6 ms·

Cheaper and better. This country is so painfully stupid. Now I have to pay 2x as much for inferior products, if not the same exact stuff imported by an America

Cheaper and better. This country is so painfully stupid. Now I have to pay 2x as much for inferior products, if not the same exact stuff imported by an American company. This alone is probably going to cost me about 1000$ to 2000$ per year. We literally don't make much most of this stuff in the US. For example I just ordered a guitar bag, 15$ direct from China. The same exact bag, made in the same exact factory is going to be 40$ on Amazon. That's assuming this resolves before resellers run out of stock. If I had any idea this stupid policy change was happening so soon I probably would of brought more stuff. The next 4 years are going to be very expensive, the price of everything is going to skyrocket.

liamwire 2y ago
Admittedly I’ve not looked past the linked page, but does this stop direct importing via other means? If not, and it holds, I’d expect to quickly see a bunch of US-based importers pop up very quickly just to resell onto the usual channels.
xnx 2y ago
Bezos donations to Trump are taking money right out of our pockets and putting it in his.
- 999900000999 2y ago
  People started realizing Temu/AliExpress/Shen are literally selling the same exact stuff. Now Amazon is going to get their 50% markup. I'm literally going to just stop buying a lot of stuff if this policy isn't reversed. It's not like you can buy an Xbox built in Texas, this has the potential to make almost every product more expensive.
  - frangfarang 2y ago
    [dead]
addicted 2y ago
> We literally don't make much most of this stuff in the US Not said often enough is that we DONT WANT to make much of this stuff in the US. People seriously don’t get how remarkable it is that the U.S. is able to get other countries to send them actual usable stuff in return for pieces of paper that the U.S. prints. And how much richer this makes Americans. I don’t believe the U.S. should be fully free market. Clearly it went too far away from industrialization to the point that the U.S. was reliant on China for critical stuff and has lost the capacity to scale if it needs to. The CHIPS act was the first tiny step towards changing this. But these actions and the industries targeted needed to be strategic and not random.
- queuebert 2y ago
  The new problem is the factories making a lot of this stuff are heavily polluting, and we have little to no control over that because they are abroad. Part of a good climate strategy must involve regulating them somehow.
  - conception 2y ago
    At least for China they have an environmental plan far and away better than the US’s “what do the rich want to do?”.
    - stikit 2y ago
      Can you give details of China’s environment plan?. All I hear about are the dozens of coal plants China builds each year. Are they no longer building those plants?
      - stephenitis 2y ago
        As of August 2024, China has 55 nuclear reactors in operation, 25 under construction, and plans for an additional 36 reactors. In August 2024, China’s State Council approved five nuclear power projects comprising 11 new reactors. Overall, China aims to build 150 new nuclear reactors between 2020 and 2035.
nyjah 2y ago
The other issue is American quality has gone down the tank. 10-15 years ago I’d look for American quality over Chinese, but nowadays I prefer the Chinese manufacturer almost 100% of the time. Not always the case but anecdotally chinas quality has gotten better while American stuff has gotten worse.
- queuebert 2y ago
  We must buy different things.
  - TylerE 2y ago
    I will absolutely concur with American products getting far worse. Everything is cost cut to the bone.
    - doubled112 2y ago
      With few exceptions. In general, if I’m going to buy something that’s going to last 2 uses, I might as well just buy the cheapest one.
    - Workaccount2 2y ago
      It's not so much that it is cost cut to the bone, but that the expertise is being lost. I can tell you with a straight face that american manufacturing is being held up right now by grey beards pushing back retirement because young people have zero interest in manufacturing boiler conduit fittings. You can crash course an IT cert and come out making more money than you would ever make pressing steel couplers.
      - TylerE 2y ago
        No, a lot of it really is just obvious cost cutting. Things like replacing metal fasteners with plastic ones that break or strip easily.
- wenc 2y ago
  Yes. People associate Chinese manufacturing with low quality products, but I feel those people misunderstand systems. It's not Chinese manufacturing that is low quality. It's really the sites like Temu and Shein that create low quality products -- because of their aggressive pricing, they create a cascade of systemic cost pressures on manufacturers, who have to cut corners. AMZN on the other hand probably provides more headroom and reduces cost pressure on manufacturers. If you know how to shop on Amazon (avoiding 3P sellers, and only getting 4 star and above products), you generally get high quality products. I've only rarely gotten anything bad from Amazon (from Chinese manufacturers). I've bought Chinese products like Anker batteries, Thermopro thermocouples/sensors, Jigoo (weird name I know) dust mite vacuum, Tapo camera, Levoit humidifier, Cosori air fryer, and little clever tools like toothpaste tube squeezers and the like. They've all exceeded expectations. (I recently bought a Insta360 Flow Pro 2 gimbal, also a Chinese product, and it's amazing).
dzhiurgis 2y ago
Or it's going to save you a ton because you are not spending money on frivolous shit.
bloomingeek 2y ago
"This country is so painfully stupid." Not all of the country is stupid, a lot of us didn't vote for the idiot who is causing all this lunacy. Unfortunately, not enough of us.
- taurknaut 2y ago
  hah, I would say that blaming voters is the best example of american stupidity I can think of. What do you expect when you have two parties that agree on virtually everything but abortion? Blaming the voters just enables this dynamic. At some point people need to get pissed off that we haven't had policy worth voting FOR since well before I was born, just an endless cycle of people explaining why nothing will ever improve and all our problems are intractable. Trump is easy to laugh at, but he genuinely understands this country and how democracy functions on a level most people in DC and in newsrooms across the country completely fail to grasp. Why people aren't more pissed with the democrats for pushing unpopular losers is baffling.
  - bloomingeek 2y ago
    I miss wrote, I should have written, "Unfortunately, there weren't enough rational voters to stop the idiot."
Aurornis 2y ago
> This alone is probably going to cost me about 1000$ to 2000$ per year. This is a temporary hold while they figure out what’s going on. They’re not announcing that shipments from China are over for the year.
- viraptor 2y ago
  They're not going to stop. But they'll need more people / time. And everyone will have to pay extra for that.
froh 2y ago
> by an American company ... > cost me about 1000$ to 2000$ per year. they sponsored 2025, they collect the benefits, and peons pay.
treis 2y ago
>15$ direct from China. The same exact bag, made in the same exact factory is going to be 40$ on Amazon. Do you have examples of this? It hasn't been the case for me. Usually the prices are similar and I tend to find that Amazon is slightly cheaper.
- 999900000999 2y ago
  Amazon , 40$ https://a.co/d/6HSc2A6 https://a.co/d/6HSc2A6 AliExpress , 17$( see coupons below). https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256806198514308.html https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256806198514308.html Plus AliExpress tends to offer coupons. So let's say you buy 300$ of stuff from Amazon, and 300$ of stuff from AliExpress. Even if the products are the same price, AliExpress will offer a 30$ off coupon. Amazon has to build in a higher margin though, they practically have a no questions asked return policy for anything less than say 100$. AliExpress is a bit more difficult here. I even remember getting on chat support with Amazon, and telling them I was basically too dumb to put a table together right. No return, they just refunded me $200. You don't get that with AliExpress.
  - treis 2y ago
    $17 is temporarily half off with list $37.19. So normally it's pretty similar.
    - 999900000999 2y ago
      Everything on AliExpress is always half off. Lenovo does this too. It's just marketing.What matters is at the end of the day what you paid for it.
pentel-0_5 2y ago
Yep. Inflation across the board through many inflationary policies is the goal because it's good for the rich who can keep their liquid and illiquid assets hedged and bad for ordinary people because it's a "tax" without a pay increase.

liamwire 2y ago

Admittedly I’ve not looked past the linked page, but does this stop direct importing via other means? If not, and it holds, I’d expect to quickly see a bunch of US-based importers pop up very quickly just to resell onto the usual channels.

xnx 2y ago

Bezos donations to Trump are taking money right out of our pockets and putting it in his.

999900000999 2y ago
People started realizing Temu/AliExpress/Shen are literally selling the same exact stuff. Now Amazon is going to get their 50% markup. I'm literally going to just stop buying a lot of stuff if this policy isn't reversed. It's not like you can buy an Xbox built in Texas, this has the potential to make almost every product more expensive.
- frangfarang 2y ago
  [dead]

addicted 2y ago

> We literally don't make much most of this stuff in the US Not said often enough is that we DONT WANT to make much of this stuff in the US. People seriously don’t get how remarkable it is that the U.S. is able to get other countries to send them actual usable stuff in return for pieces of paper that the U.S. prints. And how much richer this makes Americans. I don’t believe the U.S. should be fully free market. Clearly it went too far away from industrialization to the point that the U.S. was reliant on China for critical stuff and has lost the capacity to scale if it needs to. The CHIPS act was the first tiny step towards changing this. But these actions and the industries targeted needed to be strategic and not random.

queuebert 2y ago
The new problem is the factories making a lot of this stuff are heavily polluting, and we have little to no control over that because they are abroad. Part of a good climate strategy must involve regulating them somehow.
- conception 2y ago
  At least for China they have an environmental plan far and away better than the US’s “what do the rich want to do?”.
  - stikit 2y ago
    Can you give details of China’s environment plan?. All I hear about are the dozens of coal plants China builds each year. Are they no longer building those plants?
    - stephenitis 2y ago
      As of August 2024, China has 55 nuclear reactors in operation, 25 under construction, and plans for an additional 36 reactors. In August 2024, China’s State Council approved five nuclear power projects comprising 11 new reactors. Overall, China aims to build 150 new nuclear reactors between 2020 and 2035.

nyjah 2y ago

The other issue is American quality has gone down the tank. 10-15 years ago I’d look for American quality over Chinese, but nowadays I prefer the Chinese manufacturer almost 100% of the time. Not always the case but anecdotally chinas quality has gotten better while American stuff has gotten worse.

queuebert 2y ago
We must buy different things.
- TylerE 2y ago
  I will absolutely concur with American products getting far worse. Everything is cost cut to the bone.
  - doubled112 2y ago
    With few exceptions. In general, if I’m going to buy something that’s going to last 2 uses, I might as well just buy the cheapest one.
  - Workaccount2 2y ago
    It's not so much that it is cost cut to the bone, but that the expertise is being lost. I can tell you with a straight face that american manufacturing is being held up right now by grey beards pushing back retirement because young people have zero interest in manufacturing boiler conduit fittings. You can crash course an IT cert and come out making more money than you would ever make pressing steel couplers.
    - TylerE 2y ago
      No, a lot of it really is just obvious cost cutting. Things like replacing metal fasteners with plastic ones that break or strip easily.
wenc 2y ago
Yes. People associate Chinese manufacturing with low quality products, but I feel those people misunderstand systems. It's not Chinese manufacturing that is low quality. It's really the sites like Temu and Shein that create low quality products -- because of their aggressive pricing, they create a cascade of systemic cost pressures on manufacturers, who have to cut corners. AMZN on the other hand probably provides more headroom and reduces cost pressure on manufacturers. If you know how to shop on Amazon (avoiding 3P sellers, and only getting 4 star and above products), you generally get high quality products. I've only rarely gotten anything bad from Amazon (from Chinese manufacturers). I've bought Chinese products like Anker batteries, Thermopro thermocouples/sensors, Jigoo (weird name I know) dust mite vacuum, Tapo camera, Levoit humidifier, Cosori air fryer, and little clever tools like toothpaste tube squeezers and the like. They've all exceeded expectations. (I recently bought a Insta360 Flow Pro 2 gimbal, also a Chinese product, and it's amazing).

dzhiurgis 2y ago

Or it's going to save you a ton because you are not spending money on frivolous shit.

bloomingeek 2y ago

"This country is so painfully stupid." Not all of the country is stupid, a lot of us didn't vote for the idiot who is causing all this lunacy. Unfortunately, not enough of us.

taurknaut 2y ago
hah, I would say that blaming voters is the best example of american stupidity I can think of. What do you expect when you have two parties that agree on virtually everything but abortion? Blaming the voters just enables this dynamic. At some point people need to get pissed off that we haven't had policy worth voting FOR since well before I was born, just an endless cycle of people explaining why nothing will ever improve and all our problems are intractable. Trump is easy to laugh at, but he genuinely understands this country and how democracy functions on a level most people in DC and in newsrooms across the country completely fail to grasp. Why people aren't more pissed with the democrats for pushing unpopular losers is baffling.
- bloomingeek 2y ago
  I miss wrote, I should have written, "Unfortunately, there weren't enough rational voters to stop the idiot."

Aurornis 2y ago

> This alone is probably going to cost me about 1000$ to 2000$ per year. This is a temporary hold while they figure out what’s going on. They’re not announcing that shipments from China are over for the year.

viraptor 2y ago
They're not going to stop. But they'll need more people / time. And everyone will have to pay extra for that.

froh 2y ago

> by an American company ... > cost me about 1000$ to 2000$ per year. they sponsored 2025, they collect the benefits, and peons pay.

treis 2y ago

>15$ direct from China. The same exact bag, made in the same exact factory is going to be 40$ on Amazon. Do you have examples of this? It hasn't been the case for me. Usually the prices are similar and I tend to find that Amazon is slightly cheaper.

999900000999 2y ago
Amazon , 40$ https://a.co/d/6HSc2A6 https://a.co/d/6HSc2A6 AliExpress , 17$( see coupons below). https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256806198514308.html https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256806198514308.html Plus AliExpress tends to offer coupons. So let's say you buy 300$ of stuff from Amazon, and 300$ of stuff from AliExpress. Even if the products are the same price, AliExpress will offer a 30$ off coupon. Amazon has to build in a higher margin though, they practically have a no questions asked return policy for anything less than say 100$. AliExpress is a bit more difficult here. I even remember getting on chat support with Amazon, and telling them I was basically too dumb to put a table together right. No return, they just refunded me $200. You don't get that with AliExpress.
- treis 2y ago
  $17 is temporarily half off with list $37.19. So normally it's pretty similar.
  - 999900000999 2y ago
    Everything on AliExpress is always half off. Lenovo does this too. It's just marketing.What matters is at the end of the day what you paid for it.

pentel-0_5 2y ago

Yep. Inflation across the board through many inflationary policies is the goal because it's good for the rich who can keep their liquid and illiquid assets hedged and bad for ordinary people because it's a "tax" without a pay increase.