It doesn’t even matter:
https://www.axios.com/2024/11/18/consumer-confidence-trump-republicans-white-house
Turns out, a lot of consumer mood is literally just people’s social media feeds. Even if prices go up and QoL goes down, on average, consumers might feel better simply because Trump being in office makes them feel good.
I am not going to point out how monumentally problematic this is… Nope. There’s definitely no bad precedent for that.
buys that external drive I’ve been putting off for a while
I was planning my first build in 7 years for around 6 months from now. I just CANT right now.
I just upgraded my GPU even though I wanted to wait until the new stuff drops, but I can’t risk getting boned by tariffs and/or scalpers.
Folks, listen closely, okay? Nobody understands tariffs better than me. Believe me, they’re tremendous, tremendous tariffs. And now Walmart – yes, Walmart, great company, big stores, huge – they’re telling you that YOU, the great American people, will be paying for these tariffs. And you know what? That’s fantastic news. Incredible. Let me tell you why.
First, it’s about sacrifice. The greatest country in the world doesn’t rise without its amazing, hardworking patriots chipping in a little bit more. And trust me, when you pay a little extra at Walmart for your cheap, uh, Made-in-China toasters, you’re not just buying a toaster. You’re buying FREEDOM, folks. You’re sticking it to the Chinese economy. No one else could get that deal done, okay? Only me.
Second, we’re BUILDING here, okay? When American families dig a little deeper into their pockets, that’s money going back into our economy. It’s like… MAGA economics, so smart you wouldn’t believe it. All of a sudden, Americans will say, “Hey, why am I buying Chinese stuff? Let’s buy American!” And BOOM – jobs. Factories humming. Steel, coal, maybe even wood, I don’t know. Beautiful stuff.
Third, let’s talk winning. When we pay these tariffs – our tariffs – we’re showing the world who’s boss. China thinks they’re so smart. So clever. Well, joke’s on them. We’re so good at tariffs, we’re making YOU pay them instead of them. Genius move, right? They won’t even know what hit them. Tremendous strategy. They’re probably shaking in Beijing.
And look, folks, I hear you. “But sir, sir, what about the prices?” And I say this: are you willing to pay a little more at Walmart to make America the GREATEST it’s ever been? I think you are. And if you’re not, then maybe you like China too much. Sad!
So remember, every time you spend a little extra at Walmart – and it’s a GREAT store, by the way, I love it, fantastic – just think of it as making a donation to America. To freedom. To ME – your favorite president – who is bringing the best tariffs, the best deals, and the best America you’ve ever seen.
God bless tariffs. God bless Walmart. And God bless the United States of America. MAGA!
Long long maaaaan
Good thing I can’t read
votes Republican
China will pay for the tariffs in the same way Mexico paid for the wall.
Hearing more and more stories about companies cutting bonuses this year so they can buy more supplies now at cheaper prices. They know the prices will go up and they’ll have to pass the increase to the consumers. But how much you wanna bet these companies will still raise prices even before they have to pay their tariff increases? They’re gonna get extra money on the supplies they paid the lower prices on.
The I voted for him for cheaper eggs crowd are about to call this fake news.
Cool. Places like Aldis will continue not-fucking their customers while walmart will continue doing the same shit it always has, fucking over poor people and small business owners.
Dont shop at walmart if you can help it. Or kroger. Or any other shitty american company thats profit driven.
Cool trick y’all can do: if profit is the clear main goal, that company is garbage no matter what they do.
Mango Mussolini’s tariff plans will increase prices across the board. The corporations earned record profits during the so-called inflation and the US consumers that voted for Cheeto are fucking clueless about the inbound out of control freight train.
Cry more. Americans chose Trump with eyes wide open and deserve everything that’s coming to them.
If only his actions didn’t also hurt the half of the country that voted against him and organized to keep him out of office. He won by a sliver.
Yeah, I mean I knew that, you knew that, Americans are so uneducated that the majority had no idea how basic economics work.
Well FAFO, we’re all going to learn the hard way I guess.
First of all walmart doesnt have to do this, they are choosing to.
Second, last time trump did tariffs prices went up in the following months, and then returned back to baseline following that.
There will be a reactionary period once they are placed. Walmart will either shift to buying more locally to maintain the most profit they can, or a competitor will undercut them.
Buying local is an option to evade paying tariffs on imported goods.
But what do you do if buying local is no real option?
I’m thinking of coffee, chocolate, computers, mobile phones, game consoles, cars, etc.Shifting to buying more locally can work when there are local businesses that can ramp up production easily to meet demand, it doesn’t work when there is no local production that can be easily expanded, or when there aren’t enough local resources to supply local manufacturing (for example lithium for battery production)
Also, trade has been our leverage keeping China in check, we need their stuff, and they need our money, so we get along. If suddenly we say “we don’t want your stuff anymore, and we’re not giving you our money” they’re gonna turn around and sell more to India, Russia, and Europe. They’ll be fine, but we’ll both lose our leverage and toilet our economy for at least a decade while we try to recover from shooting ourselves in the leg.
And fuck those of us who already knew the lesson. Its like school but without getting to go home at the end of the day. And just like school, the kids who need it probably wont pay attention
I was promised cheaper eggs.
100% guarantee price raises across the board, even for stuff not affected by tarrifs/mass deportation labor shortages.
It’ll be covid all over again, an excuse to price gouge the fuck out of those who can least afford it.
If companies are going to suck consumers dry just because they can, they’d better put Republican’s name on it.
Are you kidding ? This is absolutely going to be blamed on Biden, loudly and repeatedly.
I know I know, Walmart is in the GOP’s pocket. But if the DNC knows what’s good for them they’ll take any scraps they have from Harris 2024 and painting the entire Republican movement as lovers of raising prices on Americans.
They won’t.
Wonder who they who are they gonna blame then?
What are you talking about? It’ll all be Biden’s fault.
Realistically though, that’s how tariffs just work. With products costing more, theoretically that should drive demand down and eventually lead to fewer imports. Of course, if there’s still no competing product or the product is a basic necessity, then it’ll likely just result in people paying more.
Working tariffs make importing goods so expensive that manufacturing them nationally is viable. There are definitely areas where tariffs make sense, e.g. you have or want to build an industry that’s competing against a subsidized industry from another country. Tariffs are one way to help with that.
But we all know that’s way too much thought for him, which probably boiled down to “China bad”… which I’m not necessarily disagreeing with fully… but for reasons that tariffs aren’t necessarily an answer to.
Working tariffs make importing goods so expensive that manufacturing them nationally is viable.
The lack of American subcompact trucks is evidence that this is false.
I think this is rather an issue with what the majority of the market wants. If carmakers saw a bigger profit in offering smaller transport vehicles (pickup trucks in my opinion aren’t even particularly good at transporting a lot of stuff), they’d manufacturer and sell them.
But the truth is pickup trucks are often just lifestyle products (when I need to transport something, I just rent something adequate) and as such, there is a much larger customer base than for sensible options, which makes the others commercially risky.
Wasn’t it something to do with trucks are work vehicles so emissions restrictions didn’t apply to the same extent, so they basically pushed trucks hard and made everything truck sized to skirt around it? That has the effect of turning into a lifestyle product. Guarantee my little Subaru sees more off-road than most jacked up trucks.
Actually I’d argue Subaru is more of a lifestyle brand, selling the idea that you for sure need that extra clearance and all wheel drive, just in case you decide to rock crawl your way up to a camping spot after Costco. I love mine, and actually use it, but that doesn’t mean I’m blind to what they’re pushing.
In the US, CAFE which regulates this sort of thing has different rules for light trucks versus cars. That’s why nearly everything sold today is a “light truck” - not just pickups but SUVs, CUVs, and vans which make up the majority of new vehicles sold. These rules also had a lot to do with large cars like station wagons going away.
That could also be, I’m not American so I don’t know all the details.
However, watching from the outside, it clearly comes off as some kind of statement.
I think this is why single use vehicles aren’t popular in America. Everyone needs a car, usually to work, and generally also to vacation, grocery shop, meet friends and family, etc.
Yeah, the fact that every sporting event’s commercials rotate between dick pills, beer, and giant trucks totally doesn’t have anything to do with it.
Also, if the market didn’t demand smaller trucks, why slap a tariff on them to encourage local production?
I don’t know, is that particular tariff already in effect?
I’m not saying they’re always good, bit that they can be a strategic instrument. The example you brought up makes no sense, I agree. But I’m sure if carmakers saw a market for a class of cars, they’d take the opportunity - maybe not on their core brand (like I don’t think Ford would build one under that brand in the US).
Yeah, the fact that every sporting event’s commercials rotate between dick pills, beer, and giant trucks totally doesn’t have anything to do with it.
I think this rather proves my point, they’re lifestyle products targeting a specific demographic under the guide of being a utility.
It’s called the Chicken Tax and it’s why I can’t buy a Hilux despite demanding as hard as I can.
I think this rather proves my point, they’re lifestyle products targeting a specific demographic under the guide of being a utility.
It’s also creating demand for trucks that are terrible at doing truck stuff.
Saying “the market demands big trucks” ignores the billions they spend making the market demand big trucks.
Why? Because they’re insanely profitable.
So this is a retaliatory tariff and not actually one that makes particular sense otherwise.
It’s also creating demand for trucks that are terrible at doing truck stuff.
Yeah, they’re garbage.
Saying “the market demands big trucks” ignores the billions they spend making the market demand big trucks.
It’s probably some kind of feedback loop.
On the other hand, if just marketing budget created demand, they’d advertise these more here as not a lot of people own one. But someone figured out that that marketing budget would probably not yield an RoI, as opposed to the US. Though they’re are probably practical factors at pay, like gas prices and road size.
But the question is, will American manufacturing make up for the costs? Or, will American manufacturing just raise their prices to match the tariffs and lump the profits into their executive bonuses. They deserve it after all for being smart enough to raise prices.
Uff the country that loves to buy temu crap is forced to buy american crap
During his first term Trump put a tariffs on Washing Machines. The price of imported washing machines went up. The price of domestically manufactured washing machines was also raised. Even the price of dryers — which didn’t have a tariff — went up on both imported and domestically manufactured appliances.
I have yet to see an economist that thinks Trumps tariff plans will benefit the working class.
Those prices entirely rebounded by the end of 2019. Thats how tariffs work. It became more expensive to import, companies slowly replaced imports with cheaper local goods, the cost settles.
There are surely instances where it didnt rebound entirely but thats not one of them.
American manufacturing CAN’T, it would take years, decades honestly, to get back the capacity to make all the crap we’ve outsourced to other countries.
And this is the absolute brain rot fantasy of tariffs that I keep explaining to these idiots, and keep getting blank stares or awkward silences.
Tariffs are 100% punitive, without a domestic/alternative sourcing strategy. They can work long term to reduce a foreign nation’s competitive advantage in an industry while allowing a domestic industry space to exist, but that only works if there’s a domestic industry that already exists (at enough scale to meet demand) or a long term government program to nurture and build those industries - education/vocation training, regulatory concerns, infrastructure development, raw materials availability, etc
Tariffs Chinese steel/electronics/machine tools/etc into oblivion? Either buy the imported at a high price, or buy the domestic at a slightly less high price - but the cost is always carried by the consumer no matter what.
And then there’s the ensuing trade war that always happens, with the countries retaliating with their own tariffs to the US. Tariffs are a lose-lose scenario, just like they were in 2019.
And they want to kill the CHIPS act, which was going to build some of that local supply.
IMO that’s the height of economic policy stupidity because if/when Taiwan gets invaded, China will own nearly all semiconductor manufacturing outside of the highest end fab houses such as Intel or GlobalFoundries. The future of domestic manufacturing is high tech or specialty like Corning glassworks or L3-Harris, even car manufacturers get beat out by imports with our current tariff structure
This is largely accurate unfortunately. A good example is Apple. They tried to make a high-end desktop computer manufactured in the US. To do this they needed a specific type of screw. In the area near their factory, they only found one machine shop that could make the screw and they could guarantee an output of 50 screws per day after a 3 week lead time to tool up. And that was the final offer.
When they finally moved to China, they submitted the same request. Multiple vendors appeared offering thousands of screws per day and if they wanted to place a bigger order the company would set up a new factory just to produce those screws and could output tens or hundreds of thousands per day depending on requirements.
Another example is the iPhone and Gorilla Glass. There were a few Chinese companies in the running to manufacture the glass panel that would go on top of the phone. The one that got the contract, in anticipation of getting the contract, had already purchased the machine to form the glass and had samples ready for inspection at the contract signing.
We have allowed our business climate to become so bogged down in red tape and liability and lawyers and insurance, that most American companies are simply unable to execute at the same speed as China when it comes to manufacturing.
I would absolutely love to get more manufacturing back in the US. But the process of outsourcing is not going to get unwound overnight. It took two decades to move everything to China, even if the whole country agreed that was a mistake it would take another two decades to bring it back. Because as the Apple screws demonstrate, it’s not just about the factory that produces the widget. It’s about everything that goes into that factory, the companies that make the parts and the screws and the plastic. When you deal with China, they are all right there and they are all ready to go. Same can’t be said for the US.
I was sorta on board until you blamed regulations as a reason businesses can’t have manufacturering I. The US.
Regulations are written in blood. Stop pretending like a living wage and no slave labor is a bad tbi g inhibiting production.
Tarrif the snot out of the slave wage countries.
Unfortunately, the United States is also a slave country within it’s prison system.
Want a slave? Just trump up some nebulous charges about them, so to speak. Profit.
While youre correct, it’s worth noting that alot of the reason China can outmanufacture us is the lack of those sane regulations. Nets for suicidal factory kids and all that. Thing is, the tarrifs also arent just being applied to slave wage countries, but the entire world basically
And beyond that, it will incentivize further automation rather than more blue collar jobs.
If.some other countries are any indication, not only will they raise the prices but they will raise it way more than the tariffs and just blame on tariffs and with time people will just think that is they way it is. “X cost 3 times as other countries? That is because the tariffs” no mind that the tariffs is like 50% and not 300%. Like they already do with gas prices. Gas go up immediately when oil prices rise but only goes down, if ever, for new stock.
That is exactly what US steel did in response to the steel tariffs back in Trump round one.
I think we know
I think you guys know.
I don’t think that guy over there knows.
Haha number go up again
Don’t worry. Trump branded everything will be made by US
prisonslave labor and thus be a good 10% cheaper than the goods under tariff.
