Tariffs. How are you affected?

Oh yes; I read that before.

I've had the 'chat' many times with Americans about eggs and why they must store theirs (I means their hen's eggs), in the fridge.

However on everyday or household items, electronics, cars (lol), clothing; I would like to know which US brands I have forgotten because nothing springs to mind. Ok so I eat some Kraft foodstuffs, I think, and that's only because

1. they bought UK brands and
2. They haven't yet destroyed the products

I'm not denouncing US stuff. I just can't think of any brands that stand out from others around the world. One exception might be Apple but I've used Samsung as does my partner, who used to use iPhone.

 

As I said, we may not like what it would take to do it but it is not impossible. China and other (at the time) third world countries made those choices and sacrifices. They are now reaping the rewards of their efforts and we are reaping the rewards of our short-sighted chase of near term profits.

One of my majors is economics so you need not waste time explaining efficiencies and comparative advantage to me. It’s still all just a narrative/justification to drive profits of the investment class at the expense of the rest of society. Yes, yes, I know; it’s too expensive to keep your own chickens and cows…. And yet everything continues to get more expensive despite production continually shifting to shores with lower wages and regulations. Funny that.

Boy I sure am glad all this free trade gives access to all this crap on which to spend our ever-shrinking real income.

tldr; free trade is not a panacea. Neither is protectionism. There is always trade offs in life.

 

One of the first things I noticed last spring was the cost of swordfish. I love a good garlic roasted swordfish steak, because marlin is not easy to buy where I live. Up until last year I was able to buy a nice sized swordfish steak for around $5 or 6. Granted it was frozen, but it was a good meal for one person with a good apetite. After the tariffs kicked in, my local grocery store stopped selling individual steaks. You had to buy a package of 3 or 4, and you could only see a portion of the steaks in the clear part of the package. Needless to say, I was angry when I got home and discovered the size of the steaks----the equivalent of half the amount for $5-6. A few months later, I was happy to find that another grocery store was still selling individual steaks, but this quickly turned to disappointment when I saw that they were at double the price before the tariffs!

In 2024, I had to replace the radiator on my Chevy, and a few months later, the CV axle. The radiator cost around $135, the CV axle was under $100. Last week I had to replace the CV axle on the other side--it was over $150. Then I did something stupid with a crappy jackstand that I have. My garage is currently filled with a bunch of stuff from my parent's house that I haven't been able to get rid of yet. I didn't want to work on the CV axle in the street, even though it is not very busy because I'd be on the side of the car. So I had it on my driveway, which is at a slant. I also discovered, to add insult to injury, that I had a flat tire that made it hard to put the pneumatic jack under the side of the car. So I chocked the back tires and put the jack under the frame of the front of the car, knowing full well that this jack is not very good, but I wanted to change the tire first. I jacked it up, took off the tire, and realized I needed to jack it up another half inch in order to put the spare on. I knew I should check that the jack was firmly under the frame, because the jack is missing the front wheels and it does slide a bit as it lifts cars. But I thought, its only a half an inch, and gave the jack handle a little push. It slid off the frame and the car came down----the jack destroying the radiator. So, because of that stupidity, I discovered that a radiator that was $135 in 2024, is now $300 in 2026!

Fried pork rinds from the Philippines that used to sell for 2.99, are now 8.99. There are tons of food that we enjoy that have jumped in price. I've also noticed that there are many cases of shrinkflation---where the price has stayed the same but the quantity has dropped. My grandson worked in a restaurant ordering food for the restaurant. He has seen all kinds of price increases. There are a lot of examples of how tariffs are hurting us if you know where to look.

 

Pick up a shop jack at Harbor Freight. Yeah, their prices have gone up on everything now that US inventory has rolled over, but still a good deal....pick up some wheel chocks, too. For car parts, it's RockAuto.com. There's no humans, and you may have to play games with different shipping locations, but I've always done well there...oh, while you are at it...their wiper blades are dirt cheap - even good brands - I always throw a dozen in the box for the fleet.

 

Yes, I do like Harbor Freight, and there is one not too far from me.

I should have replaced that jack some time ago. But I only think of it when I have to actually work on my cars, which fortunately is not too often. I did have chocks under the back wheels so it didn't roll at all. It was pretty stupid of me as I know that jack slides as I lift the car.

I could've gotten the radiator at carparts.com for $100, but I would have had to wait for the shipping--almost a week. So I just picked it up at Advance Auto. That is the same place I bought those parts in 2024.

 

I think we have all dropped a car off the jack once or twice....and said a lot of bad words. Their big plastic ramps work great for getting under for like exhaust work etc. They're just big for storage is all. I always prop an emergency cinderblock under the car incase all else fails. Anyway, I digress...

 

Good idea if you're doing it yourself. It really can help avoid a painful squish. Last time I did stuff like that, and I didnt have portable car ramps with me, I put my spare on top of the one I'd removed. I had to jack up much further than normal but it was before mobile phones and I wouldn't have been able to reach phone had the car squished me.

 

I'm enjoying your posts in this thread. Thought-provoking.

Not really. Cost to whom?
The importer pays the tariff (tax). If the importer doesn't pass on those costs to his customers, that's his call. If he passes the cost on to his customers, he'll still be paying the tax but will be sharing the burden.

Agreed though the rest of that paragraph is conflation of different issues.

Not all Chinese products are crap. If someone buys directly from a Chinese manufacturer, they, the customer, are responsible for quality control. Buying from a reputable or well-regarded company that imports from China, adds value and sells their own product, will protect their reputation by ensuring parts from any supplier, regardless of country, will be of suitable quality. Caveat emptor.
(Buyer beware).

That said; your narrow consideration seems totally to have missed European products and manufacturers. There's more than Chinese and American especially, if you want to access high quality

There's no such thing as "can't". It's a matter of difficulty. Those words from a junior school teacher have stuck in my head. To reverse things in the US would be very difficult. Prices are unlikely to come down because in the process of resetting, people involved will find ways to make money from those processes.

WTF?? I wonder who gave you that notion?

For some people, choosing eco-friendly products is an aspiration only because its an unaffordable luxury.

How does that work? You speak of enslaved workers, presumably banging on about China. Those workers are earning more money than before. Their economy is growing in nearly all segments.

Perhaps more significantly, you refer to protectionism. Sheltering domestic (US) producers?? Do you mean those such as the former car sector in and around Detroit? You know; those cars which, when the public discovered that companies in other countries make better products, and they bought them, that's why they're all over the US and US car manufacturing has slumped. That's a good example of several oddities in the US. Sheltering from the rest of the world. Why not be competitive? Why not make the best stuff in whichever sector and sell it throughout the US and the rest of the world?!

Sheltering = good, yet free trade and protectionism = bad. Sheltering is a form of protectionism so make your mind up. Whilst people don't have clarity on what the future could hold for them, they'll continue to be fearful.

Extremism never succeeds, which is why the incumbent political strategy will ultimately evaporate. Imv.

and you've taken both sides lol. Protectionism = bad; and Sheltering.= good.

The fact that it will get increasingly costly, as time passes, and the average family is struggling financially, it will take decades to reverse. Better to go with the momentum and steer it in a new direction rather than trying to damn the flow and push it back.

Nope, they didn't. They educated themselves with a very humble yet determined mindset and started from almost nothing. Their government provided funding and security to help new-start businesses and now both that and re-investment by successful companies into newer, smaller companies is the driver.

I would describe that differently. US companies are reaping the rewards of their own sense of entitlement and misguided belief that American products are best. That; and/or they know there are enough customers in the US that are easy meat for their second-rate products. Also, a seemingly fundamental business insecurity about whether the world will really like the US home-grown products. Let the customer decide what's best. They've done it and are still doing so in relation to cars with European brands all over the US.
They could do it with many more products. Let's remember, General Motors sell stuff in the US. They also sell stuff in the rest of the world. Why could it be that the stuff in the US is sold just for the (smaller) US market and the stuff sold to elsewhere (a much bigger market) isn't sold in the US. There's a clue in that structure.

Major? Like high school? You know there's a whole degree qualification and professional qualifications before one in that sector would dream of pontificating?!

 

Krafty foods are low quality, their cheese products are loaded with additives,some of which are addictive.
When they bought out Cadburys, UK sales dropped by almost 50%. The first easter, sales were so low that half the easter eggs brought into the UK were dumped.

Although imported from the US, most electronic products are actually manufactured in China. The US just mark the price up. To avoid paying the import tariffs into the US, many of the physical products are shipped directly into the UK from China.
The money goes around the houses, increasing the cost to us.

 

I forgot you like to derail threads. Lol

 

Bazz888 did a good job of taking your post apart, but let me add----I also disagree that they made choices and sacrifices. There are many factors that played into how they found themselves in the manufacturing cycle of going from producing cheap junk to essential consumer goods to quality products, and how they both managed it and were forced to deal with the realities they found themselves in. Choices and sacrifices would be one of the last words I would use. Yes, there was humble studying of their situation and how they could make the best with what they had, and there were also economic and business realities that were forced upon them, and which they had to respond to.

I too studied economics, including a lot of international economics. Then I went to work in Tokyo in the Japanese stock market. After working for a Japanese firm, I switched to Shearson Lehman as an analyst, where I was paid big money to use my analytical skills in finance and economics in order to make predictions. One of my biggest successes was that I predicted the Japanese credit crisis which began in 1990, as well as predicted when the Nikkei would peak and crash, and even accurately predicted the level it would hit (I predicted that it would reach between 38,000 and 40,000 on the last trading day of 1989, and it would crash in 1990. (It closed at 38,990, give or take a few points, and crashed starting the first trading day after the New Years vacation).

What is even more impressive is that I first made this prediction while preparing for an interview with Toyo Keizai Magazine (an economics magazine) in August or September of 1988. And I maintained it all the way until it happened at the end of 1989 as I had predicted. Now, I will be the first to admit that certainly luck played a part in both my timing and the level of the Nikkei I predicted. But my prediction was based on the cracks that I was seeing occur in the Japanese economy, my understanding of economics, and how the so-called Japanese miracle worked, and my understanding of how markets work on both a fundamental and technical basis.

There is a lot more to comparative advantages and market efficiency than narratives and justifications to drive profits. In fact, the manufacturing cycles I referred to above that Japan first began going through, and then South Korea, and then later, China, demonstrates that these theories reflect reality better than any other explanation.

Japan, for example, was very protective of its metal industry back in the '80's. There was a big historical love for them to produce their own steel, traditions going back to even the manufacture of samurai swords, and it was a big part of what made the Zaibatsu (the old families that made up the Japanese version of Robber Barons) so wealthy. But it was obvious to any observer that the industry had lost its competitive advantage. If they would have continued down the same path, they would have lost the industry entirely. I made money in my own account by shorting some of these metal giants. It was a struggle for them, and they had to come to terms with it----buying factories overseas (even today you see the attempt to take over US Steel as part of this new strategy that came out of the struggles back then). They had to find a competitive advantage that would give new life to the refineries they wanted so badly to keep. And they succeeded----refineries in Japan focus primarily in specialized production, and recycling (the latter of which also resolves their own ecological issues).

There is a major economic cost to trying to maintain industries where a nation has lost its competitive advantage--costs that go way beyond a company's, or shareholder's profits.

The crazy thing is, why do we want to compete with China to make the goods that fill the shelves of Walmart---what you call Chinesium? Because we can make it better? That's ridiculous. And the kind of menial low-wage jobs such factories would create, would not be appealing to Americans, and now we are deporting all the people that would be happy to work in them! This goes beyond ridiculous to batshit crazy!

We are watching late stage capitalism play out. I would agree that there is a serious problem with shrinking income. And while this is connected to rising prices, if you are arguing that it is a result of inflation, that is an oversimplification. Even worse, it completely ignores the total failure of trickle-down economics which really took hold with Reagan and has been driving policy ever since. We had the chance to save and revitalize the US economy and in turn the global economy. That, chance, I'm afraid, has passed for America. (We have an orange turd to thank for that). The rest of the world may still save and revitalize what we refer to as capitalism. But there is a turning point I have warned about for well over 10 years. If we hit that, and the downfall of America could very well be 'that,' then capitalism, and the world economy will collapse like never before. The Great Depression will be a walk in the park.

If by free trade, you are referring to a laissez faire version of global trade, or even what many refer to as a neo-liberal version of free trade, then I agree. Protectionism is definitely a harmful thing. Such talk, though, fails to understand the actual meaning of globalism in the modern world. And it is very different from what conspiracy theorists mean when they use the term globalist.

I like to think that I played my part, though a small part it was, in creating the complex supply chains and globalized industries that make up this globalism. In fact, I would say that actual globalism aligns with my own hippie ideals of how a better world would function, especially after having lived in various parts of the world, and being fluent or conversational in a number of languages.

What Trump and a lot of Americans don't understand is that this dynamic of globalism is taking us from a colonial world, to a post-colonial world, and then beyond that. Such change does not happen in a straight line, and the old world order of colonialism and exploitation still play a part in the global arena (and I'm talking about before Trump, MAGA, and Putin, try to shove us back into a world of colonial racist bullies).

But we are already seeing increased shared wealth and affluence occur around the world as globalism plays out. Americans have always had a hard time understanding that we all benefit best when the benefits are shared. But this is happening. And it is all because the world is shrinking as we progress into the information age, or what Alvin Toffler referred to as the Third Wave. He even said that borders would lose their significance and political meaning, becoming simply boundaries of cultural differentiation. In fact, he predicted that as this plays out, it would create a strong reactionary anti-immigration and isolationist sentiment which we are seeing play out today. The way this is happening is a bit different from how he predicted it, but I believe it is certainly along the same lines.

America had the chance to be a global leader in this new world. And we definitely were prior to Trump and his moronic destruction of our nation. Covid very likely could have been stopped before it became a global pandemic. Our global trade agreements were creating wealth at home and abroad. (Every single trade alliance and agreement that Trump breaks opens a door for China to take advantage of, and further isolate us!) The trade deficit was certainly misunderstood, and used to destroy us. Where we had a deficit in trade we had a surplus in intelligence, or 'brains' as people came from around the world to study, and, more often than not, to stay here. (Trump destroyed that!) For the first time since Reagan, we were starting to move away from trickle-down economics (Trump pushed us further the other way!) Life is unfair, and yes, people in certain industries would have to adjust. But rising incomes, rising affluence, leads to rising disposable income. Some nations have already woken up to the reality of declining birth rates, and as other nations do so, there will be a shift where they will realize they need immigrants in order for their economies to continue to grow. (Do I need to say where Trump is placing us in this manner?).

 

Well, I don’t do the whole pick apart every statement of one’s interlocutors as you and some others like to do so I’ll just address that which seems most notable to me.

There’s no need to be condescending or too facetious. Economics was my first undergrad major. I specialized in micro and econometrics. Macro at the time was dominated by leftist story tellers whose theories bore a barely passing resemblance to reality. Micro, and especially behavioral economics, at least offered testable/verifiable hypotheses. Even then, what’s disseminated to the public as “real” economics is often competing theories of various interests more than it is descriptions or explanations of our economies.

Yes, I do think free trade is a bad idea. I also think strong protectionism is a bad idea. I think a low and largely flat/even tariff for every country, to introduce a bit of extra friction into the market, on both goods and capital, could offer all populations a bit more stability and encourage domestic investment everywhere. Please don’t suggest that I’m saying something that I am not: I’m not advocating for protecting inefficient or poorly managed industries. Those should suffer so they will correct themselves or disappear.

As for “US complies [edit: companies] reaping the rewards of their own sense of entitlement”; I mean, I guess that may be your perspective but I think you may be anthropomorphizing and seeing motive that might not be there. They may have been far too slow to change. I’ve already agreed they were short-sighted in their goals of maximizing shareholders short term value, but “a sense of entitlement”? I don’t see how a corporation is capable of such a trait.

 

That's cool----it should have become curriculum in the 1980's and beyond...

I think Toffler identified and predicted things very well. As a stock market analyst I was especially drawn to Schumpeterian economics. I think the little known Swiss economist, Joseph Schumpeter, and his theories around innovation as a driver of economic growth provided one of the best explanations of economic growth and progress.

One of my early clues that the Japanese miracle of the 1980's was coming to an end, was the fact that new Japanese patents were declining, while American and West German patents were climbing. Throughout the 1980's the Japanese had led the world in new patents. America especially was not doing well in producing new patents as American manufacturers had to come to terms with aging factories and the long period of low plant investment in the 1970's and early 80's. American companies were very arrogant and literally stated, time and again, that no one could topple the manufacturing might of America. Finally in the late '80's American companies began taking the problem serious, and began innovating, automating, and reinvesting. You might remember the recession in the early '90's when 'downsizing' became a buzz word. I knew this was necessary in order to become a stronger America. And it was----we created amazing economic growth and were the world economic leader going into the 21st Century. As we improved our factories and so forth, we started to see a rise in US patents.

I believed (and still do) that Japanese patents were declining because they are less inventors and more innovators. The Japanese had a very definite Confucian ethic running through their culture. They had a hard time thinking outside of the box. (Before I turned to finance, economics, and international business, I majored in Philosophy). What this meant is that they couldn't just come out and invent something new. They had to have something to work with. So they did not invent the tape recorder, for example. That happened in Germany. Then Americans had their hand in the development of what we know as tape recorders. The Japanese were able to make them smaller, as they did with the radio, and created the Walkman. (Of course most new patents build on the things that came before it. But there is a difference to what you can do when you can think completely outside of the box, vs. only being able to think outside of it with the parameters of the box.) The West needed to come up with more inventions for the Japanese to work with and innovate. Anyway, I can imagine that this traditional Confucian ethic is breaking down in Japan, but not being there for several decades, I cannot say what is happening today. But if Schumpeter was alive when I figured things like this out and the implications to the Japanese economy, I'm sure he would have patted me on the head and said, "Mein guter Junge"

 

Let me see if I understand what you are saying then. Would you please tell me what you mean by free trade so I know if we are talking about the same thing.

But you are saying you are not about protecting inefficient industries (though I thought that's where part of your post was going), but instead you think countries should just raise the cost of imported goods across the board by taxing their people via taxation of the importers. Basically, that every nation should just add in a form of inflationary pressure. You do know that as tariffs artificially raise the cost of goods, that domestic companies take advantage of this and raise their prices as well. This has been demonstrated over and over. So what does anyone get from this? What are you trying to accomplish?

It seems like you are promoting an Us vs Them mentality. If that is true then you are arguing that an across the board tariff would protect domestic industries from 'Them.' And if we take this a little further, it implies that we have to maximize the benfits to Us, i.e. we have to dominate the market. Of course their tariffs hinder that, which leads to trade wars, etc. etc. etc. And eventually we have to go in and kill everyone in Greenland because the only way we would truly defend it is to own it for Us and not let Them have it. (Now before you say, 'Don't be ridiculous. I never said that!' my point is that this dualistic nationalistic thinking leads right down that path.)

Really in the end, what is the difference between a factory in Japan, or in the Philippines, and a factory in Seattle? I don't live in Seattle. When I buy something from that factory, it is not going to put taxes into my local economy. And if you ever looked at balance sheets of American companies, you probably know that it is not going to put much taxes into the federal government. I probably don't know any workers in that Seattle plant any more than I know plant workers in Tokyo or Manila. As the world shrinks in the information age---this is the reality we are faced with. I could argue that the Seattle product should be cheaper, because it is not shipped across the Pacific to reach me. But it isn't cheaper because the Seattle company is going to charge the same price of that on the foreign product, which includes shipping. So in that sense there already is a higher cost on the foreign product built in. But it is not a tariff because it is not taxed to the American importer. If the market for those goods recognizes that the Tokyo product is the best in quality, then they can probably sell at a higher price than the Seattle one, and it would be harder to justify for the Seattle firm to raise their prices. And people who want quality will still pay for the Japanese one. So how is any country justified in putting tariffs on those goods from Manila or Tokyo?

I spent 15 years living in Japan, over 5 years in the Philippines, I have spent numerous summers in Europe, and I have traveled around the world. In fact, for many years it was cheaper for me to fly to London than it was to fly to Orlando. (I live near Denver). If I took Ryan Air to Nice, it would cost less than a rent-a-car to drive to Clearwater Beach from Orlando. And in Nice we would rent an apartelle cheaper than a nice hotel in Clearwater. I could literally save money on travel and lodging to go to Europe. This is the world that we were living in up until Trump's second term. We no longer live in the 19th Century where foreign lands were exotic and strange because to get there you had to take ships that depended on winds and Godspeed that a storm does not sink you. No, it was becoming a world where I could go to another land as easily as I could go into the next state. (Now I wont dare try because I am very vocal against the horrible orange turd in the White House and my wife is an immigrant.)

Do you not understand how such things as affluence, wealth, and industry have changed on a global basis over the past few decades? These last few decades are proof of how post-Colonial global business can help everyone rise up through shared business goals? And the country that is at the center of this growth benefits the most. This is why during the Great Recession, America's export sector was the strongest part of the economy and carried us through the recession better than most countries---AND IT WAS A CREDIT CRISIS THAT ORIGINATED HERE IN THE US! And during the pandemic----America was the strongest economy and we suffered much less inflation, maintained a strong export sector, etc etc. And yet Trump tells everyone how bad everything is and talks about the trade deficit when no one understands what the hell they are talking about!

But maybe I misunderstand you. Please explain.

Have you ever worked in the corporate environment? Have you experienced corporate culture? This culture is often a reflection of that firm's top management and how they approach the business goals of the firm. Of course there is entitlement. Corporate welfare takes up far more tax dollars than welfare to the poor, by far! And yet the powers that be tell us how entitled and and lazy poor people are. But don't look at corporate America---those are job producers! Yet these corporations gladly shaft their employees and will take advantage in any way they can. Then they pay for team growing exercises and simple bribe gifts to make them feel that they are valued. The ratio of CEO to employee pay rates should show the workers how valued they actually are, and then come time for lay offs, and the fact that they are no more than numbers stares all the employees painfully in the face!

Take for example, the inflation as we came out of the pandemic. It was not hard to see the entitlement that was gouging consumers, as large corporations took advantage of the narratives to raise prices. Most simply put, when a company is forced to raise prices in response to inflation, their costs go up because inflation creates a more expensive environment that they are operating in. They raise prices in order to maintain their profit margins. Their profit margins will not grow, and in fact, as inflation continues, will weaken. Normally they cannot just raise prices or they will harm their market share. But the pandemic, and the constant BS emanating from the GOP about the terrible inflation, enabled them to freely take advantage of consumers and raise prices. I looked at a lot of income statements, from Coca Cola to oil companies----a lot of companies blatantly, and shamelessly, raised prices without any issue with their expenses. Profit margins skyrocketed. If the fact that they could do that so openly without any concern for recourse is not entitlement, what is it?