5 ms·

A small violin part highlights bigger problems for the global economy

46 points by perihelions 2y ago

Etheryte 2y ago
https://archive.ph/Rq4KK https://archive.ph/Rq4KK
dcsommer 2y ago
Have there been any studies or economists predicting macro-level benefits to the US economy with the tariffs? I'm not aware of any (much the opposite), but I'm interested if they exist.
- nonethewiser 2y ago
  I too have found the discourse around tariffs lacking. This is a common and blatant logical fallacy I see: - Tariffs are bad. They hurt the country enacting overall it in the long run. - It's correct to respond to the US tariffs with tariffs in response. Additionally, people seem to not understand that a country that exports more to the US than it imports stands to lose more when the US/that country have the same level of tariffs. At a large scale, if global trade breaks down the United States will be comparatively (not absolutely) better off because they can support themselves (consumption, food, raw materials). None of this is an endorsement of tariffs. I think the US is in a pretty good spot and things could get a lot worse. Tariffs absolutely will make expensive things more expensive, and it will hurt. But the discussion I've seen online has reduced itself to some sort of weird orthodoxy that doesnt even make sense.
  - pcthrowaway 2y ago
    I think this is only the case if there aren't replacements available from other countries. I feel like China is going to be the biggest winner of this tariff war. Just as an example (from Canada), we had long had a 50% tariff on Chinese EVs which helped U.S. EV manufacturers stay competitive. Now I think we're going to relax that (which IIUC was only implemented to appease our relationship with the U.S. in the first place) and cheaper Chinese EVs should start appearing on the market. Good for Canadians, good for China. Not as good for the U.S.
    - drivebyhooting 2y ago
      What’s good for China is not good for Canada in the long run. There are many reasons you can think of. A small and often overlooked one is that a Chinese hegemony would decrease the língua franca status of English.
      - pcthrowaway 2y ago
        Sure, but I don't see much of a difference from importing from China vs. the U.S. in terms of real impact. I don't really care so much for the "lingua franca status of English" (even though it's the only language I speak fluently). While yes, this is one of Canada's main languages (not that we don't have a lot of Cantonese/Mandarin speakers too), China itself would be a good example that one can succeed without speaking the language which has the "lingua franca status" Perhaps it's worth noting that the number of fluent Mandarin/Cantonese speakers in Canada is probably not much lower (as a percentage - ~4% in 2016 and I can imagine it's only increased since then) than the number of fluent English speakers in China (5%) edit: 4% is actually the number of Canadians who spoke Mandarin or Cantonese as a first language in 2016 (which again, is likely higher now). The number of fluent combined Chinese language speakers is almost certainly higher then, even if just a little bit.
        drivebyhooting 2y ago
        Millions of Chinese learn English in school from a very early age to have access to the global labor market. You have a huge unrecognized privilege in being a native English speaker.
        pcthrowaway 2y ago
        Not sure why you're making this personal. I do of course realize the privilege in speaking English as a first language, being born in a developed nation, as a white cis-man, and so on. To cling to the idea that English need continue to be the most important global economic language though, is a type of linguistic and economic supremacy I don't care to partake in.
  - lakhim 2y ago
    Its not a fallacy but game theory playing out - known as beggar thy neighbour policies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beggar_thy_neighbour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beggar_thy_neighbour
    - nonethewiser 2y ago
      That is very relevant overall and I thank you for bringing it to my attention. But what I'm talking about are people who declare tariffs as an absolute bad and then go on to say enacting them is rational and good. In the beggar thy neighbor policy, the behavior is not considered an absolutely bad thing. This happens with tariffs as well, but people can be even more dogmatic about it.
      - lakhim 2y ago
        Think of it like an invasion - shooting people is probably as close to an absolute bad thing as you can get, but if you're getting shot at its pretty much time to start shooting back
        nonethewiser 2y ago
        Oh I get that. We have these claims: - Shooting someone is absolutely bad in all scenarios - Its correct to shoot someone if they are trying to shoot you I agree with the second point completely. The problem is if you say that, you should go back and revise the first point, because clearly its not absolutely bad. In the case of tariffs, once you acknowledge that reciprocal tariffs are good, you run into a problem because the US generally has lower tariffs on other countries than other countries have on it.
  - dragonwriter 2y ago
    War is bad. It is correct to respond to aggression initiating war with defensive war. Trade wars are like regular wars, in that respect.
    - nonethewiser 2y ago
      OK. So you support the US enacting reciprocal tariffs. edit: lots of evasion from this point below
      - dragonwriter 2y ago
        The US is not proposing reciprocal tariffs, it is proposing broad tariffs premised on xenophobic fantasies placing blame for US fentanyl consumption and other US failures on foreign governments.
        nonethewiser 2y ago
        [flagged]
        ziddoap 2y ago
        I like how you just ignored everything they said, to try and coerce them into saying "yes", presumably so you can extrapolate that out to some other point you're trying to make.
        nonethewiser 2y ago
        He thinks its xenophobic and sees tariffs that are not reciprocal. I recognize that. It just has no bearing whether or not the US should enact retaliatory tariffs. Does he believe the US should enact tariffs to meet the tariffs other countries already have on the US? He can evade and resort to accusations of xenophobia all he wants but that is the question I'm posing.
        2y ago
  - BenFranklin100 2y ago
    Just about any undergraduate textbook will discuss tariffs and why they are nearly universal regarded as poor policy. See Samuelson for instance. The online discourse is poor because the vast majority of people, even those who are educated, have never cracked open a 1st year Econ textbook.
    - nonethewiser 2y ago
      >Just about any undergraduate textbook will discuss tariffs and why they are nearly universal regarded as poor policy. I think its poor because people see tariffs not immediately derided and they swoop in to denigrate them. Please re-read my entire comment.
    - dkjaudyeqooe 2y ago
      I think most people are not thinking on purpose, and just accepting the dogma of one side or the other.
- Willingham 2y ago
  I too am interested in learning more about the other side of the debate. "He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion" --John Stuart Mill
  - nonethewiser 2y ago
    I think an interesting angle to this discussion is the fact that before the "temporary" income taxes (in 1913), tariffs were the primary source of tax revenue in the United States. There are lots of modern economists in favor of consumption taxes over income taxes. And in a climate where people are up in arms about billionaires skirting income taxes, you'd think it might be a popular idea to tax all the money they spend.
    - D-Coder 2y ago
      "No more billionaires. None. After you reach $999 million, every red cent goes to schools and healthcare. You get a trophy that says, “I won capitalism,” and we name a dog park after you." — Mikel Jollett
      - nonethewiser 2y ago
        Can you contextualize this quote in response to my comment?
        D-Coder 2y ago
        It's an alternate technique for raising taxes. It incidentally also reduces the social impact of a small number of extremely wealthy people, thus helping democracy. It's probably not legal without a Constitutional amendment, but one can dream.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
      Consumption taxes are wildly regressive. US tax policy since 1913 (and arguably even before) is (perhaps suprisingly) very progressive (*). Not a good fit. (*) progressive in the sense of following the principle that the impact of taxes should be roughly the same for all, not in the general political sense.
- tialaramex 2y ago
  My understanding is that in principle you could use this to cause onshoring, but you want to target the tariffs narrowly and you need everybody to believe that they're long term. Trump's plan doesn't do the former and no US President could achieve the second.
- milesvp 2y ago
  I don't know about any credible economist currently making positive predictions (marginal revolution might be a good place to keep your finger on the pulse), but I did see a paper a few years ago that showed protectionist tariffs in britain several hundred years ago had a strong correlation to current day prevalance/strength of current industries. Which is to say, that industries with higher tariffs had a stronger pressence today. All things being equal, I might expect that strategic tariffs on important sectors to be vital in maintaining them. But, given how global the economy is, and how many more non-obvious substitutions there are today, I'm not sure these protections provide as much value going forward as they did 200 years ago. Worse, is blanket tariffs are not likely to do anything in the short term but drive up local prices to match foreign import goods costs, and is likely going to be a major wealth redistribution event towards physical capital holders.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
    The idea is to encourage "at home" investment because the consumer-facing cost of production inside the tariff border will be less, and thus the products will sell better and thus ... capitalism. This is such a childish, simplistic, naive view of both capitalism and material production in 2025 that it barely deserves a mention.
- sctb 2y ago
  Yanis Varoufakis has been writing about this with a mostly neutral, inquisitive tone. Recently: https://unherd.com/2025/02/why-trumps-tariffs-are-a-masterplan/ https://unherd.com/2025/02/why-trumps-tariffs-are-a-masterpl... https://unherd.com/2025/04/will-liberation-day-transform-the-world/ https://unherd.com/2025/04/will-liberation-day-transform-the...
  - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
    Good links, though I would not call that a "mostly neutral, inquisitive tone". Varoufakis knows that the outcome of Trump's imagined/proposed tariffs cannot be known at this point, and so he explores a couple of the possible results.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  AFAICT a lot of studies and economists predict macro-level benefits to the US economy for tariffs, but they also predict that the costs will outweigh the benefits. For example, this analysis of the term 1 tariffs show 1,000 jobs gained and up to 75,000 jobs lost. https://econofact.org/steel-tariffs-and-u-s-jobs-revisited https://econofact.org/steel-tariffs-and-u-s-jobs-revisited
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- tim333 2y ago
  Peter Navarro says it's going to be good. >“The message is that tariffs are tax cuts, tariffs are jobs, tariffs are national security,” Navarro told Fox News Sunday. “Tariffs are great for America. They will make America great again.” https://inews.co.uk/news/world/peter-navarro-behind-trump-tariffs-3620170 https://inews.co.uk/news/world/peter-navarro-behind-trump-ta...
dkjaudyeqooe 2y ago
This article illustrates how economically destructive these tariffs are for all involved. Of course those who are politically favored, such as US farmers, will get a handout, everyone else gets to pound sand. I think a US recession is a given at this point, the only question is if there will also be a global recession. If Trump persists with the threatened tariffs, there will definitely be a reordering of US and global trade, but not in the way he thinks. The US will likely have lower growth and higher inflation, ie "stagflation" and the rest of the world will move to trading with itself and without the US. There will be less competition and a consequent lowering of quality and innovation in areas such as cars. It's a recipe for long term US decline.
- gosub100 2y ago
  .> everyone else gets to pound sand. Or the factory can build their parts here in one of our 50 great states. Turns out, Canada isn't the only place you can build a violin face rest.
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    As with "I coded a Twitter clone in a weekend", this tends to be a lot harder than you might imagine.
  - ziddoap 2y ago
    Extend this thinking out globally, where some of the products need factories (or entire supply chains) that take a decade (or more) to establish, and you might realize that there are some issues (at least short-term) with the "simply build it here" mentality.
    - drivebyhooting 2y ago
      I agree. But unless the incentives are changed, the US will continue to deindustrialize. Many here constantly bemoan the financialization of American companies. But that’s all that’s left after gutting the industrial capacity. Think not for one moment that Apple et al can rest on their laurels “designed in California”. China is coming for the value chain lunch.
Jun8 2y ago
The article talks about violin shoulder rests manufactured in Canada. Maybe I’m not understanding the details but I think that this particular product is a bad example to showcase the damage of tariffs: (1) This sounds like a product that can’t be easily interchanged with competitors’ offerings since Chinese competitors offer “crude imitations”, at least for now (2) From a Google search I see that the price of this product is in the range $25-250. It’s hard to see violins students who plunk down hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars for their instrument try to save tens of $s for a subpar shoulder rest. Unless perhaps it breaks weekly or something.
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  > It’s hard to see violins students who plunk down hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars for their instrument try to save tens of $s for a subpar shoulder rest. Grade school violin students almost never purchase an instrument; they rent, at surprisingly low annual cost.
  - matthewdgreen 2y ago
    It is surprisingly profitable, given that those violins are cheap and many people forget to return it in a timely fashion.
  - navbaker 2y ago
    Our third grader just started viola this school year and I was amazed at how cheap the rental was! I was expecting to get raked over the coals monthly, but it was just a little over $100 for the entire year. The chin rest was one thing we didn’t have to pay for, the schools have the younger kids use a big foam sponge attached with a rubber band.
- ziddoap 2y ago
  I believe this story is supposed to bring a more human/relatable element to the impacts of the tariffs and trade war, using a unique family-owned business that happens to make a violin widget. Focusing on cheaper Chinese competitors and how student violinists might approach a cost/benefit analysis for the widget seems to miss the spirit of the article (at least, as I understood it).
debacle 2y ago
Before these new tariffs, Canadian tariffs on US goods were more than double US tariffs on Canadian goods, as a percentage. If we want to eliminate tariffs, the proper outcome would be for Canada to lower its preexisting tariffs. I don't think anyone in the Canadian government has proposed that solution.
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  Citation? It sounds like this debunked claim: https://www.factcheck.org/2025/04/trumps-misleading-claim-on-canadian-dairy-tariffs/ https://www.factcheck.org/2025/04/trumps-misleading-claim-on...
  - debacle 2y ago
    Your linked source is a completely different issue, which is that there are other tariffs designed to artificially limit trade. These are de facto quotas on trade.
    - ceejayoz 2y ago
      If you don't like my source - which appears to be very close to your claim - I would encourage you to provide your own.
    - programmertote 2y ago
      I didn't downvote your comment above. But I think you might be interested to watch this one (of course, the video is made by a Canadian YouTuber, but I think he can back up his claims in the video from what I observe): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZvDhayPHxs&t=471s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZvDhayPHxs&t=471s
    - ziddoap 2y ago
      If it isn't in reference to what ceejayoz linked to... what tariffs are you talking about? A link would be great, but you can just name the products if that's easier, and I'll look up the data.
- 2y ago
tim333 2y ago
It seems kind of bizarre to me how a few months ago the Economist cover on the US economy was 'Envy of the World' on how they were doing better than everyone else https://archive.ph/xIJmT https://archive.ph/xIJmT And now we have: >“For decades our country has been looted, pillaged and raped,” Trump told an audience that included cabinet members and car workers. “It’s not going to happen any more.” as a justification for a trade war. I guess people voted for this?

46 points by perihelions 2y ago

https://archive.ph/Rq4KK https://archive.ph/Rq4KK

Have there been any studies or economists predicting macro-level benefits to the US economy with the tariffs? I'm not aware of any (much the opposite), but I'm interested if they exist.

nonethewiser 2y ago
I too have found the discourse around tariffs lacking. This is a common and blatant logical fallacy I see: - Tariffs are bad. They hurt the country enacting overall it in the long run. - It's correct to respond to the US tariffs with tariffs in response. Additionally, people seem to not understand that a country that exports more to the US than it imports stands to lose more when the US/that country have the same level of tariffs. At a large scale, if global trade breaks down the United States will be comparatively (not absolutely) better off because they can support themselves (consumption, food, raw materials). None of this is an endorsement of tariffs. I think the US is in a pretty good spot and things could get a lot worse. Tariffs absolutely will make expensive things more expensive, and it will hurt. But the discussion I've seen online has reduced itself to some sort of weird orthodoxy that doesnt even make sense.
- pcthrowaway 2y ago
  I think this is only the case if there aren't replacements available from other countries. I feel like China is going to be the biggest winner of this tariff war. Just as an example (from Canada), we had long had a 50% tariff on Chinese EVs which helped U.S. EV manufacturers stay competitive. Now I think we're going to relax that (which IIUC was only implemented to appease our relationship with the U.S. in the first place) and cheaper Chinese EVs should start appearing on the market. Good for Canadians, good for China. Not as good for the U.S.
  - drivebyhooting 2y ago
    What’s good for China is not good for Canada in the long run. There are many reasons you can think of. A small and often overlooked one is that a Chinese hegemony would decrease the língua franca status of English.
    - pcthrowaway 2y ago
      Sure, but I don't see much of a difference from importing from China vs. the U.S. in terms of real impact. I don't really care so much for the "lingua franca status of English" (even though it's the only language I speak fluently). While yes, this is one of Canada's main languages (not that we don't have a lot of Cantonese/Mandarin speakers too), China itself would be a good example that one can succeed without speaking the language which has the "lingua franca status" Perhaps it's worth noting that the number of fluent Mandarin/Cantonese speakers in Canada is probably not much lower (as a percentage - ~4% in 2016 and I can imagine it's only increased since then) than the number of fluent English speakers in China (5%) edit: 4% is actually the number of Canadians who spoke Mandarin or Cantonese as a first language in 2016 (which again, is likely higher now). The number of fluent combined Chinese language speakers is almost certainly higher then, even if just a little bit.
      - drivebyhooting 2y ago
        Millions of Chinese learn English in school from a very early age to have access to the global labor market. You have a huge unrecognized privilege in being a native English speaker.
        pcthrowaway 2y ago
        Not sure why you're making this personal. I do of course realize the privilege in speaking English as a first language, being born in a developed nation, as a white cis-man, and so on. To cling to the idea that English need continue to be the most important global economic language though, is a type of linguistic and economic supremacy I don't care to partake in.
- lakhim 2y ago
  Its not a fallacy but game theory playing out - known as beggar thy neighbour policies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beggar_thy_neighbour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beggar_thy_neighbour
  - nonethewiser 2y ago
    That is very relevant overall and I thank you for bringing it to my attention. But what I'm talking about are people who declare tariffs as an absolute bad and then go on to say enacting them is rational and good. In the beggar thy neighbor policy, the behavior is not considered an absolutely bad thing. This happens with tariffs as well, but people can be even more dogmatic about it.
    - lakhim 2y ago
      Think of it like an invasion - shooting people is probably as close to an absolute bad thing as you can get, but if you're getting shot at its pretty much time to start shooting back
      - nonethewiser 2y ago
        Oh I get that. We have these claims: - Shooting someone is absolutely bad in all scenarios - Its correct to shoot someone if they are trying to shoot you I agree with the second point completely. The problem is if you say that, you should go back and revise the first point, because clearly its not absolutely bad. In the case of tariffs, once you acknowledge that reciprocal tariffs are good, you run into a problem because the US generally has lower tariffs on other countries than other countries have on it.
- dragonwriter 2y ago
  War is bad. It is correct to respond to aggression initiating war with defensive war. Trade wars are like regular wars, in that respect.
  - nonethewiser 2y ago
    OK. So you support the US enacting reciprocal tariffs. edit: lots of evasion from this point below
    - dragonwriter 2y ago
      The US is not proposing reciprocal tariffs, it is proposing broad tariffs premised on xenophobic fantasies placing blame for US fentanyl consumption and other US failures on foreign governments.
      - nonethewiser 2y ago
        [flagged]
        ziddoap 2y ago
        I like how you just ignored everything they said, to try and coerce them into saying "yes", presumably so you can extrapolate that out to some other point you're trying to make.
        nonethewiser 2y ago
        He thinks its xenophobic and sees tariffs that are not reciprocal. I recognize that. It just has no bearing whether or not the US should enact retaliatory tariffs. Does he believe the US should enact tariffs to meet the tariffs other countries already have on the US? He can evade and resort to accusations of xenophobia all he wants but that is the question I'm posing.
        2y ago
- BenFranklin100 2y ago
  Just about any undergraduate textbook will discuss tariffs and why they are nearly universal regarded as poor policy. See Samuelson for instance. The online discourse is poor because the vast majority of people, even those who are educated, have never cracked open a 1st year Econ textbook.
  - nonethewiser 2y ago
    >Just about any undergraduate textbook will discuss tariffs and why they are nearly universal regarded as poor policy. I think its poor because people see tariffs not immediately derided and they swoop in to denigrate them. Please re-read my entire comment.
  - dkjaudyeqooe 2y ago
    I think most people are not thinking on purpose, and just accepting the dogma of one side or the other.
Willingham 2y ago
I too am interested in learning more about the other side of the debate. "He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion" --John Stuart Mill
- nonethewiser 2y ago
  I think an interesting angle to this discussion is the fact that before the "temporary" income taxes (in 1913), tariffs were the primary source of tax revenue in the United States. There are lots of modern economists in favor of consumption taxes over income taxes. And in a climate where people are up in arms about billionaires skirting income taxes, you'd think it might be a popular idea to tax all the money they spend.
  - D-Coder 2y ago
    "No more billionaires. None. After you reach $999 million, every red cent goes to schools and healthcare. You get a trophy that says, “I won capitalism,” and we name a dog park after you." — Mikel Jollett
    - nonethewiser 2y ago
      Can you contextualize this quote in response to my comment?
      - D-Coder 2y ago
        It's an alternate technique for raising taxes. It incidentally also reduces the social impact of a small number of extremely wealthy people, thus helping democracy. It's probably not legal without a Constitutional amendment, but one can dream.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
    Consumption taxes are wildly regressive. US tax policy since 1913 (and arguably even before) is (perhaps suprisingly) very progressive (*). Not a good fit. (*) progressive in the sense of following the principle that the impact of taxes should be roughly the same for all, not in the general political sense.
tialaramex 2y ago
My understanding is that in principle you could use this to cause onshoring, but you want to target the tariffs narrowly and you need everybody to believe that they're long term. Trump's plan doesn't do the former and no US President could achieve the second.
milesvp 2y ago
I don't know about any credible economist currently making positive predictions (marginal revolution might be a good place to keep your finger on the pulse), but I did see a paper a few years ago that showed protectionist tariffs in britain several hundred years ago had a strong correlation to current day prevalance/strength of current industries. Which is to say, that industries with higher tariffs had a stronger pressence today. All things being equal, I might expect that strategic tariffs on important sectors to be vital in maintaining them. But, given how global the economy is, and how many more non-obvious substitutions there are today, I'm not sure these protections provide as much value going forward as they did 200 years ago. Worse, is blanket tariffs are not likely to do anything in the short term but drive up local prices to match foreign import goods costs, and is likely going to be a major wealth redistribution event towards physical capital holders.
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
  The idea is to encourage "at home" investment because the consumer-facing cost of production inside the tariff border will be less, and thus the products will sell better and thus ... capitalism. This is such a childish, simplistic, naive view of both capitalism and material production in 2025 that it barely deserves a mention.
sctb 2y ago
Yanis Varoufakis has been writing about this with a mostly neutral, inquisitive tone. Recently: https://unherd.com/2025/02/why-trumps-tariffs-are-a-masterplan/ https://unherd.com/2025/02/why-trumps-tariffs-are-a-masterpl... https://unherd.com/2025/04/will-liberation-day-transform-the-world/ https://unherd.com/2025/04/will-liberation-day-transform-the...
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
  Good links, though I would not call that a "mostly neutral, inquisitive tone". Varoufakis knows that the outcome of Trump's imagined/proposed tariffs cannot be known at this point, and so he explores a couple of the possible results.
bryanlarsen 2y ago
AFAICT a lot of studies and economists predict macro-level benefits to the US economy for tariffs, but they also predict that the costs will outweigh the benefits. For example, this analysis of the term 1 tariffs show 1,000 jobs gained and up to 75,000 jobs lost. https://econofact.org/steel-tariffs-and-u-s-jobs-revisited https://econofact.org/steel-tariffs-and-u-s-jobs-revisited
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
tim333 2y ago
Peter Navarro says it's going to be good. >“The message is that tariffs are tax cuts, tariffs are jobs, tariffs are national security,” Navarro told Fox News Sunday. “Tariffs are great for America. They will make America great again.” https://inews.co.uk/news/world/peter-navarro-behind-trump-tariffs-3620170 https://inews.co.uk/news/world/peter-navarro-behind-trump-ta...

dkjaudyeqooe 2y ago

This article illustrates how economically destructive these tariffs are for all involved. Of course those who are politically favored, such as US farmers, will get a handout, everyone else gets to pound sand. I think a US recession is a given at this point, the only question is if there will also be a global recession. If Trump persists with the threatened tariffs, there will definitely be a reordering of US and global trade, but not in the way he thinks. The US will likely have lower growth and higher inflation, ie "stagflation" and the rest of the world will move to trading with itself and without the US. There will be less competition and a consequent lowering of quality and innovation in areas such as cars. It's a recipe for long term US decline.

gosub100 2y ago
.> everyone else gets to pound sand. Or the factory can build their parts here in one of our 50 great states. Turns out, Canada isn't the only place you can build a violin face rest.
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  As with "I coded a Twitter clone in a weekend", this tends to be a lot harder than you might imagine.
- ziddoap 2y ago
  Extend this thinking out globally, where some of the products need factories (or entire supply chains) that take a decade (or more) to establish, and you might realize that there are some issues (at least short-term) with the "simply build it here" mentality.
  - drivebyhooting 2y ago
    I agree. But unless the incentives are changed, the US will continue to deindustrialize. Many here constantly bemoan the financialization of American companies. But that’s all that’s left after gutting the industrial capacity. Think not for one moment that Apple et al can rest on their laurels “designed in California”. China is coming for the value chain lunch.

Jun8 2y ago

The article talks about violin shoulder rests manufactured in Canada. Maybe I’m not understanding the details but I think that this particular product is a bad example to showcase the damage of tariffs: (1) This sounds like a product that can’t be easily interchanged with competitors’ offerings since Chinese competitors offer “crude imitations”, at least for now (2) From a Google search I see that the price of this product is in the range $25-250. It’s hard to see violins students who plunk down hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars for their instrument try to save tens of $s for a subpar shoulder rest. Unless perhaps it breaks weekly or something.

ceejayoz 2y ago
> It’s hard to see violins students who plunk down hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars for their instrument try to save tens of $s for a subpar shoulder rest. Grade school violin students almost never purchase an instrument; they rent, at surprisingly low annual cost.
- matthewdgreen 2y ago
  It is surprisingly profitable, given that those violins are cheap and many people forget to return it in a timely fashion.
- navbaker 2y ago
  Our third grader just started viola this school year and I was amazed at how cheap the rental was! I was expecting to get raked over the coals monthly, but it was just a little over $100 for the entire year. The chin rest was one thing we didn’t have to pay for, the schools have the younger kids use a big foam sponge attached with a rubber band.
ziddoap 2y ago
I believe this story is supposed to bring a more human/relatable element to the impacts of the tariffs and trade war, using a unique family-owned business that happens to make a violin widget. Focusing on cheaper Chinese competitors and how student violinists might approach a cost/benefit analysis for the widget seems to miss the spirit of the article (at least, as I understood it).

debacle 2y ago

Before these new tariffs, Canadian tariffs on US goods were more than double US tariffs on Canadian goods, as a percentage. If we want to eliminate tariffs, the proper outcome would be for Canada to lower its preexisting tariffs. I don't think anyone in the Canadian government has proposed that solution.

ceejayoz 2y ago
Citation? It sounds like this debunked claim: https://www.factcheck.org/2025/04/trumps-misleading-claim-on-canadian-dairy-tariffs/ https://www.factcheck.org/2025/04/trumps-misleading-claim-on...
- debacle 2y ago
  Your linked source is a completely different issue, which is that there are other tariffs designed to artificially limit trade. These are de facto quotas on trade.
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    If you don't like my source - which appears to be very close to your claim - I would encourage you to provide your own.
  - programmertote 2y ago
    I didn't downvote your comment above. But I think you might be interested to watch this one (of course, the video is made by a Canadian YouTuber, but I think he can back up his claims in the video from what I observe): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZvDhayPHxs&t=471s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZvDhayPHxs&t=471s
  - ziddoap 2y ago
    If it isn't in reference to what ceejayoz linked to... what tariffs are you talking about? A link would be great, but you can just name the products if that's easier, and I'll look up the data.
2y ago

tim333 2y ago

It seems kind of bizarre to me how a few months ago the Economist cover on the US economy was 'Envy of the World' on how they were doing better than everyone else https://archive.ph/xIJmT https://archive.ph/xIJmT And now we have: >“For decades our country has been looted, pillaged and raped,” Trump told an audience that included cabinet members and car workers. “It’s not going to happen any more.” as a justification for a trade war. I guess people voted for this?