Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything • Hacker News Board

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

#621

Post by margalabargala » Sun, Aug 31, 2025, 9:20 PM UTC

RhysU wrote: post #499

margalabargala wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Depends what if anything is being done to combat it.

One of the following is true:

- The numbers somewhat-accurately reflect the trend of employment

- Fraud levels were reduced 66x in one year

If it was the second one, that's a sufficiently massive reduction that news stories would be written about it. There would be stories about this great victory over fraud.

A quick search showed no particular anti-fraud measures or claims of effectiveness unique to that time period.

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

#622

Post by mensetmanusman » Sun, Aug 31, 2025, 9:23 PM UTC

immibis wrote: post #553

timr wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I named several in my original comment. The big, blinking, obvious YoY change for anyone here is tech employment.

As a result of tariffs

No, that was R&D deduction changes.

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

#623

Post by mensetmanusman » Sun, Aug 31, 2025, 9:29 PM UTC

haunter wrote: post #97

In the end it's the biggest leopard ate my face moment ever: China has very high growth momentum that surpasses American living standards soon, and not long before it will surpass American security standards too. China's purchasing power is probably more comfortable than most western countries, with extensive housing and high speed rail and electric cars etc. When a country becomes rich, inevitably other countries as…

China’s GDP growth is no longer in double digits; it’s in the 4–5% range, and many analysts expect it to fall further due to demographic decline and low productivity growth due to capital investments in infrastructure not needed but politically necessary due to city politics.

U.S. per-capita income is roughly $80,000, while China’s is about $13,000. Adjusted for purchasing power it would take decades (at current trajectories, which may be slowing due to EU backlash etc.) to converge.

China leads in high-speed rail and EV adoption. These don’t automatically translate into higher overall living standards — healthcare, wages, pensions, and social safety nets matter more.

China’s lending practices have also led to accusations of “debt-trap diplomacy,” and some countries are now cautious about overreliance on Chinese help. This is why China negativity amongst all of their immediate neighbors is so high.

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

#624

Post by bongodongobob » Sun, Aug 31, 2025, 9:38 PM UTC

squigz wrote: post #345

bongodongobob wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It's not achievable because a disappointingly large chunk of your population believes this about "the other guys"

If you're not from here, I don't think you understand how completely wrong the right is about literally everything. The president and his staff lie to the country every day and his base eat it up. I'm not taking about misrepresenting facts or misleading graphs. Flat out, easily debunked, fabricated lies, 24/7.

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

#625

Post by mensetmanusman » Sun, Aug 31, 2025, 9:45 PM UTC

bavell wrote: post #490

ehnto wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think the state of progress in China is vastly underestimated by the west. It has been fast and messy, not evenly distributed, but it is staggering. The rhetoric around them is changing too, I think they are making significant soft power gains. I could easily see them filling the voids that US policy chaos is currently creating.

China has a demographic time-bomb about to go off in the next decade or two. We'll see if they can survive it.

It already did, labor force shrunk for the first time a few years ago.

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

#626

Post by mensetmanusman » Sun, Aug 31, 2025, 9:50 PM UTC

mahirsaid wrote: post #198

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.

I never thought America was this fragile, or should i say the governmental mindset was, to just change things are essentially the backbone of what made America "America" in the first place. Changing policies that otherwise should not be changed is dangerous. When in doubt and there needs to be change then make the changes around the preexisting guidelines/settings, not change those first. Whether we like it or not en…

This is what happens in imperfect systems. The leadership neglected the huge PR disaster illegal immigration was having.

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

#627

Post by mensetmanusman » Sun, Aug 31, 2025, 9:56 PM UTC

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,…

Tariffs are reactionary to China’s explicit mercantilism. There is a reason we have a word for what is going on, it’s common human behavior.

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

#628

Post by mensetmanusman » Sun, Aug 31, 2025, 9:59 PM UTC

amrocha wrote: post #319

anon291 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it's a crab mentality. I'm ideologically opposed to communism, but I'm happy for the Chinese people. I don't understand why our response is to tear them down, instead of building ourselves up. Seems backwards. When you even mention building ourself, you are accused of being anti American simply because you point out a deficiency in our current development.

China is the most capitalist country in the world.

Leader for life choosing winners is max capitalism.

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

#629

Post by yubblegum » Sun, Aug 31, 2025, 10:07 PM UTC

the_gastropod wrote: post #508

yubblegum wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New York is teeming with what appear to be newly arrived "immigrants" who do no speak a word of English (and frankly are rather aggressive about their refusal to do so) yet are employed in various crafts. We had fairly substantial renovation recently in our building. Every single worker was clearly a recent arrival. How do we know how many jobs were actually created if so many of them are not "officially recorded"? (…

The U.S. has no official language, and no one who moves here is required to learn English. Especially in NYC, where so many neighborhoods predominantly speak a language that is not English (Brighton Beach, Sunset Park, Flushing, Chinatown, etc.) Assuming someone speaking another language is both a “recent arrival” and working illegally is… something. Apparently it’s not xenophobic, but it’s not a good look.

There are and have been pockets in immigrant communities where e.g. older members would live their entire lives in US and never speak a word of English. But conversely, no one expected the rest of us to know Chinese, German, French, Italian, Japanese, Russian, ..., etc. But somehow now we are supposed to accept a sizeable subset of our nation to only speak Spanish.

> Assuming someone speaking another language is both a “recent arrival” and working illegally is… something. Apparently it’s not xenophobic, but it’s not a good look.

I do not care if it is not a "good look" by some standard. What I care about is cultural and value system continuity and national cohesion.

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

#630

Post by esseph » Sun, Aug 31, 2025, 10:14 PM UTC

mensetmanusman wrote: post #615

esseph wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they're terrified of the uncertainty of the long tail of the tariffs. It takes months and months to see the products of those.

Terrified billionaires, lol

No, terrified people that do actual work.

How do you bid on a big project if you don't know what materials will cost next month, or 6 months, or a year from now? It's fucking impossible. And with inflation, labor cost is spiking. It's hard for people to get buy, so they're asking for more. It has investors and banks spooked to loan money for projects, because they could easily fail with so much volatility.