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

kielinstitut.de

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

#411

Post by skippyboxedhero »

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…

There are multiple research papers that indicate that this result (in terms of what you think the paper says) is not obvious. Indeed, to think this is the case, you need an extremely superficial understanding of economics based around "rules" that only exist in theory.

And, if you read the paper, you will find that evidence. How these work depends on initial conditions that vary and exporters will not react in a consistent way.

As a specific example, theoretical research in this area tends to make assumptions around the stationarity of margins that are obviously ludicrous in the context of reality in the US. It is quite easy to justify almost any policy with theoretical research in economics so people who have no understanding of economics will find evidence for whatever position they choose. Reality is quite different.

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

#412

Post by adrian_b »

nutjob2 wrote: post #163
shaky-carrousel wrote: post #66

There's an entire world to trade with. If the Americans choose to shoot themselves in the foot, we won't be the ones paying for the bandage. Also, it's deeply naïve to assume tariffed countries would absorb the cost. Why would they? It's like going into a shop and asking for a discount because you just took out a loan. Why would the shop give you a discount for something you inflicted on yourself? And what makes you…

I bought a mini PC today. On the US website, it goes for $460, on the German website it goes for 360 euros or $420. But that price includes 20% tax so its actually $335. Prices for the same product are about 37.5% higher in the US. It's nuts and the reverse of how it used to be not long ago.

I was intrigued by what you have said, because I have also bought an ASUS NUC mini-PC today, in Europe.

I paid EUR 510, which means $593. This is with all taxes included, so the price without tax would be about $490.

I have searched now the ASUS mini-PC on Newegg, and its cost is $679, around +38.5% more expensive.

This is wild, because indeed, until recently the price of electronics devices was significantly lower in USA in comparison with Europe, while now it is the reverse.

This is not a "Made in China" mini-PC, which might have been affected by worse tariffs.

Moreover, I have equipped the mini-PC with 32 GB DDR5 & 1 TB SSD, while cursing the more than triple price of DDR5 compared with last summer, so that now the DRAM has been more than a third of the price of the complete computer.

This configuration has cost me the equivalent of slightly less than $900, without taxes. The same configuration has a price on Newegg of almost $1200.

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

#413

Post by cheschire »

Aromasin wrote: post #338
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are using "believed" - past tense. Facts change nothing. This report means nothing. These people still believe. The report is wrong. They are right. The truth is whatever they want it to be, not something out of their control.

That is populism in a nutshell. It is anti-rationalism at its heart. There's no real ideology - that's how it applies to both Chávez and Trump, Corbyn and Orbán. People want to believe what feels "instinctively" correct, because the intellectual overhead of modern society leaves the majority of the population unable to deal with the reality that political and economic systems are incredibly difficult to understand wi…

It's so exhausting having the same conversation every time. A friend reads something on reddit, flips out about it. Asks in our signal chat "can anyone explain this" as bait. Occasionally I take the bait and explain the extreme thing through a centrist lens. Now I'm instantly on the side of whoever did the bad thing and spend the next 90 minutes explaining rationality until we arrive at the center. Things calm down. 3 days go by, and my friend visits reddit again...

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

#415

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

bad_haircut72 wrote: post #353
BanAntiVaxxers wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A third-party vote is a vote for Trump.

This kind of purity test is why the left cant win right now. Anyone who does a wrong-think is shitcanned and othered. Im gonna put a theory out that I havent seen here yet, a lot of people voted for Trump because they got dunked on by leftist Twitter, told they were racist/fascist/whatever for having an opinion like "communism is bad", and now comes a guy who wont back down and who legit makes them cry liberal tears.…

The risk those people took is radicalizing people like me, who were previously on their side for whom Trump was an absolute red line. Now Trump is charging them extra taxes, and when he falls their reputation will be dumped even further into the gutter - hope the temporary satisfaction was worth the costs.

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

#417

Post by kcolford »

rich_sasha wrote: post #281
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…

It's still a bit of a mystery to me TBH. Not that Americans are paying it, but where's the cash? The headline suggests it was all passed into consumers. So why is inflation still so low? If you add 10-30% to prices (granted, of imports, not of houses, domestic food etc), you'd expect more. If companies were eating it (which apparently they aren't) then their profitability should be down. But that doesn't seem to be t…

inflation is low because people are buying less; remember that inflation is calculated based on actual expenses (a "basket of goods" but that basket is adjusted based on how much people are actually spending); demand for the newest tv or plastic phone case is down; people are still buying the same amount of food and using the same amount of gas, neither of which are tariffed because of exceptions to the tariff rules

prices are up so people are buying less, it's just that simple; only a handful of companies have reported their Q4 christmas earnings but retailers' are already forecasted to be way below previous years'

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

#419

Post by intended »

tmp10423288442 wrote: post #371

"The 2025 US tariffs are an own goal" Without an opinion on the actual claim here (although I'm skeptical of a claim of 96%, given the relatively moderate inflation in the US in 2025), I think this quote by itself (first bullet point of the abstract) should disqualify this as a serious analysis - no academic paper uses this language, only biased think tanks, and the fact that it's a German think tank doesn't change t…

It’s a country that plays football, so I’d account for the potential of it being a common turn of phrase before dismissing the entire report.

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

#420

Post by seattlematt »

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…

First, people vote on a candidate, not a single issue. Many voted for Trump despite his tariffs stance rather than because of it.

Second, reducing consumer prices was not the goal of the tariffs. The primary goals were to encourage companies to move manufacturing to the US and to be used as leverage in negotiating other matters with foreign leaders.

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