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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

#551

Post by makeitdouble »

greatgib wrote: post #467

I don't understand why there isn't a market or company that develop already to move all items to low tariff area before sending to US. I know that manufacturing things here in Europe, there already used to be round trip by airplane and co to try to lower VAT paid on purchases to the maximum.

Vietnam is partly that. Production virtually "moved" from China to Vietnam pretty fast with various degrees of fakery. Not every company can pull it up, Nintendo for instance if probably more legitimate than others, but that's a thing.

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

#552

Post by FromTheFirstIn »

hunglee2 wrote: post #381

Clutching at straws but one silver lining from the accelerationist perspective is that the global economic damage of US Tariff War 2.0. will speed up the adoption of AI / automation. Payroll is one of the most expensive, high risk and illiquid commitments to the organisational budget, so the idea of replacing it with dial up / dial down Saas subscriptions will move from 'good idea' to 'business critical' The effect w…

If this is the silver lining I’d hate to see the cloud

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

#554

Post by dml2135 »

trebligdivad wrote: post #202
denismi wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This pre-election BBC summary - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy343z53l1o - pretty clearly spells out what has eventuated, describing it as a "central campaign pledge": > Trump has made tariffs a central campaign pledge in order to protect US industry. He has proposed new 10-20% tariffs on most imported foreign goods, and much higher ones on those from China.

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?

> Also, who believes politicians campaign pledges?

People who actually understand politics and who realize that the extent to which politicians keep their campaign pledges is usually related to how their parties end up performing in the legislature, rather than just being dishonest.

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

#555

Post by pydry »

seadan83 wrote: post #324
pydry wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ironic thing is that tariffs are the right tool to reindustrialize America (over the period of ~a decade) but theyre being wielded with the skill and grace of a crack addled ferret by somebody who thinks it's a magic wand.

Tariffs are protectionist, does not boost competitiveness. Tends to be the wrong tool, there are better. Tax breaks, grants, physical infrastructure, creation of entire markets - those are better tools. The issue with tariffs is non-competetive companies aren't required to become more competitive. I mean consider it, a tariff is a tax on those buying a specific competitors goods. Even if tariffs were done surgically,…

>The issue with tariffs is non-competetive companies aren't required to become more competitive.

Yes they are. They are required to compete on a level playing field domestically and they still have to compete with marked up foreign goods.

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

#556

Post by cyanydeez »

YZF wrote: post #108
macintux wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m curious whether it’s more the tariffs, or the uncertainty. No one knows what will happen on a day-to-day basis: the chaotic (and illegal) decision-making leaves everyone wondering what’s next.

The hiring slowdown predates tariffs. For various reasons CEOs either believe they can do more with less people, or that they can hire cheaper people in other geographies, or both. Businesses (tech or financials) don't seem to be telegraphing uncertainty, S&P 500 revenue is at all times high and trending up, earnings/profit all time highs and trending up, valuations all times high and trending up.

Market bubbles combined with parallel political bubbles are probably the real black swan event coming down the pike

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

#557

Post by sodality2 »

tantalor wrote: post #523
simonh wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would that happen, if it didn’t happen before the tarrifs?

Because companies make more profits when the prices are higher. Under normal conditions, if one company increases their price then buyers will find an alternative. When all the companies increase the price at the same time then there are no alternatives. Customers become acclimated to the new price.

But there then becomes an incentive to lower prices to capture more demand. I don’t think that tariffs will incentivize collusion any more often.

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

#558

Post by krior »

more_corn wrote: post #4

Because the cost of goods continues to fluctuate wildly due to ongoing tariff wrangling that nobody asked for or needed. Also farmers can’t sell anything because retaliation has destroyed international demand (I’d say decimated but it’s way worse than reduction by a tenth)

> nobody asked for

The american public asked for it loud and clear for it last november. We should respect that.

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

#559

Post by Der_Einzige »

jibal wrote: post #316
epistasis wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was the entire point of hiking interest rates, to slow down the economy and stop inflation. Tariffs are universally acknowledged to cause inflation, and we would be in a recovery path if it weren't for the delays that tariffs are causing right now. It is rather interesting to see the difference in standards of accountability for different presidents. Some are responsible for the economy even if its behavior is n…

Let's be clear on who has these different standards: primarily Republicans, members of the party whose lifeblood is hypocrisy.

Remember what straws they had to grasp at to critique obama?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_tan_suit_controve...

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

#560

Post by const_cast »

dgfitz wrote: post #505
burnerthrow008 wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, who believes politicians campaign pledges? Only all the people who voted for them and all the people who voted against them?

Maybe if Harris had made a few she would have won…

She did, everyone just sort of... pretended she didn't. So they could have plausible deniability for voting for Trump.

See also: Harris is an elite! (Trump is more elite), Trump knows business (he's a pretty bad business man), Harris did nothing in office! (She was VP), Trump is the underdog! (He's literally already been president)

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