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Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

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Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#411

Post by slibhb »

rayiner wrote: post #402
slibhb wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mainstream economists also widely agree corporate taxes and capital gains taxes are bad: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/19/157047211/six- .... Should we eliminate those taxes and have everyone pay a large VAT? You don't have to go all the way. Just experiment with a VAT and lowering corporate taxes. > I don’t have confidence that economists have fully figured out how economies work or what the relevant…

> What economists have is better than vague feelings about the dignity of working in a factory as opposed to a service job. You've got it backwards. If people have the feeling that there is more dignity working in a factory than delivering Door Dash, that's a preference that should be factored into the economic analysis. Similarly, economic analyses considers factors like labor laws and environmental laws as detracti…

What I posted there was a bit muddled. Economics is attempting to be a science. To the greatest extent possible, it should not be value-based. Politics is value-based, and it has priority over economics when it comes to making decisions. But if your politics is "we need more manufacturing in the US" then you should listen to economists in pursuit of that goal.

Bringing back manufacturing with tariffs is like banning fossil fuels to combat climate change. It's not good policy.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#412

Post by rayiner »

slibhb wrote: post #411
rayiner wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What economists have is better than vague feelings about the dignity of working in a factory as opposed to a service job. You've got it backwards. If people have the feeling that there is more dignity working in a factory than delivering Door Dash, that's a preference that should be factored into the economic analysis. Similarly, economic analyses considers factors like labor laws and environmental laws as detracti…

What I posted there was a bit muddled. Economics is attempting to be a science. To the greatest extent possible, it should not be value-based. Politics is value-based, and it has priority over economics when it comes to making decisions. But if your politics is "we need more manufacturing in the US" then you should listen to economists in pursuit of that goal. Bringing back manufacturing with tariffs is like banning…

> To the greatest extent possible, it should not be value-based. Politics is value-based, and it has priority over economics when it comes to making decisions. But if your politics is "we need more manufacturing in the US" then you should listen to economists in pursuit of that goal.

I agree with this completely. But I think most economists simply disagree with this goal and aren’t thinking of ways to advance the goal. So we’re stuck with tariffs, which at least is something we have used in the past to support industry.

I would posit that this attitude is at the root of a lot of the distrust of and consternation at experts. If people say: “we want a society with more manufacturing/fewer immigrants/etc.,” the expert response is “you’re stupid to want that.” They’re not thinking of ways to leverage their expertise in service of those outcomes.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#413

Post by Terr_ »

kebokyo wrote: post #263
kebokyo wrote: post #209

I can’t read the actual article because I can’t find a way past the paywall… but I am fairly certain this is a political play. If consumers see two products, one from China and another from Vietnam, both with their tariff markups listed, I have a feeling they’d pick the Vietnam product more often due to the lower markup. This makes Trump happy because he clearly wants us to stop buying Chinese products.

Never mind I am a silly little goober who thinks a little too well https://www.axios.com/2025/04/29/tariffs-amazon-prime-day-se...

To recycle a similar sentiment from another submission [0] on the White House's response:

One of the Republicans' (conflicting) rationales for the import taxes was Americans would notice the higher prices and be motivated to seek out domestic alternatives.

If they were telling the truth, they should be happy to see these factors clearly displayed, since that makes it easy for consumers to compare and switch to other products that aren't being tariffed.

Instead, they're freaking out, indicating they want to deceive consumers and voters into blaming higher prices on "greedy companies", instead of (correctly) blaming the federal government which is taking the money for unprecedented new "national emergency" taxes.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43831027

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#414

Post by Terr_ »

enaaem wrote: post #326
beloch wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's apparently a partisan issue. Take a look at the White House's response. > * White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said she had discussed the Punchbowl News report with Trump, and his message about it was: "This is a hostile and political act by Amazon." * [1] The Trump administration has expressed a clear expectation that businesses like Amazon should pretend tariffs are paid by foreign countries. Transpa…

The cope I have been reading on the MAGA side is that now you can see which products are from America or not from China. The white House should have went with that message, but they can't stop being butt hurt all the time.

Even if we charitably ignore the way this administration has contradicted itself, and assume they really do want to spur a change in what Americans buy... I see no innocent explanation for these unconstitutional threats against transparency and free speech.

The simplest explanation is that they want to deceive consumers/taxpayers into blaming higher prices on corporate whim, instead of their decision to take the money away by import taxes.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#415

Post by Terr_ »

paulcole wrote: post #397
Zamaamiro wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is quite a display of mental gymnastics and historical revisionism. The last couple of years have seen a massive post-COVID backlash to incumbent parties all over the world—Democrats were just caught in the wave. Why on Earth would anyone not call them anything but Trump Tariffs when he is the one who imposed them and when they’re uniquely his idea?

I gave my reason. That it's stupid to think blaming the person matters at all. Fix the problem which is electing people like this. If my toddler scribbles on the wall I better put the markers away next time not put up a little sign that says, "Junior's Doodles."

> If my toddler scribbles on the wall I better put the markers away next time not put up a little sign that says, "Junior's Doodles."

The point of "Trump Tariffs" is not to make the Trump the scribbler face that wall and feel shame for his output--everybody knows he's too damaged for that.

The point is to ensure everybody else (i.e. voters) recognize that the government is taking their money and understand how it came to occur.

To return to your analogy, it's some message that tells other adults to stop giving Junior their markers, from a source that is beyond your direct control.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#416

Post by therealpygon »

OptionOfT wrote: post #334
Eisenstein wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought they made a lot of their money selling the desirable shelf space. "Many grocers earn more profit from agreeing to carry a manufacturer's product than they do from actually selling the product to retail consumers." * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slotting_fee

I moved to the USA from Belgium, and in the USA I have also seen that the lessee of said space stocks the shelves. Of course, I didn't know this, which was very weird when I saw someone those stocking shelves, only to be met with a 'sorry, I don't work here' response when asking them a question.

It depends. Some companies choose to stock shelves themselves in order to make sure their products are properly stocked. Coke/Pepsi and their subsidiaries are this way. It ensures that old out of date product isn’t getting shoved to the back of a shelf, allows them to keep a better track on refills (thus an estimate of sales), so on and so forth. In other cases, the store sometimes requires it to alleviate their own stocking burdens. The vendors are also generally the ones who set up the sale advertisement displays (end-cap or stand-alone). It tends to be a win-win because the vendor gets to advertise with a large display and the store may sell more product (and doesn’t have to set the crap up or take it down). Though, anything can be anything from store to store, so these aren’t “rules”.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#417

Post by therealpygon »

ceejayoz wrote: post #182
Aurornis wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything in the world makes more sense when you accept that it’s all supply and demand. The net worth of the family that owns the business is irrelevant.

Supply and demand can both be impacted by perception, which can be tweaked by humans. If tariffs increase the wholesale cost of an item by $1, but you can make consumers think $5 retail is what the increase should be, that’s an extra $4 in your pocket. Economics education doesn’t stop at 101 for a good reason. “Supply and demand” is like “veins carry deoxygenated blood” - it’s largely true, but further learning revea…

Yes. If people are unwilling to pay $5 more, they will buy less or buy none. That decreases profits due to decreased demand. Now there is more supply than demand, which means you need to make the purchase more attractive, which generally means spend more on advertisements/rebates, lowering the price to an acceptable rate or improve the product value. Or strike a balance where you shrink both the cost (size), and price, and advertise the cheaper price to make people think they are getting a better deal when they are really just buying less for the same price (or more). Round and round it goes; supply, demand, and misleading.

People should remember that it isn’t just the corporations who raise the price that are at fault, it is the people who are unwilling to go without it when the price is overinflated. Yes, then we nit-pick into things like medical necessity and … thus back to the point that it is both supply and demand, and not.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#418

Post by littlestymaar »

acdha wrote: post #399
littlestymaar wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that you are invoking a crude theory in a simplistic fashion that has with very little predictive power over the real world. It's as if you told a guy working in a ski station that “the temperature cannot be above 0°C as there's snow everywhere and everyone knows that snow melts above zero”. It's not how it works, and the economy doesn't work in the simplified fashion you seem to believe it does either…

> The problem is that you are invoking a crude theory in a simplistic fashion that has with very little predictive power over the real world. I appreciate the mix of unwarranted condescension with the assertion that the theory that sudden tariffs cause sudden price increases doesn’t have predictive value, when basically every sober analyst predicted what we are seeing now. It’s not exactly a secret that prices fluctu…

> what we’re seeing now is spread across the entire economy, suddenly

Including in sectors that aren't affected by tariffs at all, that's the thing.

> the assertion that the theory that sudden tariffs cause sudden price increases doesn’t have predictive value, when basically every sober analyst predicted what we are seeing now.

You are misunderstanding. Tariffs will cause price increase with certainty. But so will lowering the USD value on FX markets, and so will adding massive uncertainty to businesses (including, but not limited to, the prospect of higher inflation in the near future), etc.

Tariffs will cause price hikes, but attempting to measure tariffs effect by observing price variations simply cannot work.

Real life prices are influenced by much more than just supply and demand.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#419

Post by littlestymaar »

acdha wrote: post #395
littlestymaar wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Usually short term price fluctuation would be in response to something like a sudden change in market demand or something like a natural disaster lowering production That's theoretical economics, meanwhile in the real world, retail stores change the prices of goods depending on the weather or holidays.

And in your theory thousands of vendors around the world all randomly did this in the same direction at the same time? It’s not like chocolate eggs before Easter are the only thing going up while the rest of the economy is chugging along like normal. Similarly, weather could explain the decline of winter gear sales in the northern hemisphere or specific commodities being hit by a storm but that wouldn’t affect the wh…

I just gave you examples of the most common reasons for price changes that your mental model wasn't taking into account.

Prices vary based on many more factors than what you think it does, that's it.

> all randomly did this in the same direction at the same time

Who says it's random? Most of the variation is very likely linked to the US government actions, but the first order effect of actual tariffs is far from the only way the Trump administration is messing up the economy. In fact, the mess started long before the tariffs actually went enforced and it didn't stop when they where suspended.

Re: Amazon to display tariff costs for consumers

#420

Post by conductr »

bee_rider wrote: post #393
conductr wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think HF technically tells you no refunds or that there's a restocking fee policy when you buy it so I don't think it would work. As a consumer, I'm used to companies like that making an exception when something goes overly wrong like what happened to me. It's not like I used it and it failed, I couldn't even assemble it. I spoke to the manager and he insisted he didn't even have the authority to wave the fees. It…

Can a business just say “no refunds, even if the device is completely non-functional.” At least (maybe it varies state by state) Massachusetts has an “implied warranty of merchantability,” the thing has to basically work at least for a little bit. I mean, if the bolt-holes don’t line up, they didn’t just sell you a bad , they sold you a random sheet of metal that is not .

This is kind of the argument I made to the manager in a Karenesque fashion. Why would I have even bought it if I knew it was defective? How would I have known without opening the box? Etc. I live in a state that is politically conservative and probably least likely to have similar protections but also ultimately I wasn’t going to have a legal battle over it. They lost me as a customer, well not even entirely, just for tools and bigger ticket stuff. I go through work gloves too quickly and they have them a third of the prices at Home Depot so I go for that
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