which is why retaliating with import tariffs is the exact opposite of what should be done, but go tell politicians that they need to give up their dick measuring games...
American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis
431–440 of 814 posts
Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis
#432Almost all the comments acting like this is some truth bombshell, like people in trumpistan all thought raising tariffs magically made the us economy better. This is a straw man, no? Tariffs are a mid-long term strategy to encourage onshoring business, for reasons including military, national security, and political influence on foreign powers. This is a complicated topic involving the global economy and evolving int…
Its an interesting point you end up raising - does it still count as a strategy even if you are doing something patently impossible given the knowledge and intelligence at your disposal?
If someone decided to come up with a strategy to do something fanciful, like find the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow to solve their debt problems, would it really be worthy enough to be called a strategy?
Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis
#433I'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 cons…
[deleted]
Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis
#434Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let's say it works and we're in the future where the manufacturing has returned to the US and you have US citizens building iPhones in large-scale factories and they are earning minimum wage. But why? Why would a US citizen want to be snapping mobile phones together for 6-12 hours every day? Do you have faith the US has an edge in manufactoring automation and won't need these semi-slaves? Do you have faith the nation…
> ...you have US citizens building iPhones in large-scale factories and they are earning minimum wage. But why? Why would a US citizen want to be snapping mobile phones together for 6-12 hours every day? The observation was that the wage boost of a minimum wage can be undercut by importing cheap goods made with slave labor. Workers can't get hired, domestic manufacturers cannot afford to hire. The point is not that s…
Definitely support a living wage available to anyone willing to work.
However, as evidenced by the current situation, the US economy doesn't support manufacturing all types of consumer goods that it demands.
I understand the pressure points you're arguing for but I don't think that the US society will be in a better place once those are enforced.
If everybody willing to work doesn't have access to a job that pays a living wage, isn't that a different issue? Maybe the government could have educational programs so everybody has access to getting the education needed for jobs that pay a living wage (those not offshored to China and others) but I guess that's too much socialism for the US.
Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis
#435Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not American but tariffs might be a way to "make America great again" because it makes it harder to trade with other countries. This means that it makes it relatively easier than before, to trade within the USA. Another effect is that it serves as a tax. Easy for me to say but I think Americans aren't taxed enough.
What makes it hard to trade within the US now?
The average US worker costs more if not much more than the average foreign worker.
Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis
#436Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I dont 100% understand what you're saying, who got the temporary satisfaction? The leftists doing online dunks, or the trump voting moderates who just dont like the way the left does discourse? Its unclear to me from your post.
Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis
#437[deleted]
Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis
#438Given the relatively low inflation in 2025, I’m skeptical of the claim that consumers bore 96% of the tariff burden. With CPI inflation at 2.7% and roughly $18,000 in goods consumption per person in US, total price increase in goods work out to ~160B. A $200 billion increase in customs revenues would exceed the total price increases attributable to inflation - which makes little sense if 96% of that was paid by consu…
NPR says the figure is more like 5 percent. As far as we know, they haven't fired employees who produced numbers they didn't like. https://www.npr.org/2026/01/14/nx-s1-5638908/walmart-prices-...
This is a single Walmart and clearly dominated by outlier price swings. No, NPR didn’t make their own CPI. Surely there are other independent price baskets that actually attempt to do this, why choose this article, as interesting as it is?
Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis
#439Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a German, I am generally cautious about drawing hasty parallels with the Holocaust, but I must admit: now that you mention it, the Sturmabteilung and the Schutzstaffel probably began their work in the streets of the country in a similar way to ICE today. """ Sturmabteilung (SA) The SA was formed in 1921 as the paramilitary fighting organization of the NSDAP and protected party events. After 1933, under Ernst Röhm,…
I'm not drawing parallels to the holocaust per se. I don't think anyone in Germany voted for the mustachioed one expecting that. They had various grievances and wanted a 'strong' leader. The voting against democracy is the issue, not the thing that was voted for. The holocaust is just a very good example of why you shouldn't throw your principles out to vote for a 'strong' leader who will improve 'your' life.
Back then, yes, many voted for holocaust. It did not had a name yet, but they wanted exactly that.
They also voted for military conquest, they celebrated start of the war. Including or even especially so young men seeking to prove their masculinity. They were not voting to just bring better conditions for themselves. They voted to bring glory and violent victories.
They believed themselves to be strong dominant men who will bring good times to the aryan races.
Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis
#440Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suspect tens of millions of Americans believe whatever they are told by their trusted "news" source. My only basis is anecdotal though, a dozen or so "maga/trump no matter what" family members and people I grew up with are mostly believing the tariffs are something other countries are paying the US.
“people who disagree with me must do it because they are stupid and/or manipulated” It’s true on its surface - most people don’t know about economics, across all political spectrums, and so rely on leaders (which I thought is what liberalism advocates for?). It’s not a helpful model if you want to understand what’s going on. So then the interesting parts to explore are the reasons they want to believe it, and the rea…
> if you want to understand what’s going on
Funny how the in-depth analysis of motivations is strictly in one direction, ratcheting the Overton window forever rightward.
On one hand we had mountains of articles about "economic anxiety" & "The MAGA next door" in 2016. On the flip side is "Fuck your feelings" and never a "humanizing, fish out of water" longform article about the life of a Democratic Socialist in a small Texas town after Biden 2020.