Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US companies, consumers are paying for tariffs, not foreign firms

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 193 posts

Re: US companies, consumers are paying for tariffs, not foreign firms

#91

Post by rob_c »

Newlaptop wrote: post #83
swordsmith wrote: post #47

Everyone focusing on consumer prices. But tariffs also function to incentivize domestic reindustrialization, which has huge national security implications. You see this clearly in the venture space as increased investment interest in hardtech and manufacturing. It's great that the federal government is looking long term again.

No one is risking multi-year commitments of millions or billions of dollars to build a factory in America when the tariffs change week to week. If you want to incentive domestic reindustrialization, you do it with things like the Inflation Reduction Act, CHIPS act or the "Green New Deal" where congress lays out clear sets of rules in law with a mixture of tax incentives, loan programs and spending to give investors a…

> No one is risking multi-year commitments of millions or billions of dollars to build a factory in America

Yes because of all the silicon fab plants popping up in the EU and Africa?...

Re: US companies, consumers are paying for tariffs, not foreign firms

#92

Post by fsckboy »

vaidhy wrote: post #42
water9 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

A tariff across the board is same as a sales tax (rather a value added tax, as it is dependent on the value of goods). I would love to understand why you think it is punitive for the ultra rich.

sales taxes are based on the value of the goods.

value added taxes are paid on the profit made on the good, and are paid by the seller (because the buyer doesn't know what the profit is). value added taxes are basically corporate income taxes

Re: US companies, consumers are paying for tariffs, not foreign firms

#93

Post by rob_c »

kurthr wrote: post #62
swordsmith wrote: post #47

Everyone focusing on consumer prices. But tariffs also function to incentivize domestic reindustrialization, which has huge national security implications. You see this clearly in the venture space as increased investment interest in hardtech and manufacturing. It's great that the federal government is looking long term again.

You incentivize domestic industrialization by actually doing that (but it's hard and takes planning). In fact uncertainty about tariffs make investment less likely (and more expensive, because you have to buy equipment and steel, and copper at 50% tariffs). So no, you don't get re-industrialization, you get stagflation. It's idiocracy.

No assuming that there is no next step is idiocracy... And also the weakness of 4yr political planning in the west.

The next step is to work around tariffs where you can and need to which forces innovation and jobs on both sides of the border.

Re: US companies, consumers are paying for tariffs, not foreign firms

#94

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

pessimizer wrote: post #20

American tariffs are meant to be paid by Americans, and not usually meant to damage foreign companies. A rise in the price of imports is not an unforeseen consequence of tariffs, it's their entire purpose. This is basic knowledge that everybody at Bloomberg knows. You know the tariffs are targeted well enough because Bloomberg is against them; they wouldn't care at all if they felt that the costs could be passed onto…

  Grover Norquist is smiling from the grave right now, watching this bipartisan anti-tax push.
Someone buried Grover Norquist alive?

Re: US companies, consumers are paying for tariffs, not foreign firms

#95

Post by fsckboy »

vharuck wrote: post #90
swordsmith wrote: post #47

Everyone focusing on consumer prices. But tariffs also function to incentivize domestic reindustrialization, which has huge national security implications. You see this clearly in the venture space as increased investment interest in hardtech and manufacturing. It's great that the federal government is looking long term again.

I'm not willing to believe this was the plan while the tariffs also apply to crops we can't reasonably grow in the US, like cocoa and coffee. And the tariffs are also single across-the-board numbers for each country. And were originally based on trade deficits with the countries (unless we had a trade surplus with a country, in which case it was 10% anyway).

tariffs that apply to crops we don't grow in the US still discourage purchase of those crops, making the sellers unhappy. if the seller country has been putting tariffs on US goods, the seller country is now incented to bargain on the tariffs in both directions. I'm not saying this is a good idea, but explaining something you have not accounted as a reason.

Re: US companies, consumers are paying for tariffs, not foreign firms

#96

Post by rob_c »

unclad5968 wrote: post #89
bdcravens wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The oversimplified (and naive) response has been that prices will go up, but the shift to domestic production and consumption will in turn increase household incomes, and that will (hand-wavingly) balance out.

Do you have any resources for other solutions for improving American manufacturing capability? I'm ignorant to most of this but I'm interested in what solutions people have proposed.

Tariffs and tax breaks mostly.

Usually to bring big existing companies back either by choice or kicking and screaming about being weaned off unsustainably cheap labour...

As for new companies, other than the valley or DoD contracts what's new? Electric cars which aren't popular in a country that doesn't apply tax at the pump.

Re: US companies, consumers are paying for tariffs, not foreign firms

#97

Post by sremani »

SauciestGNU wrote: post #74
le-mark wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Red states are red states for a reason. Lowest income, lowest educational attainment, rural poverty and struggling schools. It’s a pernicious problem exacerbated by conservative media that’s 24 hour xenophobia and jingoism. It’s not just the US look to your countrymen dear reader!

Not to mention a large portion of that cohort views education as a moral wrong.

Birds did not read Ornithology to fly. Accumulation of knowledge is useful but real world experience and hard earned wisdom is more important.

That is what you test-taking, credential hustlers do not understand.

Re: US companies, consumers are paying for tariffs, not foreign firms

#98

Post by fsckboy »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #78
swordsmith wrote: post #47

Everyone focusing on consumer prices. But tariffs also function to incentivize domestic reindustrialization, which has huge national security implications. You see this clearly in the venture space as increased investment interest in hardtech and manufacturing. It's great that the federal government is looking long term again.

Tariff rates have changed how many times in the past six months? Businesses need certainty if they are going to make long term investments.

have you followed the news? it's been reported that after the period of changing tariffs, agreements have been reached for more US manufacturing, said agreements providing the certainty you are seeking.

Re: US companies, consumers are paying for tariffs, not foreign firms

#99

Post by throwawaylaptop »

kazinator wrote: post #10

This only needs to be explained to Americans who are somehow still hanging on to Donald Trump's explanation of tariffs: that they are gonna make foreigners pay. Tariffs are taxes that locals pay on stuff imported from abroad.

If an American screw driver is $10, and a Chinese one was $5, I bought Chinese.

If you tariff the Chinese one to $8, I will buy American.

China knows this, so they change the price on their screw driver (that actually costs them 0.75) accordingly, so that it can still be sold for $5, because they know there's a ceiling on what people will pay.

China doesn't have pure competition. The price of their goods isnt really related to cost by it more of what the buyer will pay.

Re: US companies, consumers are paying for tariffs, not foreign firms

#100

Post by fsckboy »

supertrope wrote: post #51
swordsmith wrote: post #47

Everyone focusing on consumer prices. But tariffs also function to incentivize domestic reindustrialization, which has huge national security implications. You see this clearly in the venture space as increased investment interest in hardtech and manufacturing. It's great that the federal government is looking long term again.

An N95 mask made in China costs $0.30. One made in the USA costs $1.00. A 25% tariff was enacted by executive fiat. The made in China mask is still cheaper than the USA made one. Few hospitals buy American. PPE manufacturers in Malaysia win.

and China is therefore punished in the context of treating US imports to China in an unfair way; this was one of the goals, so you're saying "policy win"?
Post reply on HN