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American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

kielinstitut.de

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Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

#751

Post by rendall »

NetMageSCW wrote: post #549
rendall wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...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…

I see little to no sign that a living wage isn’t available to anyone willing to work and lots of signs that there are plenty of people who simply don’t want to work. They want a handout, not a wage.

I don’t doubt that there are people who choose not to work, but that’s not really the claim being discussed.

"A living wage being available to anyone willing to work" is not about whether every individual takes a job. It’s about whether the labor market reliably offers full-time work that covers basic costs like housing, healthcare, and food. On that question, the data are mixed at best. Many full-time workers still rely on subsidies, and job availability varies sharply by region, skill level, health, and caregiving obligations.

Some people will always opt out of work. That has been true in every economic system. The harder question is whether the structure of the economy provides viable options for those who do want to work but lack leverage, credentials, or geographic mobility. Pointing to the former doesn’t really answer the latter.

Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

#752

Post by sigmoid10 »

whodidntante wrote: post #690
sigmoid10 wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious. Can you name a few instances where he intentionally acted against Russia and did not just throw around words without following them up?

He is an equal opportunity a-hole, though my personal feeling is that he looks up to Putin, and wants to be like him Some things he has done that Putin is probably not fond of: Javelins in his first term, I believe that was the time the us supplied military weapons to Ukraine. These weapons made a big impact during the invasion Tried to get Europe off of Russia gas, making very public warnings about depending on Russ…

Strongly disagree. If you look into the details, you'll find he never actually intentionally hurt Russia.

>Javelins in his first term, I believe that was the time the us supplied military weapons to Ukraine.

Trump was always reluctant about it and actually got himself into yet another impeachment inquiry for withholding part of this congressional aid package, because Zelenskyy did not want to investigate Hunter Biden. He wasn't able to overcome congress, but he did manage to limit Javelin use for western Ukraine only, were Russia was not active back then.

>Tried to get Europe off of Russia gas

That goes into the aforementioned category of things he said but never acted on. Russia caused Europe to actually move away from Russian gas in the end.

>Tried to get Europe to invest heavily in thru military

Same category and same answer. Could also be seen as his start of dismantling NATO from the inside, which seems to have been his (and ofc. Putin's) ultimate goal from the very beginning - which in turn dates back all the way to the 1980s, when Trump bought anti-NATO advertising in the New York Times after visiting Russia. So it's not even that far fetched to accuse him (or his handlers) of long term schemes.

>Syria

The US had troops there for a veeeery long time, but rarely threw hands with the regime under any US admin. After all, this was mostly about curbing IS. Putin apparently never really cared about Syria in the end either. They were just an alternate location for a warm water Navy port to them, which became obsolete once they took over Crimea. Assad got to feel that pretty hard.

>Iran

They were allied, but Iran actually started going against Russia in 2023 because Putin supported the UAE claim on the Strait of Hormuz. It's all been downhill since then and the eventual US military strike was definitely pro-Israel, not anti-Russia.

>and Venezuela

They literally halted the immediate seizure after one of those "shadow fleet" ships suddenly displayed a Russian Flag. This was always more about hurting Venezuela and they explicitly tried to handle Russia with appeasement.

>Sanctions

Not sure what you mean here. Safe for one pointless act on oil companies that were already heavily sanctioned, all relevant sanctions came under the Biden admin. He famously did not put tariffs on Russia, despite putting them on basically every other country in the world (allied or not).

Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

#753

Post by shaky-carrousel »

NetMageSCW wrote: post #631
shaky-carrousel wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It won't cost other countries because what is not sold to the US is sold everywhere else.

Not all things are that fungible. Cars intended for the US won’t be sold elsewhere. And in a mature market, no new customers exist elsewhere to sell to.

Cars intended for the US can be sold to South America.

Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

#755

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

brightball wrote: post #703
immibis wrote: post #693

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Trade deficit" is another word for "free stuff" and also another word for "being the world's reserve currency". America receives massive quantities of free stuff from other countries and gets to control the banking system of the entire world as a side effect (this is how it manages to collect taxes from non-resident citizens and how it makes sanctions meaningful). Why doesn't America want that to continue?

Is there any reason America can’t continue that without giving every critical manufacturing industry to China?

> Is there any reason America can’t continue that without giving every critical manufacturing industry to China?

Totally. The two things are actually quite different. You (US & industrialised countries) removed capital controls and the cost of transport dropped by a lot (shipping containers etc) which meant that it became more profitable to make things in much cheaper countries and so the businesses did that, and now you're/we're screwed.

Reintroduce capital controls and only trade with people with comparable labour rights and wage levels, and this problem goes away. But ultimately, this change was driven by western economic interests, not China/other countries.

That being said, China played this hand very well (from a manufacturing/export perspective) but they didn't cause this. The US & European businesses did, because they could make more money/pollute with less issues this way.

Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

#756

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

immibis wrote: post #746
brightball wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any reason America can’t continue that without giving every critical manufacturing industry to China?

To get free stuff you have to get free stuff. Why would you manufacture stuff, at great expense, when you're getting it for free? That makes no capitalistic sense.

Because ultimately humans are not homo econonimus, and many citizens of the west won't be able to get jobs in tech/finance/services. It's a societal issue rather than a capitalist issue.

Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

#757

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

NickC25 wrote: post #669
cael450 wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have spent my whole life intimately involved with southern Republicans. They will never ever not vote Republican, let alone vote Democrat. It is an identity marker. It doesn’t even really matter what the policies are. They’ll complain for a while, but they will always internalize a Republican policy shift no matter what it is. They used to treat “free market economics” as a religion just 10 years ago. Secondarily,…

>... It is an identity marker. It doesn’t even really matter what the policies are....They simply don’t connect their political beliefs to their reality. In other words, they're stupid.

Hilariously enough, people with a higher IQ are actually much better at rationalising these sorts of contradictions.

(You could call this depressing I suppose, but I prefer to laugh).

Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

#758

Post by fatherwavelet »

atoav wrote: post #732
jaredklewis wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is basically no overlap between the things that economists generally say are good (free trade, carbon taxes, cap-and-trade, immigration, land value taxes, organ trade, congestion pricing, etc…) and the things that populists of either the left or right say are good (rent control, price controls, tariffs, wealth taxes, debt relief, minimum parking requirements, etc…). Why would you (or anyone) be surprised that e…

Economics are hated because economical arguments are used to justify why we cannot do the necessary things all while doing things that bail out the rich for the tenth time. You don't need to be an economist to realize who is getting fucked over. I am not from the US, but a vote for Trump for many was just a vote to burn it all down, especially because the other candidate was perceived to standing for perpetuating the…

I have an interest in econophysics and what people think of as "economics" is mostly bullshit.

David Ruelle put it best in 1991 when he summed up economics as "We don't currently have the tools to properly study this subject". 35 years later we only have slightly better tools.

Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

#759

Post by anovikov »

timeon wrote: post #68
anovikov wrote: post #45

What's the problem about it? Trump cuts one kinds of taxes and introduces others in place. I see it reasonable because it means going from taxing good things (people making money, people holding property) to taxing bad things (imports that drain cash from the country). Direct net result is perhaps zero, but indirect one is what it's for.

> to taxing bad things Yeah no need for coffee beans in USA. Seems more like from taxing companies to taxing citizens.

Corporate taxes have always been a drop in the bucket (not counting payroll taxes, which are effectively individual taxes too just the company is a tax agent)

Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

#760

Post by MonkeyClub »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #709
MonkeyClub wrote: post #680

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, they're not alike, nor are the subtribes that are funneled into the two quasi-distinct groups. But I think the methods by which they're being manipulated are quite alike, and ultimately forced to side with the current tribal figurehead simply because it's not the other tribe's figurehead, even if there are many, and legitimate, contentions.

>many, and legitimate, contentions. When one chess player chooses to suddenly say that a pawn can move 3 spaces, and you insist on calling a ref to call out cheating, I don't think it's just "two tribes" anymore. You agreed on the rules of engagment at the beginning of the match and one side is objectively breaking them. Saying post haste that "well maybe a pawn should move 3 spaces" does not negate what you agreed u…

It is different, but it serves to elucidate that the rules we're living under aren't set in stone, they're only there because we, unlike the "no it's okay" bunch, can't or don't want to shirk them.

They operate under the "might is right" mentality, and by getting away with it prove in a sick and contorted way that the rules of social order aren't universal.

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