5 ms·
temu and shein are cooked
by maxilevi 1y ago
temu and shein are cooked
- linotype 1y agoLess cheap junk flowing into the US sounds like a win to me. Maybe clothes should be more expensive and better quality.
- Eduard 1y agoAlso less affordable electronics
- meowkit 1y agoThere is also an argument that we should have fewer electronics too…
- roxolotl 1y agoIt is very interesting how if there was a genuine attempt at degrowth this is potentially a good start.
- thawtxp 1y ago[dead]
- mrguyorama 1y agoIt sure is funny how the party that has spent 2 decades screaming at anyone they could that "climate change isn't real" and "the people saying we should output less carbon are REALLY just degrowth cultists and we can consume everything forever with no issues" are outright, willfully, destroying the American economy in such a way that average americans WILL have to consume less
- mcphage 1y agoToo bad that’s not the argument being made by people pushing the current policies, instead of the idea that this will magically lead to us having more and better things.
- EasyMark 1y agoI don't think so. There is an argument for -individuals- buying too much electronics and they should revisit that, but it's not anyone's business other those people. Tanking the economy and destroying lives "just becuz consumers" is a really really bad way to run the country. Just giving back and going back to horse and buggy while China eats your lunch is not a good thing, because soon you will be making "cheap trinkets" for them
- linotype 1y agoEven more important in creating a more closed loop system with less waste. Some Android phones are e-waste before they hit a year or two.
- JKCalhoun 1y agoTangent. I got into building hi-fi tube amplifiers some years back. Part of it was a kind of nostalgia for the days of Heath-Kit which I am only just old enough to remember the company's sunsetting years. It was a fun few years deep-diving into the various amplifier topologies, buying NOS vacuum tubes on eBay, looking through electronics flea markets for parts. I made several amps, tried different tubes, topologies.... Eventually I settled on a small stereo amp and designed a PCB for it, created a small kit even. Using a drill press in the garage, a table saw to cut aluminum sheet stock down, even learning to powder-coat parts in a toaster-oven I picked up from Walmart, I made increasingly nicer looking amps. With two large output transformers and an even large power transformer they were fairly heavy beasts. Nonetheless, though I built them a decade or more ago, every one of the amplifiers I built are still in use today. The music I am listening to at this moment is coming from one. Another is down in my "lab". I have given several away to friends, co-workers in the past. I guess the reason for the tangent was to say that I did indeed find that when you have (or make) a thing of real quality it can last … perhaps a life time? And thinking again a little nostalgically, I like that too about electronics just up to the post-modern era: a new electronics purchase might have cost you a paycheck or two, but you got I think more mileage out of that device. EDIT: come to think of it, the heavy iron transformers are from the U.S., the tubes NOS from U.S. WWII bombers. I didn't built them of course with tariffs in mind, but surprisingly they are not so cost-dependent on overseas suppliers. And here's a photo of the finished amp (from when I once considered selling the kits): https://imgur.com/PBKOQMk https://imgur.com/PBKOQMk
- beepboopboop 1y agoThanks for sharing, that’s really cool and something I wish I had the time/skill/patience for. The amp looks great and love the name - might have to dust off the tools for a “Now and Then” model.
- tananaev 1y agoNow I need to pay 10x for a USB cable, a charger etc.
- jgyter 1y ago[flagged]
- ryao 1y agoMonoprice has low cost cables.
- markrages 1y ago...for now.
- ipsum2 1y agoMonoprice cables are made in China. They'll also cost 10x.
- bigiain 1y agoI'm not certain, but I suspect this'll work out better for Monoprice than it does for individuals. I _think_ Monoprice will pay the couple of hundred dollars "per package" fees for the pallet or container full of cables they bring in, amortising that cost over thousands of items. They'll still get charged the 145% tariff though, but they'll probably cost something like 3x rather than 10x. (Until they work out that they no longer compete with individuals buying from AliExpress/Temu/Shein, or probably even with side hustle Fulfilment by Amazon micro-importers).
- maxerickson 1y agoAt least we can rest assured that they will be more expensive.
- alabastervlog 1y agoI already buy a lot of clothes at least partially made in OECD states. Even with that “partially” doing a lot of work and my avoiding paying extra for “fancy” brand names… I don’t think Americans earning closer to median household income are gonna be happy about paying the kind of prices I pay.
- nebula8804 1y agoHere you go: enjoy your $120 American jeans: https://originusa.com/collections/jeans https://originusa.com/collections/jeans (Oh look its on sale 20$ off...yay :/ ) The sale discount is the entire amount I was able to buy my non American jeans for. :/ I guess I can make due with one pair for the week...or wash them each day(oh wait thats gotten more expensive as well).
- k4rli 1y agoProper jeans aren't really washed more than once a month or at all. Especially every day. They also will last for years therefore buying 1-3 pairs a year means your wardrobe will have plenty. Maybe local production will get cheaper once more people start keeping their money in local communities. Sending it to China is just awful for your country/region and kills local businesses. Disclaimer: from Europe so I don't care about USA at all. It's still having the same effect here
- runako 1y ago> Maybe local production will get cheaper once more people start keeping their money in local communities. Is the thinking here that increased scale would allow production to get cheaper? How would this account for the fact that production was scaled here, but was not cost-competitive when it was operating at scale? What's different now?
- buzer 1y agoLet's say currently it costs $15 to make thing 1m units of X in China and $50 to make 10k of them in the USA. USA could be scaled to make 50k of them for $40 and 100k for $30. 1m could cost like $25. There are people for who are ready to pay more for local products so the current production volume makes sense, but majority of people will go for cheaper option when given the chance so it doesn't make sense to scale up the production currently. If the import cost of the item goes above local production cost and there is still enough demand for the item, it can make sense to scale up that production even if you cannot compete with the China made things internationally. Of course that assumes your own costs (like raw materials) do not increase at least on the same scale and that you can rely on the situation being long-term thing (i.e. will last years rather than weeks) as costs include your CapEx on things like new machines.
- EasyMark 1y agothe thing is that life is about freedom of choice, I didn't buy they cheap junk, I'm fairly normal. I might be the occasional hobby board off alibaba express a couple times a year. Choice is good, not bad.
- LaundroMat 1y agoMaybe the law should impose quality and environmental standards instead of tariffs. But no, that would hurt domestic businesses.
- mytailorisrich 1y agoThe market does what people want. Fast fashion is exactly what people want because fashion has always been changing fast and about the "new thing" and people like to be able to buy new stuff all the time.
- astar1 1y agotoo little too late for Forever 21 and it's 350 locations which once employed 43,000 people at it's peak: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/17/forever-21-files-for-second-bankruptcy-blames-shein-and-temu.html https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/17/forever-21-files-for-second-... The temu/shein loophole should been closed ages ago.
- jgalt212 1y agoIt is pretty crazy how worker unfriendly US trade policy has been for so long.
- blitzar 1y agoThey need to get their priorities straight - stop directing trade policy towards tech companies employing 1000's of workers on $250,000 a year and start building factories employing 100's or people on 25c an hour.
- yonran 1y ago> The temu/shein loophole should been closed ages ago. Or the US should figure out how to get domestic shipping rates to be as cheap as the rates that Chinese shippers pay to ship to the US.
- GuinansEyebrows 1y agoThat would probably require that they receive federal funding to subsidize postage rates, which is unfortunately not going to happen (especially not under DeJoy).
- yonran 1y agoYes, perhaps the government should subsidize (or allow states to subsidize) the fixed costs of mail, just as we subsidize the fixed costs of roads, so that our business can be competitive. Is this what China does domestically, or what the US does when we charge for international shipping? Point is, we should at least list all the ways that we can be more competitive, rather than cheering isolationism that makes us all worse off.
- alabastervlog 1y agoIf the de minimus rule is in-fact suspended on May 2nd, yes. Hasn’t happened yet, so who knows. Amazon and other US selling platforms are also in trouble, given how much of their income is from drop shippers.
- throw310822 1y agoWell, given how many of their products come from China, right? How many of the products on sale on Amazon are partly or entirely produced in China? Those will have 125% (145? How mush is it today?) import duty on them, unless they're electronics.