22 ms·

It will be interesting to see if retailers choose raising prices or if they lean more towards ... just not offering some things.

by duxup 2y ago

codingbot3000 2y ago
Gilead might be in for empty shelves like Venezuela and Cuba :-D
- duxup 2y ago
  I'll be sad, but amused, when Trump and Co declare that each state should build factories to fill their needs for basic products ... similar to proposals made during the economic collapse days in Venezuela.
  - taylodl 2y ago
    The United States has never had such incompetence in governance. Americans aren't accustomed to this degree of ineptness.
    - dylan604 2y ago
      Everyone made fun of W about being the least competent, but then the GOP went and collectively said "hold my beer". Twice.
    - bilbo0s 2y ago
      It's surprising that we would actually vote for this of our own free will. That's gotta be something historians will puzzle over for the next two hundred years. It's mind blowing that we did that. Stepping a level lower even, how, on Earth, could our system possibly have produced Harris, Vance and Trump as the options? Then you step a level lower than that, and even the challengers were like, DeSantis and Haley? It was corruption and ineptitude the entire way down. How could that have happened?
      - unethical_ban 2y ago
        The two party system, forced on us by plurality voting, is the reason people feel they don't have a choice. Pick one of two very different sides. If a third candidate tries to enter the race, they harm themselves and the person they are similar to, and they help the opposition. Any form of ranked voting will rid us of this restriction and allow more candidates to run for an office, and allow citizens to vote their true preference. Yesterday, HR 3040 was introduced by a GOP member from Arizona, which intends to ban ranked choice voting from federal elections. The GOP has already banned it in the state of Florida. A radical party is terrified of a system that enables more electoral competition and throttles radicalism.
        School-Cotton 2y ago
        No idea why you got downvoted. This is exactly the answer.
        unethical_ban 2y ago
        The only "non-objective" component of my comment is the analysis of the GOP's motives to stop voting reform.
        taylodl 2y ago
        What you're talking about is known as Duverger's Law - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law
        unethical_ban 2y ago
        Yep! And the "spoiler effect" is when a voting system fails to meet the "independence of clones" criterion. In an election, the addition of a candidate similar to an existing candidate should not adversely impact both candidates.
        nradov 2y ago
        Right. The last serious third-party presidential candidate was Ross Perot in 1992. In terms of political platform and voter appeal he was slightly more similar to the incumbent Republican candidate George H. W. Bush, which probably enabled the Democrat candidate Bill Clinton to win (although it's impossible to know what would have happened if Perot didn't run). Some political analysts claim that Perot entered the race not really intending to win but rather as retribution against Bush. In 1979 the Iranian regime imprisoned two of Perot's EDS employees. Perot asked Bush, who was then Director of the CIA, to get them out. Bush refused to act and Perot held a grudge against him ever since.
    - dowager_dan99 2y ago
      His most die-hard supporters will hang on to the bitter end - and they're the least capable of doing so. I've gone from mocking them => feeling sorry for them => fear them - these people are definitely not harmless. these are sad/scary times.
  - Loughla 2y ago
    I had a conversation with someone who I usually respect, and would say is an intelligent person. He's a trump supporter for the manufacturing support. He said, "It's just not that hard to get these factories back to the states. We can get that done this month." The amount of cognitive dissonance and just outright believing the lies is astounding. Trump won't say that states need to build those factories. He'll tell governors that they're failures for not having done it already.
    - bjourne 2y ago
      He's not wrong. It is technically possible. However, transforming the US into a command economy may not be the best thing to do.
      - ajmurmann 2y ago
        We can build a factory in a month, including permitting, acquiring the land, planning the building and constucting it, as well as procuring or building the machinery and setting it up in the factory, programming it and hiring and training the workforce during high employment? That's very impressive!
        masfuerte 2y ago
        High employment isn't going to be a blocker for much longer.
        lesuorac 2y ago
        Perhaps not a month but the US really can build things fast if that's actually prioritized. https://www.globalhighways.com/wh10/feature/building-replacement-bridge-record-time https://www.globalhighways.com/wh10/feature/building-replace... tbh, as far as I'm concerned the hollowing out of the USG is why we can't do things fast. How many times has your boss had the entire team submit a proposal on how long it would take each member of the team to complete a JIRA ticket and then use that bidding as to who to assign the ticket? Like if you could build bridges and stuff in-house then you really speed things up. Given that something like a factory is probably going to require eminent domain to get a large contiguous tract (or built in the middle of nowhere so no counter-lawsuit) it seems fine for the government to build the shell of a building and then sell it off to be customized.
xnx 2y ago
A retailer would be irrational to let stock run out instead of continuously raising prices.
- ARandumGuy 2y ago
  For stuff that people need and will buy at heavily inflated prices, sure. But there are a lot of non-essential items that people probably won't buy if the price increases significantly. And for those items, I suspect a lot of stores will just let the shelves stay empty instead of spending a lot of money for inventory they can't sell.
  - ModernMech 2y ago
    Candy bars for example. They want to charge $3 for a single candy bar now, but no one wants to pay that much so they're selling them 2 for $5. But retailers have studied that this trick isn't going to last because not everyone wants to buy candy bars in bulk, and they won't spend more than $3 for a single candy bar, which means if it goes any higher they won't by any candy bars at all.
- 9rx 2y ago
  The customer will only bear so much, though, so at some point the businesses that keep buying stock and raising prices will be left with stock that cannot be priced any higher, leaving it to be unloaded at a loss. That can be a far worse situation than not having any stock at all. Either way, it is an uncomfortable gamble.
- duxup 2y ago
  Depends on the product and if your marketing is low prices do you want to be the one to first crank them up and get Trump all upset?
- teeray 2y ago
  Not enough greed: Stockpile in a back warehouse and raise prices on the two or three items per day you allow on the shelves.
mindslight 2y ago
Aliexpress is already displaying tariff-inclusive prices. A curious dynamic: A seller importing a container of cargo to Amazon (or other US warehouse) has to pay the tariffs up front while trusting that dear leader won't lower the tariff amount before they can sell them. A seller that ships directly from China has a committed purchase with cash in hand by the time the specific tariff needs to be paid. I can see this leading to drastically less selection from US warehouses of long tail items that would otherwise sit around. Speculation: I wouldn't be surprised if Aliexpress (/Choice) charges sellers a fixed fee based on the current tariff rates, but still covers whatever the tariff ends up being when the item arrives at the port, to make it really straightforward for sellers. The kind of eat-it investment you get in a society working to build up institutions rather than tear them down.
vjvjvjvjghv 2y ago
I think it will be both. Raising prices for some goods because of tariffs (and adding some percent for good measure and profit) while also discontinuing others. It may go like the car market where cheaper options are slowly being phased out and the focus goes to higher priced vehicles.
jmyeet 2y ago
For many goods a 145% tariff is a ban for all intents and purposes and no different to a 100% tariff or a 200% tariff. This is just more evidence (as if we needed it) that the administration has no idea what they're doing. Certain goods are extremely high mark up. For example, clothing is typically 100-200% markup. So if you buy a $5 t-shirt and sell it for $15, the tariffed price is now ~$12. You may find retailers will sell that at $20, absorbing some of the cost on a temporary basis. Also, many such retailers have already sought to diversify their supply chains (eg buying clothing from Vietnam and other places).
mystified5016 2y ago
Prices never really came down after the COVID shortages, I really don't expect this round of shortage to be any different. Companies have a convenient excuse to jack up prices with the comforting lie that they'll go back down when shortages are over.

It will be interesting to see if retailers choose raising prices or if they lean more towards ... just not offering some things.

by duxup 2y ago

It will be interesting to see if retailers choose raising prices or if they lean more towards ... just not offering some things.

codingbot3000 2y ago

Gilead might be in for empty shelves like Venezuela and Cuba :-D

duxup 2y ago
I'll be sad, but amused, when Trump and Co declare that each state should build factories to fill their needs for basic products ... similar to proposals made during the economic collapse days in Venezuela.
- taylodl 2y ago
  The United States has never had such incompetence in governance. Americans aren't accustomed to this degree of ineptness.
  - dylan604 2y ago
    Everyone made fun of W about being the least competent, but then the GOP went and collectively said "hold my beer". Twice.
  - bilbo0s 2y ago
    It's surprising that we would actually vote for this of our own free will. That's gotta be something historians will puzzle over for the next two hundred years. It's mind blowing that we did that. Stepping a level lower even, how, on Earth, could our system possibly have produced Harris, Vance and Trump as the options? Then you step a level lower than that, and even the challengers were like, DeSantis and Haley? It was corruption and ineptitude the entire way down. How could that have happened?
    - unethical_ban 2y ago
      The two party system, forced on us by plurality voting, is the reason people feel they don't have a choice. Pick one of two very different sides. If a third candidate tries to enter the race, they harm themselves and the person they are similar to, and they help the opposition. Any form of ranked voting will rid us of this restriction and allow more candidates to run for an office, and allow citizens to vote their true preference. Yesterday, HR 3040 was introduced by a GOP member from Arizona, which intends to ban ranked choice voting from federal elections. The GOP has already banned it in the state of Florida. A radical party is terrified of a system that enables more electoral competition and throttles radicalism.
      - School-Cotton 2y ago
        No idea why you got downvoted. This is exactly the answer.
        unethical_ban 2y ago
        The only "non-objective" component of my comment is the analysis of the GOP's motives to stop voting reform.
      - taylodl 2y ago
        What you're talking about is known as Duverger's Law - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law
        unethical_ban 2y ago
        Yep! And the "spoiler effect" is when a voting system fails to meet the "independence of clones" criterion. In an election, the addition of a candidate similar to an existing candidate should not adversely impact both candidates.
      - nradov 2y ago
        Right. The last serious third-party presidential candidate was Ross Perot in 1992. In terms of political platform and voter appeal he was slightly more similar to the incumbent Republican candidate George H. W. Bush, which probably enabled the Democrat candidate Bill Clinton to win (although it's impossible to know what would have happened if Perot didn't run). Some political analysts claim that Perot entered the race not really intending to win but rather as retribution against Bush. In 1979 the Iranian regime imprisoned two of Perot's EDS employees. Perot asked Bush, who was then Director of the CIA, to get them out. Bush refused to act and Perot held a grudge against him ever since.
  - dowager_dan99 2y ago
    His most die-hard supporters will hang on to the bitter end - and they're the least capable of doing so. I've gone from mocking them => feeling sorry for them => fear them - these people are definitely not harmless. these are sad/scary times.
- Loughla 2y ago
  I had a conversation with someone who I usually respect, and would say is an intelligent person. He's a trump supporter for the manufacturing support. He said, "It's just not that hard to get these factories back to the states. We can get that done this month." The amount of cognitive dissonance and just outright believing the lies is astounding. Trump won't say that states need to build those factories. He'll tell governors that they're failures for not having done it already.
  - bjourne 2y ago
    He's not wrong. It is technically possible. However, transforming the US into a command economy may not be the best thing to do.
    - ajmurmann 2y ago
      We can build a factory in a month, including permitting, acquiring the land, planning the building and constucting it, as well as procuring or building the machinery and setting it up in the factory, programming it and hiring and training the workforce during high employment? That's very impressive!
      - masfuerte 2y ago
        High employment isn't going to be a blocker for much longer.
      - lesuorac 2y ago
        Perhaps not a month but the US really can build things fast if that's actually prioritized. https://www.globalhighways.com/wh10/feature/building-replacement-bridge-record-time https://www.globalhighways.com/wh10/feature/building-replace... tbh, as far as I'm concerned the hollowing out of the USG is why we can't do things fast. How many times has your boss had the entire team submit a proposal on how long it would take each member of the team to complete a JIRA ticket and then use that bidding as to who to assign the ticket? Like if you could build bridges and stuff in-house then you really speed things up. Given that something like a factory is probably going to require eminent domain to get a large contiguous tract (or built in the middle of nowhere so no counter-lawsuit) it seems fine for the government to build the shell of a building and then sell it off to be customized.

xnx 2y ago

A retailer would be irrational to let stock run out instead of continuously raising prices.

ARandumGuy 2y ago
For stuff that people need and will buy at heavily inflated prices, sure. But there are a lot of non-essential items that people probably won't buy if the price increases significantly. And for those items, I suspect a lot of stores will just let the shelves stay empty instead of spending a lot of money for inventory they can't sell.
- ModernMech 2y ago
  Candy bars for example. They want to charge $3 for a single candy bar now, but no one wants to pay that much so they're selling them 2 for $5. But retailers have studied that this trick isn't going to last because not everyone wants to buy candy bars in bulk, and they won't spend more than $3 for a single candy bar, which means if it goes any higher they won't by any candy bars at all.
9rx 2y ago
The customer will only bear so much, though, so at some point the businesses that keep buying stock and raising prices will be left with stock that cannot be priced any higher, leaving it to be unloaded at a loss. That can be a far worse situation than not having any stock at all. Either way, it is an uncomfortable gamble.
duxup 2y ago
Depends on the product and if your marketing is low prices do you want to be the one to first crank them up and get Trump all upset?
teeray 2y ago
Not enough greed: Stockpile in a back warehouse and raise prices on the two or three items per day you allow on the shelves.

mindslight 2y ago

Aliexpress is already displaying tariff-inclusive prices. A curious dynamic: A seller importing a container of cargo to Amazon (or other US warehouse) has to pay the tariffs up front while trusting that dear leader won't lower the tariff amount before they can sell them. A seller that ships directly from China has a committed purchase with cash in hand by the time the specific tariff needs to be paid. I can see this leading to drastically less selection from US warehouses of long tail items that would otherwise sit around. Speculation: I wouldn't be surprised if Aliexpress (/Choice) charges sellers a fixed fee based on the current tariff rates, but still covers whatever the tariff ends up being when the item arrives at the port, to make it really straightforward for sellers. The kind of eat-it investment you get in a society working to build up institutions rather than tear them down.

vjvjvjvjghv 2y ago

I think it will be both. Raising prices for some goods because of tariffs (and adding some percent for good measure and profit) while also discontinuing others. It may go like the car market where cheaper options are slowly being phased out and the focus goes to higher priced vehicles.

jmyeet 2y ago

For many goods a 145% tariff is a ban for all intents and purposes and no different to a 100% tariff or a 200% tariff. This is just more evidence (as if we needed it) that the administration has no idea what they're doing. Certain goods are extremely high mark up. For example, clothing is typically 100-200% markup. So if you buy a $5 t-shirt and sell it for $15, the tariffed price is now ~$12. You may find retailers will sell that at $20, absorbing some of the cost on a temporary basis. Also, many such retailers have already sought to diversify their supply chains (eg buying clothing from Vietnam and other places).

mystified5016 2y ago

Prices never really came down after the COVID shortages, I really don't expect this round of shortage to be any different. Companies have a convenient excuse to jack up prices with the comforting lie that they'll go back down when shortages are over.