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Depression. The US is a great place to have your headquarters and a terrible place to have your not-so-cheap labor. Their actions will drive prices higher and

Depression. The US is a great place to have your headquarters and a terrible place to have your not-so-cheap labor. Their actions will drive prices higher and, indirectly, wage higher. Businesses without a war chest will not be able to keep going and fold, the labor market will collapse. The rest of the world will trade amongst each other and I suspect to save themselves, some big tech companies will relocate their headquarters.

ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago
Labor is only costly when humans do the work. But that will be less and less the case. Waymo is doing 150,000 autonomous rides per week now.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  In three cities with good weather and they don’t do highways.
  - ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago
    And a year ago they did less than 15,000! That is not even one tenth! They clearly will not get anywhere with this.
    - scarface_74 2y ago
      Yes, just like every startup pitch deck. “We grew from 10 customers to 100 customers in a year. At this rate we will have 20% of the world’s population in a decade!!!” The first cohort of customers of any company is always the easiest to obtain with the lowest acquisition cost. You solve the easiest problems first. This is Cohort Analysis 101. Not to mention Waymo still hasn’t shown to be able to operate in less than ideal weather conditions or proven that the unit economics will make sense or be economical especially taking into account maintenance, or utilization ratios.
      - ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago
        we will have 20% of the world’s population in a decade That is roughly what happened with Facebook, Google, the iPhone ... None of these products were as good when they started as when they had a billion users.
        scarface_74 2y ago
        https://www.scribbr.com/research-bias/survivorship-bias/#:~:text=Survivorship%20bias%20occurs%20when%20researchers,a%20subset%20of%20the%20population. https://www.scribbr.com/research-bias/survivorship-bias/#:~:... Is that really what you want to argue in front of investors? That you are going to be the next Facebook, Google or Apple? There was also MySpace, Friendster, Altavista, InfoSeek, RIM, Nokia…
        ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago
        Facebook was the next Facebook with Instagram. Apple was the next Apple with the iMac. Then with the iPod. Then with the iPhone. Google was the next Google with Android. With Chrome. With Gmail. With Google Maps. With YouTube. Google becoming the next Google with Waymo would not be a black swan event.
        scarface_74 2y ago
        Google also had literally hundreds of failures and Android is not an amazing financial success by any means and Google still ends up paying Apple over $20 billion a year because people with money buy iPhones. Google is not exactly known for its success rate getting products out of the door that aren’t ad related.
        hot_gril 2y ago
        Give stuff for free, ???, profit. It's kinda worked for them, but not as well as Apple's strategy.
- gs17 2y ago
  That could also lead to a depression. I haven't heard a lot of politicians here (Andrew Yang in 2020? does he even count as "a politician"?) with good plans for what to do when automation hits jobs even harder.
  - SllX 2y ago
    A failed politician is still a politician.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
827a 2y ago
All else being equal, companies are going to use the source of labor that results in the cheapest product they can produce. No one is forcing companies to move this kind of manufacturing to the United States. A 10% (let me reiterate that: TEN PERCENT) tariff on incoming goods is inflationary, but by very little, and quickly absorbed by companies and consumers. No one is moving their labor supply from China to the US to avoid a ten percent tariff; US labor is more expensive than that, and there are fifty other places around the planet you could find cheap low-skill labor that aren't on Trump's shitlist. But you won't believe any of that, because you want all this to happen. You're a doomer; doomers and preppers secretly want the doom they predict to happen, even if they won't admit it to themselves.
- ActionHank 2y ago
  For now they are going with the tide, because they don’t want to relocate head office. If trump’s terrible plans are rolled back there’s no harm. If they aren’t rolled back they will undergo the costly move to relocate. The world is a bigger market than USA and just about every other country has cheaper labor and no tariffs. It’s just logic, I have no emotion tied to this.
  - 827a 2y ago
    Your "logic" (masking) conveniently avoids the point I raised: That these tariffs are being enforced to the tune of 10%. That isn't enough to alone justify this level of investment, or relocation of significant production capacity. Obviously, Apple agrees with this, because the investments they're making aren't as far as I can tell a relocation of capacity from China to the United States, but rather greenfield investment in high-skill research and development. Apple has also made significant investment into advanced silicon manufacturing in the United States; something they also did not rely on China for previously. > The world is a bigger market than USA and just about every other country has cheaper labor and no tariffs. Have you done zero research into this? The EU imposes a tariff on Chinese EVs. India imposes insane tariffs on all imported electronics. China tariffs Australian wine. Russia tariffs agricultural products from the EU. Brazil tariffs all imported automobiles. The list goes on. Tariffs are everywhere, everyone uses them for something.
jjtheblunt 2y ago
As an ex Apple engineer, i think you're overlooking that a huge fraction of labor is robotic, and has been for at least 15 years. (even in the famous contract manufacturers used by Apple and Dell, etc.) The point is that what you counted as not cheap labor probably is largely capex.
- ActionHank 2y ago
  I think you’re overlooking that the robots require maintenance and facilities which are costlier due to labour costs which will ultimately be passed on to customers. The US market demand is already depressed. Prices go up, demand will fall further. Try to impose those prices elsewhere in the world and people will move off of apple products. Apple profits will fall, it will lead to a negative feedback loop.
  - jjtheblunt 2y ago
    I'm not overlooking any of that. > The US market demand is already depressed. Prices go up, demand will fall further. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/01/apple-reports-first-quarter-results/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/01/apple-reports-first-q... TLDR from a few weeks ago: “Today Apple is reporting our best quarter ever, with revenue of $124.3 billion, up 4 percent from a year ago,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO.
no_wizard 2y ago
This is all intended policy to benefit Trumps super donors. They can then scoop up marketshare and competition for pennies, then lobby to get the tariffs lowered or removed, but the higher prices - that we will be used to paying at the point this all comes together - will not go down.

ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago

Labor is only costly when humans do the work. But that will be less and less the case. Waymo is doing 150,000 autonomous rides per week now.

scarface_74 2y ago
In three cities with good weather and they don’t do highways.
- ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago
  And a year ago they did less than 15,000! That is not even one tenth! They clearly will not get anywhere with this.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    Yes, just like every startup pitch deck. “We grew from 10 customers to 100 customers in a year. At this rate we will have 20% of the world’s population in a decade!!!” The first cohort of customers of any company is always the easiest to obtain with the lowest acquisition cost. You solve the easiest problems first. This is Cohort Analysis 101. Not to mention Waymo still hasn’t shown to be able to operate in less than ideal weather conditions or proven that the unit economics will make sense or be economical especially taking into account maintenance, or utilization ratios.
    - ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago
      we will have 20% of the world’s population in a decade That is roughly what happened with Facebook, Google, the iPhone ... None of these products were as good when they started as when they had a billion users.
      - scarface_74 2y ago
        https://www.scribbr.com/research-bias/survivorship-bias/#:~:text=Survivorship%20bias%20occurs%20when%20researchers,a%20subset%20of%20the%20population. https://www.scribbr.com/research-bias/survivorship-bias/#:~:... Is that really what you want to argue in front of investors? That you are going to be the next Facebook, Google or Apple? There was also MySpace, Friendster, Altavista, InfoSeek, RIM, Nokia…
        ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago
        Facebook was the next Facebook with Instagram. Apple was the next Apple with the iMac. Then with the iPod. Then with the iPhone. Google was the next Google with Android. With Chrome. With Gmail. With Google Maps. With YouTube. Google becoming the next Google with Waymo would not be a black swan event.
        scarface_74 2y ago
        Google also had literally hundreds of failures and Android is not an amazing financial success by any means and Google still ends up paying Apple over $20 billion a year because people with money buy iPhones. Google is not exactly known for its success rate getting products out of the door that aren’t ad related.
        hot_gril 2y ago
        Give stuff for free, ???, profit. It's kinda worked for them, but not as well as Apple's strategy.
gs17 2y ago
That could also lead to a depression. I haven't heard a lot of politicians here (Andrew Yang in 2020? does he even count as "a politician"?) with good plans for what to do when automation hits jobs even harder.
- SllX 2y ago
  A failed politician is still a politician.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

827a 2y ago

All else being equal, companies are going to use the source of labor that results in the cheapest product they can produce. No one is forcing companies to move this kind of manufacturing to the United States. A 10% (let me reiterate that: TEN PERCENT) tariff on incoming goods is inflationary, but by very little, and quickly absorbed by companies and consumers. No one is moving their labor supply from China to the US to avoid a ten percent tariff; US labor is more expensive than that, and there are fifty other places around the planet you could find cheap low-skill labor that aren't on Trump's shitlist. But you won't believe any of that, because you want all this to happen. You're a doomer; doomers and preppers secretly want the doom they predict to happen, even if they won't admit it to themselves.

ActionHank 2y ago
For now they are going with the tide, because they don’t want to relocate head office. If trump’s terrible plans are rolled back there’s no harm. If they aren’t rolled back they will undergo the costly move to relocate. The world is a bigger market than USA and just about every other country has cheaper labor and no tariffs. It’s just logic, I have no emotion tied to this.
- 827a 2y ago
  Your "logic" (masking) conveniently avoids the point I raised: That these tariffs are being enforced to the tune of 10%. That isn't enough to alone justify this level of investment, or relocation of significant production capacity. Obviously, Apple agrees with this, because the investments they're making aren't as far as I can tell a relocation of capacity from China to the United States, but rather greenfield investment in high-skill research and development. Apple has also made significant investment into advanced silicon manufacturing in the United States; something they also did not rely on China for previously. > The world is a bigger market than USA and just about every other country has cheaper labor and no tariffs. Have you done zero research into this? The EU imposes a tariff on Chinese EVs. India imposes insane tariffs on all imported electronics. China tariffs Australian wine. Russia tariffs agricultural products from the EU. Brazil tariffs all imported automobiles. The list goes on. Tariffs are everywhere, everyone uses them for something.

jjtheblunt 2y ago

As an ex Apple engineer, i think you're overlooking that a huge fraction of labor is robotic, and has been for at least 15 years. (even in the famous contract manufacturers used by Apple and Dell, etc.) The point is that what you counted as not cheap labor probably is largely capex.

ActionHank 2y ago
I think you’re overlooking that the robots require maintenance and facilities which are costlier due to labour costs which will ultimately be passed on to customers. The US market demand is already depressed. Prices go up, demand will fall further. Try to impose those prices elsewhere in the world and people will move off of apple products. Apple profits will fall, it will lead to a negative feedback loop.
- jjtheblunt 2y ago
  I'm not overlooking any of that. > The US market demand is already depressed. Prices go up, demand will fall further. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/01/apple-reports-first-quarter-results/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/01/apple-reports-first-q... TLDR from a few weeks ago: “Today Apple is reporting our best quarter ever, with revenue of $124.3 billion, up 4 percent from a year ago,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO.

no_wizard 2y ago

This is all intended policy to benefit Trumps super donors. They can then scoop up marketshare and competition for pennies, then lobby to get the tariffs lowered or removed, but the higher prices - that we will be used to paying at the point this all comes together - will not go down.