Haven't tariffs been paused since they've been announced?
Some of them yes, some of them no. There are now several thousand different "tax brackets" for imported items and the apparent rates on them fluctuate by the day.
Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything
241–250 of 704 posts
Re: Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything
#242[flagged]
"Swimming naked," "bent... over the barrel," "supporting actors."
Do you always speak in grotesque metaphor, or are you capable of referring to concrete phenomena? Congratulations, there is a part of my mind that finds your vague idiom disconcerting. Moreso I am resigned to take your entire cadre less seriously—if such a downgrade is possible.
No that you care; I am "beyond hope!"
Re: Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
the US has the highest class mobility among western nations Source? The rankings I see have the US behind most of Europe.
The average European is poorer than the average person from Mississippi, the US’ poorest state. It isn’t even comparable
> The average European is poorer than the average person from Mississippi, the US’ poorest state
Mississippi has a GDP per capita of $53k.
11% of Mississippi's population has no health insurance.
Mississippi is one of the highest inequality states in the US. Its median income is $30k. It's Gini Index is 49%.
It has poor physical and social infrastructure by advanced country standards.
Spain has a GDP per capita of $35k. Its median income is $20k.
Everyone in Spain is covered with modern healthcare.
Spain has a nationwide high speed rail network. A lot of its infrastructure is top-notch compared to Mississippi and even wealthy parts of the US.
This is despite Spain having some of the highest inequality in Europe, and undoubtedly a host of other problems, including decreasing affordability for average people. Yet it's inequality is far lower than Mississippi, with a 31% Gini Index.
So perhaps GDP per capita doesn't tell the full story. Also, I'm being fair by comparing Mississippi to one of the poorer countries in Europe, not one of the middle or wealthier countries.
Re: Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything
#244> Repricing, though, isn’t as easy as changing a tag—in part because suppliers and big-box stores are engaged in an epic tussle over who will pay what. > Retailers, including Lowe’s and Home Depot, buy Thompson Traders’ wares and set the retail price themselves. And they have been reluctant to pay Thompson Traders more. It seems like this sort of scenario would benefit from some kind of risk protection, like insuranc…
I don't think it's an insurable risk. If you were trying to underwrite some "adverse effects of government regulation" policy in 2024, would a surprise 50% tariff on Indian exports have even entered your calculation?
Maybe not insurable, but there are firms buying and selling tariff and affiliated refund risk. Howard Lutnick's former firm is brokering such deals, in fact.
https://www.wired.com/story/senators-probe-cantor-fitzgerald...
Re: Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything
#245In the end it's the biggest leopard ate my face moment ever: China has very high growth momentum that surpasses American living standards soon, and not long before it will surpass American security standards too. China's purchasing power is probably more comfortable than most western countries, with extensive housing and high speed rail and electric cars etc. When a country becomes rich, inevitably other countries as…
See this is what I don't understand. Everything you just said about China is a positive. Everything you said about China is achievable in the USA, and we at least HAD a head start on soft-power influence. Instead we should just have tariffs instead of actually making the lives of Americans better while FIGHTING affordable housing, high speed rail, and EVs. We've got an entire team of goons who would rather rack up pe…
Yeah it's a crab mentality. I'm ideologically opposed to communism, but I'm happy for the Chinese people. I don't understand why our response is to tear them down, instead of building ourselves up. Seems backwards.
When you even mention building ourself, you are accused of being anti American simply because you point out a deficiency in our current development.
Re: Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything
#246FWIW, we’ve been affected by the tariffs (10% for now; we import mainly from Vietnam and Thailand at this point). Did our second price increase a few weeks ago. We’ll probably test out how much the market will bear because operating in this market really demands a risk premium. So far it’s not as crazy as the pandemic supply chain crisis, but it’s close. The most insane ending to all of this that I can imagine is tha…
Super minor FYI, but on your website all the images in your portfolio show as broken to me.
Re: Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything
#24780 percent plus of economic activity is domestic: all its inputs are entirely unaffected by tariffs. This is a Premier Cru Red Herring.
Do you have a source on this?
Re: Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything
#248In the end it's the biggest leopard ate my face moment ever: China has very high growth momentum that surpasses American living standards soon, and not long before it will surpass American security standards too. China's purchasing power is probably more comfortable than most western countries, with extensive housing and high speed rail and electric cars etc. When a country becomes rich, inevitably other countries as…
When you look at things per Capita in China things look very different from what you describe. Sure, you have pockets of very affluent societies (Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and more) but the majority of the country is not there.
Take a trip to the flyover states or rural oregon.
Re: Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything
#249[flagged]
"Swimming naked," "bent... over the barrel," "supporting actors." Do you always speak in grotesque metaphor, or are you capable of referring to concrete phenomena? Congratulations, there is a part of my mind that finds your vague idiom disconcerting. Moreso I am resigned to take your entire cadre less seriously—if such a downgrade is possible. No that you care; I am "beyond hope!"
> In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with a person, but with slogans, catchwords and the like, that have taken possession of him.
https://www.onthewing.org/user/Bonhoeffer%20-%20Theory%20of%...
Re: Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm from China. I know what real numbers and news come out of China.
Sure, you are. You created this account 2 hours ago, all comments anti China, perfect english and you write about China as "their" country in one of the comments.
FWIW, I do the same thing when referring to the US if my being American is immaterial to the point or observation. It is a way of intentionally not privileging your opinion.