6 ms·

The tradeoff here is “pay the middleman markup tax” for the most part. Instead of getting cheap Chinese made clothing for $5, you now get to pay Walmart $17 fo

by phil21 1y ago

The tradeoff here is “pay the middleman markup tax” for the most part. Instead of getting cheap Chinese made clothing for $5, you now get to pay Walmart $17 for the same thing. If we are going to outsource production in order to save on consumer goods costs, the consumer should be the one reaping the surplus - not capital. Properly informed buyers were quite capable of getting quality product out of China for a tenth of the cost of exactly the same thing stocked on major retailer shelves here. While there are certainly abuses of the current system, it would be best to close those loopholes vs. just give a bunch of profits to giant companies for effectively doing nothing more than having scale and volume. If you’re lucky they may do some curation too. Not everything was Temu or Shein. Plenty of smaller factories basically going direct to consumer in a win win sort of scenario. They get paid more, and the customer doesn’t pay any middlemen.

ericmay 1y ago
> Instead of getting cheap Chinese made clothing for $5, you now get to pay Walmart $17 for the same thing. Right... but now that is (arguably) cost competitive with American labor and manufacturing. Or at least it's more cost competitive than it otherwise would be. I mean this is kind of the price of putting what we say first. Want higher minimum wages, higher environmental standards, unionized labor, benefits/healthcare, lunch breaks, etc.? We will have to pay more, and we should, for those things.
- donkeybeer 1y ago
  You should trust people who live in countries that tariff a lot. You won't get quality crap. When tariffs cause the imported good to become equal to $200, the local good doesn't suddenly get cheaper it rises to match $180. Obviously any incentive that remained for local product to improve is now totally dashed too because of state forced back protection from competition. You end up paying multiple times the prices for the same shit sane countries buy much cheaper than you and life turns to shit, and the lower classes don't get better but end up loosing more money on the same crap.
  - ericmay 1y ago
    I don't think we're comparing apples to apples though, and even so it's again just a trade-off we can make. > the local good doesn't suddenly get cheaper it rises to match $180 Lowering prices isn't the goal, otherwise we could just export everything to (insert low-cost country here) and have products made as cheaply as possible regardless of working conditions or other considerations. The goal in part with tariffs would be to make it so that domestic products or products from friendly countries are cost competitive, not necessarily cheaper. Some folks just want the cheapest possible products and they don't care about any other issue. But that's just one factor among many for the nation. Some think that we should have lunch breaks and 40 hour work weeks and different environmental standards - that costs money and makes labor more expensive in countries like the United States. I would disagree that there isn't an incentive to improve your local products, at least in the United States. The market here is big enough that we generally have competition regardless of whether or not competitors from other countries are participating in the market. But even so, it's not like competitors aren't participating in the market even with tariffs, it just changes the pricing calculations.
    - donkeybeer 1y ago
      And what will you get by making a crappy product artificially competitive? Its the same inferior product still, except you artificially forced the better stuff to be more expensive. Its absolutely hilarious seeing USA adopt policies of communist countries of the Latin America. Wrong, as I said just ask countries like Brazil what happens when you tariff everything to shit and beyond. Brazil doesn't have chip fabs still and still has to pay a huge amount for phones and computers. The answer to local industry being shit isn't to coddle it further, it is to scare the living shit out of them. Clearly in-country competition isn't enough, otherwise it'd already have been better than foreign goods. That's how capitalism succeeds, coddling them will only lead to overall crappy product and crappy life everywhere. I find it quite amusing this anti China rhetoric suddenly jumped up after in some areas Chinese getting superior to Americans. Hilarious really how much of a sore loser America is. Enjoy and suffer shit goods at shittier prices. The tradeoff is you get fucked in both, in any countries that do tariffs. If one of the goals was to make life better for the lower classes, what will happen is that it won't, they'd be fucked even more being forced to pay more for the same stuff.
- slipperydippery 1y ago
  > Right... but now that is (arguably) cost competitive with American labor and manufacturing. Or at least it's more cost competitive than it otherwise would be. This won't work for clothes. We'd need Wal-mart shoppers to be spending like $400/outfit (incl. shoes) to even maybe bring those jobs back to the US. For clothes specifically, short of raising prices so much that the poorest few tens of a percent of the population are reduced to wearing shit-tier disposable clothes covered in also-cheap patches and often worn threadbare, shoes fully wrapped in duct-tape because the soles are practically gone, et c, there's no way you're bringing those jobs back. We'll just pay more for the exact same stuff, with few or no extra jobs as a trade-off. Meanwhile, goods partially manufactured here (materials made here, finished elsewhere; materials foreign, construction domestic) will see price increases due to tariffs, which may harm sales, which may reduce employment. Between that and any broader economic down-turn resulting from these policies (can't buy as many things if prices are up, can't spend more on expensive US goods if your basics go up in price) I wouldn't be surprised if we see a bunch of the remaining US clothing manufacturers go out of business in the next few years. I have several brands I like that are already showing visible signs of distress (things like products lines being reduced, no new models showing up) and am worried I'll soon have almost no US clothes to choose from, due to these "protectionist" policies.
  - ericmay 1y ago
    > This won't work for clothes Says who? Also you're forgetting if we as a country decide hey this really doesn't work for clothing we can just lower the tariffs on clothing.
    - slipperydippery 1y ago
      > Says who? Uh, labor costs? I guess we could work to lower those, though. Like, a lot lower. Meanwhile if the $2 wholesale-in-China shirt costs $30 on the shelf due to tariffs and the identical-quality US-made one costs $40 because that's just what it costs, the latter won't even be made, zero factories will start up to manufacture them. You'd have to raise prices a lot for it to make sense to even try, clothes are (relatively—still far less than once-upon-a-time, which is why the poor can afford to wear clothes that aren't third-hand and much-mended) labor-intensive despite lots of automation because machines remain terrible at manipulating cloth, despite decades of effort at solving that problem. It's really expensive to make clothes in the US, and skimping on quality doesn't save all that much, percentage-wise. Being that they're also a necessity, we'd truly have to drive quality of life way down for a large chunk of the population to get that industry making low-end clothes.
- mlyle 1y ago
  > We will have to pay more, and we should, for those things. No. US labor costs are high and working conditions are better, in large part, because US labor is worth it and US productivity is high. That labor is spent in high value industries and is often highly skilled. We should accept we're better at some things and trade according to the principle of comparative advantage.
  - ericmay 1y ago
    I don't disagree with you, but I think it would be better for society if we had fewer gig workers and Wal-Mart greeters, and more artisans who become more price competitive.
    - mlyle 1y ago
      I don't think making things more expensive for consumers is going to help that happen. I think it's going to steepen the divide between capital and labor. And most of the products we're talking about that are coming in via de minimis are not exactly competing with US "artisans." Indeed, I'm helping train future US artisans, and we depend upon being able to get input components cheaply and consistently, which is becoming more and more of a problem and endangering my programs being able to do as much.
      - ericmay 1y ago
        But as I look around with our current trade strategy (pre-tariff) I've only seen exactly what you describe happen - the divide between capital and labor has only increased exponentially, and as prices have gotten lower people we see less entrepreneurship, less new business starts, fewer products made in America, and more consolidation into Wal-Mart scale corporations. > And most of the products we're talking about that are coming in via de minimis are not exactly competing with US "artisans." Sure they are - they're much cheaper, mass manufactured goods which people default to because they are only exposed to the price of the product. Raising the prices of those goods makes artisan products more cost competitive.
        1y ago

by phil21 1y ago

ericmay 1y ago

> Instead of getting cheap Chinese made clothing for $5, you now get to pay Walmart $17 for the same thing. Right... but now that is (arguably) cost competitive with American labor and manufacturing. Or at least it's more cost competitive than it otherwise would be. I mean this is kind of the price of putting what we say first. Want higher minimum wages, higher environmental standards, unionized labor, benefits/healthcare, lunch breaks, etc.? We will have to pay more, and we should, for those things.

donkeybeer 1y ago
You should trust people who live in countries that tariff a lot. You won't get quality crap. When tariffs cause the imported good to become equal to $200, the local good doesn't suddenly get cheaper it rises to match $180. Obviously any incentive that remained for local product to improve is now totally dashed too because of state forced back protection from competition. You end up paying multiple times the prices for the same shit sane countries buy much cheaper than you and life turns to shit, and the lower classes don't get better but end up loosing more money on the same crap.
- ericmay 1y ago
  I don't think we're comparing apples to apples though, and even so it's again just a trade-off we can make. > the local good doesn't suddenly get cheaper it rises to match $180 Lowering prices isn't the goal, otherwise we could just export everything to (insert low-cost country here) and have products made as cheaply as possible regardless of working conditions or other considerations. The goal in part with tariffs would be to make it so that domestic products or products from friendly countries are cost competitive, not necessarily cheaper. Some folks just want the cheapest possible products and they don't care about any other issue. But that's just one factor among many for the nation. Some think that we should have lunch breaks and 40 hour work weeks and different environmental standards - that costs money and makes labor more expensive in countries like the United States. I would disagree that there isn't an incentive to improve your local products, at least in the United States. The market here is big enough that we generally have competition regardless of whether or not competitors from other countries are participating in the market. But even so, it's not like competitors aren't participating in the market even with tariffs, it just changes the pricing calculations.
  - donkeybeer 1y ago
    And what will you get by making a crappy product artificially competitive? Its the same inferior product still, except you artificially forced the better stuff to be more expensive. Its absolutely hilarious seeing USA adopt policies of communist countries of the Latin America. Wrong, as I said just ask countries like Brazil what happens when you tariff everything to shit and beyond. Brazil doesn't have chip fabs still and still has to pay a huge amount for phones and computers. The answer to local industry being shit isn't to coddle it further, it is to scare the living shit out of them. Clearly in-country competition isn't enough, otherwise it'd already have been better than foreign goods. That's how capitalism succeeds, coddling them will only lead to overall crappy product and crappy life everywhere. I find it quite amusing this anti China rhetoric suddenly jumped up after in some areas Chinese getting superior to Americans. Hilarious really how much of a sore loser America is. Enjoy and suffer shit goods at shittier prices. The tradeoff is you get fucked in both, in any countries that do tariffs. If one of the goals was to make life better for the lower classes, what will happen is that it won't, they'd be fucked even more being forced to pay more for the same stuff.
slipperydippery 1y ago
> Right... but now that is (arguably) cost competitive with American labor and manufacturing. Or at least it's more cost competitive than it otherwise would be. This won't work for clothes. We'd need Wal-mart shoppers to be spending like $400/outfit (incl. shoes) to even maybe bring those jobs back to the US. For clothes specifically, short of raising prices so much that the poorest few tens of a percent of the population are reduced to wearing shit-tier disposable clothes covered in also-cheap patches and often worn threadbare, shoes fully wrapped in duct-tape because the soles are practically gone, et c, there's no way you're bringing those jobs back. We'll just pay more for the exact same stuff, with few or no extra jobs as a trade-off. Meanwhile, goods partially manufactured here (materials made here, finished elsewhere; materials foreign, construction domestic) will see price increases due to tariffs, which may harm sales, which may reduce employment. Between that and any broader economic down-turn resulting from these policies (can't buy as many things if prices are up, can't spend more on expensive US goods if your basics go up in price) I wouldn't be surprised if we see a bunch of the remaining US clothing manufacturers go out of business in the next few years. I have several brands I like that are already showing visible signs of distress (things like products lines being reduced, no new models showing up) and am worried I'll soon have almost no US clothes to choose from, due to these "protectionist" policies.
- ericmay 1y ago
  > This won't work for clothes Says who? Also you're forgetting if we as a country decide hey this really doesn't work for clothing we can just lower the tariffs on clothing.
  - slipperydippery 1y ago
    > Says who? Uh, labor costs? I guess we could work to lower those, though. Like, a lot lower. Meanwhile if the $2 wholesale-in-China shirt costs $30 on the shelf due to tariffs and the identical-quality US-made one costs $40 because that's just what it costs, the latter won't even be made, zero factories will start up to manufacture them. You'd have to raise prices a lot for it to make sense to even try, clothes are (relatively—still far less than once-upon-a-time, which is why the poor can afford to wear clothes that aren't third-hand and much-mended) labor-intensive despite lots of automation because machines remain terrible at manipulating cloth, despite decades of effort at solving that problem. It's really expensive to make clothes in the US, and skimping on quality doesn't save all that much, percentage-wise. Being that they're also a necessity, we'd truly have to drive quality of life way down for a large chunk of the population to get that industry making low-end clothes.
mlyle 1y ago
> We will have to pay more, and we should, for those things. No. US labor costs are high and working conditions are better, in large part, because US labor is worth it and US productivity is high. That labor is spent in high value industries and is often highly skilled. We should accept we're better at some things and trade according to the principle of comparative advantage.
- ericmay 1y ago
  I don't disagree with you, but I think it would be better for society if we had fewer gig workers and Wal-Mart greeters, and more artisans who become more price competitive.
  - mlyle 1y ago
    I don't think making things more expensive for consumers is going to help that happen. I think it's going to steepen the divide between capital and labor. And most of the products we're talking about that are coming in via de minimis are not exactly competing with US "artisans." Indeed, I'm helping train future US artisans, and we depend upon being able to get input components cheaply and consistently, which is becoming more and more of a problem and endangering my programs being able to do as much.
    - ericmay 1y ago
      But as I look around with our current trade strategy (pre-tariff) I've only seen exactly what you describe happen - the divide between capital and labor has only increased exponentially, and as prices have gotten lower people we see less entrepreneurship, less new business starts, fewer products made in America, and more consolidation into Wal-Mart scale corporations. > And most of the products we're talking about that are coming in via de minimis are not exactly competing with US "artisans." Sure they are - they're much cheaper, mass manufactured goods which people default to because they are only exposed to the price of the product. Raising the prices of those goods makes artisan products more cost competitive.
      - 1y ago