New US Tariffs are Anti-Maker and Will Encourage Offshoring • Hacker News Board

Re: New US Tariffs are Anti-Maker and Will Encourage Offshoring

#221

Post by oldcynic » Tue, Jun 19, 2018, 3:54 PM UTC

paulie_a wrote: post #61

digitalzombie wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Wavepool, Maytag, etc.. Americans washer and dryer cloth machines pushed for Tariff from the Obama administration to fight against Samsung and other. The tariff target machine coming out from specific countries so Samsung and other moved to other South Eastern companies such as Vietnam. So the American companies pushed for tariff for all incoming washing machine that aren't American. Trump administration…

This is completely off topic, but I will never buy another Samsung appliance or anything anymore. Great hardware but shit software...my refrigerator should not need to reboot.

Shit hardware too as you find out when they need repair. Components are combined for cheaper manufacture, so don't expect to easily replace a defrost heater element without a whole bunch of other components in the block and a regas at the same time.

Unfortunately most makers are at this game now. No surprise that it promotes a lot more replacements when you can't change the £20 broken part but have to get some £250 thing that includes lots else.

Re: New US Tariffs are Anti-Maker and Will Encourage Offshoring

#222

Post by stickfigure » Tue, Jun 19, 2018, 3:55 PM UTC

js8 wrote: post #38

digitalzombie wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Wavepool, Maytag, etc.. Americans washer and dryer cloth machines pushed for Tariff from the Obama administration to fight against Samsung and other. The tariff target machine coming out from specific countries so Samsung and other moved to other South Eastern companies such as Vietnam. So the American companies pushed for tariff for all incoming washing machine that aren't American. Trump administration…

"I'm not a libertarian but The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith states that all country will have certain expertise they are just good at. Whether it is because the geography that enable them to be better than other or other things, because they're good at certain thing, countries should play to their strength and trade for what they need." And I am not against free trade (well, with reservations), but I think this id…

Just look at the U.S. as an example - if they followed Smith's advice, they would still continue to trade cotton.

The US is (still) the third largest cotton producer in the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_production_in_the_Unite... https://www.npr.org/2013/12/02/248243399/technology-subsidie...

Re: New US Tariffs are Anti-Maker and Will Encourage Offshoring

#223

Post by scroogly » Tue, Jun 19, 2018, 3:55 PM UTC

dalbasal wrote: post #213

imgabe wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This one makes Chinese microwaves x% more expensive. Except that's not what the article says. The tariffs in question don't apply to finished products. So it wouldn't make a Chinese microwave more expensive. However, if you want to import components to build a microwave and hire US workers to put it together, that is what these tariffs make much more expensive. So instead of hiring US workers to assemble it in the…

I meant "this one" in abstract, not the one in the article. Ie you can easily link an item in a shop to a clause in your policy and an amount that has been paid. There is no way to understand that implications so simply with (eg) quotas.

I'd say this view comes from massively underestimating the complexity of the effects on the economy that result from the externalities of instituting tariffs.

Re: New US Tariffs are Anti-Maker and Will Encourage Offshoring

#224

Post by sipherhex » Tue, Jun 19, 2018, 3:57 PM UTC

fredley wrote: post #206

imgabe wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This one makes Chinese microwaves x% more expensive. Except that's not what the article says. The tariffs in question don't apply to finished products. So it wouldn't make a Chinese microwave more expensive. However, if you want to import components to build a microwave and hire US workers to put it together, that is what these tariffs make much more expensive. So instead of hiring US workers to assemble it in the…

One function of tariffs is to put political pressure on other countries. That's exactly what China is doing here. By only putting tariffs on uncompleted goods, it now makes even less sense to assemble in the US. This is in direct opposition to what a lot of Trump's voters were voting for: more manufacturing in the US.

The first part of your statement is generally accurate. However, the article is discussing tariffs the US has chosen. This is not something China is doing.

Re: New US Tariffs are Anti-Maker and Will Encourage Offshoring

#225

Post by anon23423532 » Tue, Jun 19, 2018, 3:59 PM UTC

selectodude wrote: post #199

raesene9 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You got a Citation for Canada and the EU allowing Chinese steel shell companies (the recent tariffs against canada and the EU targeted steel)? I'd not heard that argument at all so far.

A name with a bunch of numbers behind it spouting off unsourced nonsense is trademark Russian bots on Twitter, so I'd just leave it alone.

muh russia, don't consider anything the media doesn't tell you! See reply above

Re: New US Tariffs are Anti-Maker and Will Encourage Offshoring

#226

Post by mistermann » Tue, Jun 19, 2018, 4:01 PM UTC

netinmate wrote: post #183

Brockenstein wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The whole "US Made!" tagline of old stopped becoming possible because we couldn't charge wages low enough to compete with foreign dollars or foreign slave wages. Not exactly. For starters being able to buy products for cheap is generally good for consumers. They have more money left over to buy other things... Secondly, the U.S. have actively fought to keep wages low in developing nations. For example: https://www.t…

You are right the economy is very complicated, but it seems that the only factor anyone discusses is what's good for the "consumer". I think the "consumer" is a really bad success criteria. I don't really care about what's good for the "consumer", I care about what's good for "the employee", highly skilled jobs, higher wages, and more jobs. These things can't be driven by lowering the cost to consumers, we'll get wha…

(This isn't directed at you, just thought I'd put it here....)

I care about what is good for everyone - employers, employees, the overall country, and the overall world (all these same people in other countries), on a long term sustainable basis.

Whenever one reads these threads, rarely does one encounter someone who's doing anything other than talking their book, or supporting their personal ideology of "how it should be", usually based on reading articles written by others that support their ideology.

I think all of us would be better off if after finishing writing a narrative or explanation that supports our personal ideology, we then turned around and tried to poke holes in it. It's child's play to rationalize why it's a win-win situation to outsource menial labor to 3rd world countries, but what happens when one of those third world countries happens to be a giant, populated by incredibly hard working and historically accomplished people, and a very smart government who remembers mistakes that were made in the past? What happens when this country isn't content being a dumb, low-margin manufacturer, and decides it wants to take over the entirety of the process including the design? Sure, the West currently still holds a lead in much of technology, but where does this bizarre idea come from that it will last forever? Because we're more "creative"? Is there strong evidence for this? And do you also happen to simultaneously hold the belief that the peoples of all nations and cultures are essentially the same (a paradox one commonly sees in liberal leaning technical communities)?

Part B of this rant would be the folly of optimizing for GDP, which is another complicated and potentially very dangerous mistake for what should be fairly obvious reasons. Or the recently popular notion that humanity's highest priority and morally imperative goal should be to normalize GDP and standard of living across all members of humanity on the planet. Different cultures optimize for different things, some things require more work to achieve, but that often means less time for family and leisure. That said, I'm also strongly opposed to certain countries messing things up for entire regions of the world for decades on end with no end in sight.

Life is a hell of a lot more complicated than you'd think it is, if all you had to go on was most people's personal perception of it.

Re: New US Tariffs are Anti-Maker and Will Encourage Offshoring

#227

Post by fredley » Tue, Jun 19, 2018, 4:02 PM UTC

sipherhex wrote: post #224

fredley wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One function of tariffs is to put political pressure on other countries. That's exactly what China is doing here. By only putting tariffs on uncompleted goods, it now makes even less sense to assemble in the US. This is in direct opposition to what a lot of Trump's voters were voting for: more manufacturing in the US.

The first part of your statement is generally accurate. However, the article is discussing tariffs the US has chosen. This is not something China is doing.

I missed that completely. Well that's just bizarre...

Re: New US Tariffs are Anti-Maker and Will Encourage Offshoring

#228

Post by arcticbull » Tue, Jun 19, 2018, 4:05 PM UTC

jonatron wrote: post #193

throwawayjava wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument that Switzerland provides a model for high tariffs creating wealth is... especially ironic. Switzerland is one of the least tariff-encumbered economies in the world, reguarly topping out various free trade indicies [1]. And in Switzerland's case, that's almost certainly causual. Average salaries in Switzerland are so high because of the disproprtionate role Switzerland plays in EU and global banking -- a…

You didn't explicitly say it was, but you didn't make it clear that Switzerland isn't in the EU.

It depends on what you mean by "EU" - I do understand that EU member state has a specific definition that Switzerland does not meet. What most people think of as "EU" is actually an overlapping patchwork of agreements many of which Switzerland does participate in.

True, they're not part of the Euro zone. They're part of the Schengen area (common immigration zone), the EFTA (free trade area), signed the EEA, and adopted by themselves most EU regulations. [1] While not an ECJ member, they are softening their stance on that also [2].

[1] https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-swiss-model-of-co-op...

[2] https://www.ft.com/content/17d840b6-209b-11e8-a895-1ba1f72c2...

Re: New US Tariffs are Anti-Maker and Will Encourage Offshoring

#229

Post by patrickg_zill » Tue, Jun 19, 2018, 4:08 PM UTC

digitalzombie wrote: post #22

dalbasal wrote: post #19

Out of all possible trade barriers, I think tariffs are generally the better option. The alternative is subsidies, quotas or "unofficial" barriers like product safety rules or other burry-you-in-bureaucracy setups. Tariffs bring in taxes (as opposed to costing the public) They're easier to understand. This one makes Chinese microwaves x% more expensive. It's clearer who is paying for it (consumers) and who benefits,…

I disagree. Wavepool, Maytag, etc.. Americans washer and dryer cloth machines pushed for Tariff from the Obama administration to fight against Samsung and other. The tariff target machine coming out from specific countries so Samsung and other moved to other South Eastern companies such as Vietnam. So the American companies pushed for tariff for all incoming washing machine that aren't American. Trump administration…

Steel is like $500 per ton. I would like to see a source for the $100 extra claim.

Re: New US Tariffs are Anti-Maker and Will Encourage Offshoring

#230

Post by endorphone » Tue, Jun 19, 2018, 4:08 PM UTC

IanDrake wrote: post #187

gebruikersnaam wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bush put tariffs on steel in 2002 : 200000 jobs lost [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_United_States_steel_tarif...

Those where meant to be protectionist. We are playing hardball on trade renegotiation. The recently announced tariffs are leverage to get a fair deal at the negotiating table. There’s a big difference between the two motives.

"The recently announced tariffs are leverage to get a fair deal at the negotiating table."

The US has a trade surplus with Canada, has a higher average tariff, has been the bigger beneficiary of trade, yet Trump has announced tariffs on Canada, to an enormous backlash (and Canadians seriously rethinking their integration in the US economy).

This isn't leverage, or masterful negotiating. It's a hamfisted moron bashing around with absolutely no clue what they're negotiating. Trump withdrew from TPP (you know -- one of those trade agreements that would remove most tariffs), and quickly thereafter announced that he would sure like to join TPP...only on the "US'" terms (which is hilarious because TPP was entirely at the US' terms).

At this point I marvel that anyone seriously puts forth an argument that Trump and his crew of misfits are serious negotiators. They're clowns in a clown show. Trump's great business prowess is that he fucked over so many people -- "negotiating" by refusing to pay them after they did the agreed work -- that anyone of legitimacy refuses to have anything to do with him. It's why his personal lawyer was a real life Saul Goodman. What a farce.