

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

#218

Post by nixosbestos »

SunshineTheCat wrote: post #13

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…

Sure I understand why you'd write "Everyone" on HN.

But no, some of us have had functional brains for a while. Thanks.

EDIT: to be fair, if you were even slighly more specific about the shit-eating morons that ate this illogical, stupid rhetoric, it would be too political and, at best, result in your comment getting clobbered so.... "everyone" it is. Can't make the dumb****s that led us here feel bad.

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

#219

Post by nickff »

hananova wrote: post #194
newfriend wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If one country has labor protection and pollution regulations, and another country has near-slave labor and dumps chemicals into rivers, would you consider the former inferior? Unable to compete?

It’s fairly funny to a european that it isn’t immediately clear which half of the comparison is intended to apply to the US, and which half is supposed to apply to China.

If you think that labor in the USA and China are treated similarly, you really need to pull your head out of the sand.

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

#220

Post by mmooss »

taeric wrote: post #40
SunshineTheCat wrote: post #13

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.

> 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.

Businesses like to say that, to get consumers to back them politically, but it's not at all true:

When input costs increase, a seller must decide whether to take the extra expense out of their profit or to increase the price (or some mix of the two).

Taking the extra cost out of their profit obviously decreases profit.

Raising the price decreases sales (consumers won't buy as much at a higher price), which decreases profit. The change is not linear (look up demand curves). The seller, if they are smart, already found the price that maximizes revenue. Therefore changing the price will reduce revenue.

In reality, it's not such a science and there are other factors. Another fundamental factor is price elasticity of demand, which is how much a change in price affects demand. For sugary drinks, quite a bit - people can forgo them. For lifesaving healthcare, elasticity is less, for obvious reasons.

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