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Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything

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Re: Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything

#391

Post by verzali »

trebligdivad wrote: post #202
denismi wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This pre-election BBC summary - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy343z53l1o - pretty clearly spells out what has eventuated, describing it as a "central campaign pledge": > Trump has made tariffs a central campaign pledge in order to protect US industry. He has proposed new 10-20% tariffs on most imported foreign goods, and much higher ones on those from China.

I don't think there's that much surprise at the tariffs on China; it's the tariffs on the rest of the world, especially friendly countries like Canada that are the big surprises. Also, who believes politicians campaign pledges?

Why on Earth not? Didn't people pay attention during his first term? This was 100% predictable.

Re: Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything

#392

Post by tbossanova »

jibal wrote: post #322
tbossanova wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the misuse here?

It depends on which definition of the word is being used. For the informal one, "very foolish or stupid", it's literally true.

I’m still not sure what the misuse is. “Literally” is now commonly used as an intensifier, like how “awesome “ used to mean inspiring awe, including if you were scared of something, and now is mostly an intensifier. Awesome, dude!

Re: Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything

#393

Post by cycomanic »

dismalaf wrote: post #205
Refreeze5224 wrote: post #200

[flagged]

The system that allows very wealthy to exist is also the reason the US has the highest class mobility among western nations. Also, on a purely pragmatic note, capital is mobile. If you penalize the rich, they just move, and then the new system will stop class mobility.

I don't know how you came up with that statement. It certainly does not reflect reality unless you don't count Sweden, Germany, Canada as part of the western world.

>Individual studies have estimated absolute mobility rates for recent cohorts of roughly 50% in the US (Chetty et al. 2017), 53% in Canada (Ostrovsky 2017), 70% in Germany (Bönke, Harnack, and Luthen 2019; Stockhausen 2018), and 77% in Sweden (Liss, Korpi, and Wennberg 2019).

From https://www.ifau.se/globalassets/pdf/se/2020/wp-2020-11-tren...

Re: Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything

#394

Post by PeterStuer »

macintux wrote: post #78
lazarus01 wrote: post #69

In NYC, for the first 6 months of 2025, 994 new private sector jobs were created [1]. During the same period last year, there were 66,000 new jobs created. Higher cost of doing business from tariffs has frozen hiring. With a frozen job market, there’s less revenue coming in. NYC is a leading indicator for the rest of the country. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/13/nyregion/nyc-jobs.html

I’m curious whether it’s more the tariffs, or the uncertainty. No one knows what will happen on a day-to-day basis: the chaotic (and illegal) decision-making leaves everyone wondering what’s next.

It is more the volatility for sure. Tarrifs have existed forever and business has always coped with them.

Re: Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything

#395

Post by NooneAtAll3 »

YZF wrote: post #108
macintux wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m curious whether it’s more the tariffs, or the uncertainty. No one knows what will happen on a day-to-day basis: the chaotic (and illegal) decision-making leaves everyone wondering what’s next.

The hiring slowdown predates tariffs. For various reasons CEOs either believe they can do more with less people, or that they can hire cheaper people in other geographies, or both. Businesses (tech or financials) don't seem to be telegraphing uncertainty, S&P 500 revenue is at all times high and trending up, earnings/profit all time highs and trending up, valuations all times high and trending up.

S&P 500 or S&P 10, tho?

Re: Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything

#396

Post by cycomanic »

dismalaf wrote: post #268
bobsomers wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you penalize the rich, they just move, and then the new system will stop class mobility. This is a myth created by the rich so that you won't tax them.

It's pretty observable and part of the reason many microstates are extremely wealthy. Also keep in mind the US is a winner here. The UK loses the most millionaires and it's had an observable impact on their economy.

Just one more follow up, the US is 27th on social mobility, behind most EU countries, Australia, New Zealand and most other countries which are consider "western"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Social_Mobility_Index

Re: Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything

#397

Post by JumpCrisscross »

refurb wrote: post #226
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about it makes it dishonest? What do you think would be an honest comparison? And, if you do it, what numbers do you get?

Where to start? Comparing a 10 year US period to a 20 year period? Seems awfully selective. Let's do a side by side comparison? 2018 to 2023? 2023 is the last year with solid numbers. US: 12% real GDP growth China: 26% real GDP growth Sounds impressive, until you account for the base. US: +$2.4T USD China: +$3.64T USD Yikes! 4x the number of people, but 0.5x the GDP growth.

> Comparing a 10 year US period to a 20 year period? Seems awfully selective

Yes, I chose the strongest form of the other side’s argument to show that even then, it’s difficult to argue that Chinese PPP GDP/c is approaching American levels within a generation. (Though China’s numbers don’t vary much between 10 and 20 years, America’s do since we had a lot of war and then economic stimulus in the 2000s.)

> 2018 to 2023?

You want to make multi-decade projections off a pandemic baseline?

> 4x the number of people, but 0.5x the GDP growth

Per capita means per person. Purchasing power means real production. The question was about potential living standards, not aggregate might.

Re: Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything

#398

Post by NooneAtAll3 »

selectodude wrote: post #179
pydry wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ironic thing is that tariffs are the right tool to reindustrialize America (over the period of ~a decade) but theyre being wielded with the skill and grace of a crack addled ferret by somebody who thinks it's a magic wand.

Reindustrializing America requires people that are actually willing to work in a factory.

that requires giving advantage to such people - and stripping advantages from the rest

Re: Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything

#399

Post by niek_pas »

sneak wrote: post #150
kimixa wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel it's more they're not actually playing for the scoreline. They want to be the team #1, even if that causes the team to lose in the end.

When people see everything as an ego-based competition, they lose track entirely of the fact that trade is not zero-sum: both parties (or nations) benefit from increased trade. It’s the zero-sum mindset of leadership that only ever learned to excel by cheating and stealing, not cooperating, building, or synergizing.

And unfortunately, it is exactly the Gorilla chest-pounding politicians “we are #1” that attract particular large swaths of the voting population who tend to see everything as a “me first” zero-sum competition.

Re: Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything

#400

Post by esseph »

YZF wrote: post #342
epistasis wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was the entire point of hiking interest rates, to slow down the economy and stop inflation. Tariffs are universally acknowledged to cause inflation, and we would be in a recovery path if it weren't for the delays that tariffs are causing right now. It is rather interesting to see the difference in standards of accountability for different presidents. Some are responsible for the economy even if its behavior is n…

GDP is still growing and inflation has come down. I agree tariffs contribute to inflation: https://www.frbsf.org/research-and-insights/publications/eco... Before tariffs, in the post-pandemic recovery, we also didn't see hiring go back to pre-pandemic levels. There are other forces like AI adoption. I don't have good intuition around the connection between tariffs and jobs. Yes, higher inflation may require cooling d…

Because they're terrified of the uncertainty of the long tail of the tariffs. It takes months and months to see the products of those.
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