American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis • Hacker News Board

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

#391

Post by somenameforme » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 5:30 PM UTC

threethirtytwo wrote: post #123

0xy wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those same economists warning about tariffs also warned it would lead to runaway skyrocketing inflation and quote "the mother of all recessions" [1] [2] [3], which objectively did not happen. The same economists were nowhere to be seen when prices doubled 2020-24 and the official inflation numbers were 13%. Once again proving that economists are engaged in mere astrology. You also frame the argument that the last adm…

Weather prediction is the more apt analogy here. Astrology is total bullshit, while economics and weather is an attempt to predict the chaos.

Astrology is probably far more apt than you might think, because most don't know the history of astrology. For centuries it was taught as a scholarly proper and real 'science.' Think of something like e.g. modern psychology. Various fields like social psychology have something like a 20% replication rate among top journals which means the entire field is pretty dodgy, but plenty of people keep on repeating the latest headlines, which even end up shared on here fairly frequently, and treating it like any other science.

Astrology only really fell out of fashion due to a perfect storm of a bunch of different factors. The Church defacto banned aspects of it that implied external forces driving human behavior as that would contradict free will, and that happened just about the Renaissance was kicking off and all sorts of new astronomical discoveries led to no greater precision in astrological predictions, along with a more broadly skeptical shift in society, which gradually left it relegated to where it remains to this day.

"My evenings are taken up very largely with astrology. I make horoscopic calculations in order to find a clue to the core of psychological truth." - Carl Jung to Sigmund Freud, 1911

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It's a great example of how what is deemed proper and scientific at one point in time is still heavily influenced by things that, in the future, will be considered 'obviously' nonsense. Even in far more modern times, it wasn't long ago that lobotomization was considered an appropriate psychological treatment. No less than JFK's sister [1] was lobotomized as a 'cure' for her irritability.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary_Kennedy

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

#392

Post by kgwxd » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 5:30 PM UTC

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??

Some people believe anything they're told, as long as it's from "their guy". Their guy said that's how they work. Their guy is currently POTUS.

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

#393

Post by dgellow » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 5:30 PM UTC

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…

> have been warning about this since talk of tariffs became common currency a year ago.

10 years ago

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

#394

Post by MadDemon » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 5:31 PM UTC

mothballed wrote: post #161

PaulRobinson wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of Americans believed the guy they wanted to believe in, because they didn't want to believe the people they didn't want to believe in. You're assuming that modern politics across most of the World has something to do with rational, logical thought. Russia, China, Europe, the US, the Middle East - they are all in a quagmire of irrational fractures between the public and the political classes who want power/cont…

Well when we look at rational economic policies take a look at top ~10 in terms of GDP, purchase parity adjusted, per capita: monaco, liechtenstein, singapore, luxembourg, ireland, macau, qatar, bermuda, norway, switzerland Monarchy: monaco, liechtenstein, qatar One party state w/ elections: singapore, macau direct democracy: switzerland represented democracy: Norway, Bermuda, Ireland, Luxembourg Multi-party represen…

Liechtenstein is as much a monarchy as Britain is. It probably falls more in the direct democracy bucket. Also, the GDP per capita figures for these tiny countries are very missleading because you can have a situation where more than half the work force is commuting into the country every day for work. They increase the GDP but don't count in the capita part.

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

#395

Post by Glyptodon » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 5:31 PM UTC

0xy wrote: post #282

jacquesm wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We usually critique the movie after the end titles roll.

I'm not unconvinced by the idea that businesses in the US dulled inflation by pulling forward stock purchases and stockpiling goods. But 9 months worth of goods? SMBs can't afford to do that. Large enterprises don't have the warehousing capacity to do that. Could you imagine Amazon increasing their stock on hand by 30%? Maybe. Could you imagine them quadrupling their stock on hand? Seems unlikely. Impacts should've s…

I don't know, it seems like there has been a fair amount of reporting about closing or struggling SMBs and farms, and there's also the economy changing to make more and more of the spending come from upper income, which will be less price sensitive and the question of whether various things could have gone down in price otherwise.

The popular zeitgeist seems to reject the inflation numbers because of perceiving it to be higher, too.

I do agree it's probably not inventory, but the frequent changes to the policies may also be part of it too.

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

#396

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 5:31 PM UTC

samiv wrote: post #227

One thing after overlooked about the tariffs is that since the financial market is completely parasitic into the US when a tarif on the imported competitive product makes it more productive the local producer can also increase their prices and their profits without having to do anything. The consumer is really the loser here.

[deleted]

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

#397

Post by CGMthrowaway » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 5:31 PM UTC

wasabi991011 wrote: post #294

mothballed wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well when we look at rational economic policies take a look at top ~10 in terms of GDP, purchase parity adjusted, per capita: monaco, liechtenstein, singapore, luxembourg, ireland, macau, qatar, bermuda, norway, switzerland Monarchy: monaco, liechtenstein, qatar One party state w/ elections: singapore, macau direct democracy: switzerland represented democracy: Norway, Bermuda, Ireland, Luxembourg Multi-party represen…

> There are many natural economic reasons for GDP-per-capita to vary between jurisdictions (e.g. places rich in oil and gas tend to have high GDP-per-capita figures). However, it is increasingly being recognized that tax havens, or corporate tax havens, have distorted economic data which produces artificially high, or inflated, GDP-per-capita figures. > ... > In 2017, Ireland's economic data became so distorted by U.…

What are you saying then, that you wouldn't want to live in Monaco (assuming you had median Monaco income)? That you think large oil & gas resources is good (Venezuela)? I'm struggling to figure out which side you're on

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

#398

Post by PurpleRamen » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 5:31 PM UTC

lovlar wrote: post #323

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…

One of the main reasons we end up with populist leaders who make decisions not in the interest of their population, but in service of their own pursuit of power, is social media and the attention economy. If people stopped spending hours each day scrolling through Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook feeds, media incentives would change. Journalism would become more thorough and responsible, rather than optimized for outr…

> One of the main reasons we end up with populist leaders who make decisions not in the interest of their population, but in service of their own pursuit of power, is social media and the attention economy.

We had the same problems before social media. It's not the cause, just a symptom.

> If people stopped spending hours each day scrolling through Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook feeds, media incentives would change.

Many people willingly choose the distraction, they just don't want to bother with politics and stuff. Social Media is just today's most popular distraction at the moment. And Social Media is also useful for those who seek education. It's really more about motivation and presentation than the medium itself.

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

#399

Post by citrin_ru » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 5:31 PM UTC

> Foreign exporters absorb only about 4% of the tariff burden—the remaining 96% is passed through to US buyers.

Unfortunately (for sellers) tariff decrease trade volume so even if only 4% absorbed by a seller they have much bigger losses from sell volume decline.

Economy is not a zero sum game - almost everyone looses from tariffs - consumers no longer can afford the same some things they did buy in the past because tariffs increased prices. Sellers cannot decrease prices because in many cases it will make their business unprofitable but they still loose on the volume.

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

#400

Post by jacquesm » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 5:32 PM UTC

dennis-tra wrote: post #385

jacquesm wrote: post #140

Ladies & Gentlemen, the President of the United States of Amerca: “Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and w…

> There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago Talking about Kiel, the non existent document was signed there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Kiel

This whole message is in 'not even wrong' territory. I had a demented aunt that was declared unfit to manage her own financial affairs, which she agreed with and passed over as a responsibility to another family member. She was in better shape mentally than Trump and he's the most powerful person in the world.