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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

#661

Post by Yizahi »

stirfish wrote: post #633
cyanydeez wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What is a political bubble? I googled it, but I'm getting definitions closer to "my news feed only shows me what I want to see"

If I had to guess - "political bubble (bursts)" is when an extremely incompetent and/or radical politician suddenly is elected to one of the top posts in a country. So it's like a closed off boiling pot - incompetent radical has 5% of the electoral base and nothing happens, then 10%, then 20%, 30%, 40%, still nothing, and then one day he "suddenly" crosses 50% threshold and bubble bursts, he is now in charge for real.

For example in France their own Le-Trump aka Marine Le Pen had 41% votes last election cycle, so nothing really happened and system centrists won again, politics remained moderate and predictable. But if she or her ideological successor even takes 50%... hooboy, EU will see some Orbanification just like USA does today.

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

#662

Post by motbus3 »

macintux wrote: post #78
lazarus01 wrote: post #69

In NYC, for the first 6 months of 2025, 994 new private sector jobs were created [1]. During the same period last year, there were 66,000 new jobs created. Higher cost of doing business from tariffs has frozen hiring. With a frozen job market, there’s less revenue coming in. NYC is a leading indicator for the rest of the country. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/13/nyregion/nyc-jobs.html

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.

My guess is just, well, a guess, but the real impact of tariffs will take some time to hit. For now it is a turbulence of the uncertainty, but as people understand how to work on this situation we'll see numbers getting more stable. My second guess is that inflation will grow as other markets will learn to deal with the situation. It is taking some time, but other economic blocks might make strong moves altogether causing at least a bruise in the metrics.

Also we need to remember that the guy responsible for the numbers was fired for allegedly political reason and that could have been political and no one will ever be sure. So how can one trust the numbers in that situation? It has been... Weird

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

#663

Post by yubblegum »

dboreham wrote: post #527
the_gastropod wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 communities of non-English speaking people here in Montana. They speak a form of German. Hutterites (kind of like Amish).

Does the New York Times (which is a national paper) have a section in German language? Does it have one in any other non-English language besides Spanish?

Why is Spanish singled out? Why was "bilingualism" being promoted so heavily? Meaning no offense, wtf has the Spanish speaking community contributed to American history to get this special perch? So yeah, there are all sorts of little pockets here and there, and grandpas and grandmas of various flavor speaking the old country's tongue but only one was promoted.

The phenomena is obviously political in nature and to construe is as anything else, including "prejudice" or "xenophobia", is disengenuous.

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

#664

Post by gdilla »

blurbleblurble wrote: post #550
jibal wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They sold us out in the name of holy apocalyptic chaos and destruction

All they had to do was prey on fragile white grievances, and it worked.

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

#665

Post by toasterlovin »

tantalor wrote: post #632
sodality2 wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's very risky for companies to do because because you might not capture that demand. If you fail then you just lost money. One reason is buyers may only consider alternatives when prices increase.

If you’re lowering prices because your costs went down, then you haven’t lost money.

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

#667

Post by hereme888 »

LeafItAlone wrote: post #511
hereme888 wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Actually, that’s what called an evidence-based conclusion. I know evidence and science have really taken a plunge in our federal government these past few months, but we can still use them on HN.

So how come "half the country" (millions of people) support and appreciate the tariff ordeal due to its positive economic impact in their personal lives? They're not Trump's friends or family.

You have the wrong evidence and conclusion.

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

#668

Post by pydry »

simonh wrote: post #580
pydry wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Unfortunately it’s more complicated than that. Take car manufacturing in the US. The country doesn’t make enough steel, copper, etc to supply the industry, so domestic production depends on tariffed imports of these and various specialist components. Plus many parts cross the borders to and from Canada and Mexico for various stages of the manufacturing and testing process, incurring a tariff every time. This means do…

>Unfortunately it’s more complicated than that. Take car manufacturing in the US. The country doesn’t make enough steel, copper, etc to supply the industry, so domestic production depends on tariffed imports

No, it's not. The US making not enough steel is not an immutable law of the universe. It is a result of the same kind of industrial decline which tariffs would reverse by making it more economic to produce steel locally.

It only wouldn't work on products which the US has no fundamental ability to make like bananas (which yes, Trump did...).

>This means domestic cars and many other goods will get a tariff markup

Yeah, that's kind of how tariffs work - there's always a markup.

>In many cases it will be cheaper or roughly equivalent to pay a single tariff on a finished product from abroad.

That depends entirely on how you structure your tariffs. If it is the case you've structured them incredibly poorly.

>In theory it should be possible to bring in staged tarrifs, and use tax breaks and subsidies on on-shore necessary domestic production over time to transition the industry, but that’s not happening

I believe I covered that when I said that the tariffs were "being wielded with the skill and grace of a crack addled ferret".

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

#669

Post by triceratops »

tharmas wrote: post #651
macintux wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as someone who despises Ted Cruz to the bottom of my soul, I decided in 2016 that if Trump had decided to run as a Democrat, I would have voted for Cruz. At least he has some sincerely held beliefs that do not involve his own wallet and cruelty towards the entire world outside his inner circle. My point being: at some point the American electorate has to take responsibility for picking the worst available pe…

≥The Democrats did not compel them to vote for Trump. Perhaps i didn't make my point clear. Indeed ur statement is true. I was referring to those who hated Trump but also hated Harris and so DIDNT VOTE. My point being that if the Democrats had fielded a compelling candidate many of those who didn't vote may have voted for them. Enough to win. The Democrats learned nothing when they fielded Hilary Clinton and lost. Jo…

> Joe Biden barely won

That's slightly revisionist. He won the popular vote by almost 5 percentage points. That's a lot. He also got more electoral college votes than GWB (both times) and Trump in 2016. His victories in the battleground states were also by a higher margin than Trump's in 2016, though still close. "Barely won" is a shade of true.

I honestly don't blame the guy for believing it was his responsibility to the country to run for re-election and keep Trump out of office. His heart was in the right place, even if the rest of him wasn't up to the task anymore.

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

#670

Post by declan_roberts »

sethammons wrote: post #390
apimade wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just realised for the first time in my life I’ve decided to delete my comment/reply because I’m concerned with how it’ll be used. I will say this; different countries wield different powers at their disposal. It’s unfair how China conducts business, but other countries can be equally exploitative.

Trump is killing freedom of speech. I don't understand how any supporter can claim to love our country.

Weird. For the first time since 2020 I feel like I can speak freely without someone successfully destroying my career or getting me fired.
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