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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

#491

Post by tmountain »

henrikschroder wrote: post #466
goosedragons wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lunch eaten by whom? Who was eating the world's richest country's lunch? The only lunch eating going on is the American rich eating the poors', something that's only accelerated under Trump. The tariffs are a tax that is most disproportionate on the poor. And they are in no way, shape or form actually intelligently designed to help them. It's just stupid madness.

It's actually pretty amazing that the current regime has managed to get people to believe that the current world order, where the US has been sitting on top for decades and managed to extract the largest piece of the growing world trade cake, somehow means that the US is being taken advantage of. There's more than one commenter in this post that talks about "other countries walking all over the US", or claiming that…

Their whole platform is grievance. It’s the only thing he’s good at.

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

#492

Post by hippo22 »

lm28469 wrote: post #485
hippo22 wrote: post #85

I’d like to lay out an argument about why tariffs are good. The only businesses that are derailing with tariffs issues are those that import goods to sell. The argument against tariffs is that they make goods more expensive. Of course, this argument is true. But that’s not the end of the story. Because prices are higher for imported goods, demand for domestically produced goods increases. This increase in demand lead…

Do you think you just have to flip a switch somewhere in buttfuck nowhere Wisconsin and all of a sudden you get a full fledged factory and the trained workers needed to compete with China on low quality/high volume products? Even with triple digit tarrifs Chinese goods would still be cheaper.

No, I don’t think there is a switch. It will be a long and difficult process. But your argument seems to be that, just because it’s difficult, we should just give up. I don’t believe in that argument. Building things is always hard.

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

#493

Post by peterpost2 »

typeofhuman wrote: post #473
BartjeD wrote: post #444

[flagged]

[flagged]

If those things are true they all are seen small peanuts compared to the police state that is being developed in the U.S. with masked men pulling brown people of the street without identifying themselves and without due process.

Get your priorities straight.

To quote Niemöller:

    First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
         Because I was not a socialist.

    Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
         Because I was not a trade unionist.

    Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
         Because I was not a Jew.

    Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

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

#494

Post by hippo22 »

charlie90 wrote: post #335
SR2Z wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for one little thing: countries have comparative advantage in the production of different goods and services. Boeing is great at turning aluminum and steel (low in the value chain) into jetliners (at the top of the value chain). Because of this, Boeing gets to make thousands of jetliners and sell them all across the world and America gets to be one of very few places that can do this. I think you'll find that…

>China will ALWAYS be better than us Comparative advantage is not innate. China was a rural country and didn't have a comparative advantage in manufacturing, they developed it and are now a powerhouse. Nothing worth doing is easy. I don't know why Americans think that if its not easy, it's not worth doing. Americans 80 years ago would hate us for what we have become today.

I agree with you. Reading the comments here, it’s clear that many people lack the “fighting spirit” for competition and improvement.

Honestly, I’m surprised by this, especially here on HN. This is/was a place where builders congregate. Building new things is never easy. Sometimes all you have is a belief that you can do it. It’s sad to see that go.

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

#495

Post by RhysU »

anecdatas wrote: post #288
RhysU wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not trust NY job numbers. Their unemployment system remains a disaster from the Covid years. Source: Me trying to use it and encountering prior fraud. Light reading suggests many have experienced it.

Normally I'd be quippy about the plural of anecdote not being "data", but this isn't even plural. This is a single anecdote. The claim you have made is "I have encountered fraud, personally, so the system is a disaster." Well run systems experience fraud. It's something you generally want to minimize, but like, it's not necessarily an indicator that the system is broken. Like... AWS has tons of fraud. AWS is still ve…

As claimed, light reading confirms this observation to be data not anecdata.

"NY's COVID unemployment fraud topped $11B, partly due to system failures..."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/nys-covid-unemployment-fraud-topp...

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

#496

Post by FridayoLeary »

tmountain wrote: post #484
typeofhuman wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What children are being “gang raped”? Your comment reads like extremist rhetoric.

I fully understand your disbelief but that is actually what is going on. Thousands of children abused by gangs.

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

#497

Post by macintux »

verzali wrote: post #391
trebligdivad wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The key difference seems to be that this time:

* Groups like Project 2025 spent years preparing an assault on our legal system

* This time Trump populated his administration with sycophants from day 1, instead of starting out with establishment figures

* The GOP has spent the last 8 years reconfiguring themselves into supplication

This time, Trump is fully unhinged and unfettered, and he knows the legal peril he faces if the White House isn’t GOP-held for the rest of his life.

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

#498

Post by Anarch157a »

declan_roberts wrote: post #50
0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Soybean farmers are predicting a world of hurt as China continues to acquire from South America instead. “Overall, export sales of this fall’s (U.S.) soybean crop are down 81% from the five-year average,” Brasher reported. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2025/08/20/soybean-farme...

South America doesn't produce enough soy beans for them to replace America even if China bought every single ounce of soy. When it comes to soy, America has enormous leverage and China already accepted they're negotiating from a position of weakness.

If China has a monopsony on soy beans, then they nogociate from a position if power, because the US either sells on their terms or see the beans rot.

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

#499

Post by RhysU »

margalabargala wrote: post #287
RhysU wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not trust NY job numbers. Their unemployment system remains a disaster from the Covid years. Source: Me trying to use it and encountering prior fraud. Light reading suggests many have experienced it.

Shouldn't that be roughly constant across the year though? We don't need to trust the numbers to be exact, to observe a precipitous drop.

Should fraud rates in public taxpayer-funded systems stay constant or go down over time, assuming no new fraud type is invented?

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

#500

Post by hippo22 »

mrstone wrote: post #270
hippo22 wrote: post #85

I’d like to lay out an argument about why tariffs are good. The only businesses that are derailing with tariffs issues are those that import goods to sell. The argument against tariffs is that they make goods more expensive. Of course, this argument is true. But that’s not the end of the story. Because prices are higher for imported goods, demand for domestically produced goods increases. This increase in demand lead…

This is one of the most surface-level understandings of national economics that I have seen. Sure, all of that would be great, if not for two things a) these tariffs are not targeted and b) your country could produce everything that it is tariffing. What is the plan for cocoa beans? bananas? aluminum and steel? These thinly veiled pro-trump people are much too common the internet and I'm getting tired of it.

The US makes both aluminum and steel FYI. I don’t think banana tariffs are going to make a huge difference either way.
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