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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

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.
  - mlyle 1y ago
    > and more consolidation into Wal-Mart scale corporations. I think this has more to do with the effective abandonment of antitrust mechanisms. > Raising the prices of those goods makes artisan products more cost competitive. Look, I don't want an artisan UART board, and I don't think that my programs can ever afford "artisan UARTs." I'll just give up teaching this stuff to students instead.
    - ericmay 1y ago
      I don't know what you mean by artisan UART board - artisans and craftspeople don't, in my view, need to have anything to do with programs or universities or teaching or students - like you sit at home and work on making stuff, maybe you can sell it at a farmer's market or if you make something really good start your own business which could just be a single shop you run. Not to suggest there aren't or can't be training or teaching programs, but that's not a requirement. Today that's much more difficult because a bar of soap at Wal-Mart is $1 or something and entrepreneurs can't make stuff that cheap when they're making it by hand using real ingredients or honing a specific craft - and it doesn't even end up with shelf space. The suburban, 1-stop-shop big box retailer, drive your SUV down the highway to buy cheap stuff from not America model drives down entrepreneurship and closes off small competitors and artisans. > I think this has more to do with the effective abandonment of antitrust mechanisms. That's a factor but not the primary one.
      - mlyle 1y ago
        I buy stuff -- small circuit boards, electronic components, unusual milling cutters, bearings, etc. The existence of these things as commodities lets me do a lot of deep EE and ME work with high school students. The US will not build a supply chain for these at any reasonable price. And shouldn't. These should be commodities and US labor should focus on higher value things. (Not to mention that US suppliers don't really like selling at low quantities and most don't really love selling to education or hobbyists). Tariffs just directly make my programs less feasible. Note that de minimis-- which we're talking about here-- has something to do with what's at Amazon because of drop shippers, but basically nothing that is sold somewhere like Walmart.
        ericmay 1y ago
        Well we were also talking about artisan products too and not electronics. I don't buy the general consensus that the US can't or won't build supply chains for these products - we can and will if the tariffs are high enough, it'll just be highly automated which isn't necessarily a bad thing. In your specific case yea you are probably just looking at higher prices, but I don't think that your general argument is necessarily applicable across the entire economy. That's not to say in your specific case yea maybe the tariffs are just a net negative. > Note that de minimis-- which we're talking about here-- has something to do with what's at Amazon because of drop shippers, but basically nothing that is sold somewhere like Walmart. Well yes and no. The availability of drop-shipped products en masse, whether it's through Amazon or Wal-Mart's own drop-ship marketplaces still enable cheap consumerism and generate lots of waste and poor quality products at cheap prices (along with some good products at cheap prices to be fair). But I think the point about Amazon just strengthens my argument (for the sake of argument) which is you get these artificially cheap products shipped in, sometimes with stolen designs, and we can't spin up mom-and-pop shops or cottage industries because everybody just looks at the price of the cheapest bullshit thing they find on Amazon and they don't care about any number of issues that factor in to that price.

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.
- mlyle 1y ago
  > and more consolidation into Wal-Mart scale corporations. I think this has more to do with the effective abandonment of antitrust mechanisms. > Raising the prices of those goods makes artisan products more cost competitive. Look, I don't want an artisan UART board, and I don't think that my programs can ever afford "artisan UARTs." I'll just give up teaching this stuff to students instead.
  - ericmay 1y ago
    I don't know what you mean by artisan UART board - artisans and craftspeople don't, in my view, need to have anything to do with programs or universities or teaching or students - like you sit at home and work on making stuff, maybe you can sell it at a farmer's market or if you make something really good start your own business which could just be a single shop you run. Not to suggest there aren't or can't be training or teaching programs, but that's not a requirement. Today that's much more difficult because a bar of soap at Wal-Mart is $1 or something and entrepreneurs can't make stuff that cheap when they're making it by hand using real ingredients or honing a specific craft - and it doesn't even end up with shelf space. The suburban, 1-stop-shop big box retailer, drive your SUV down the highway to buy cheap stuff from not America model drives down entrepreneurship and closes off small competitors and artisans. > I think this has more to do with the effective abandonment of antitrust mechanisms. That's a factor but not the primary one.
    - mlyle 1y ago
      I buy stuff -- small circuit boards, electronic components, unusual milling cutters, bearings, etc. The existence of these things as commodities lets me do a lot of deep EE and ME work with high school students. The US will not build a supply chain for these at any reasonable price. And shouldn't. These should be commodities and US labor should focus on higher value things. (Not to mention that US suppliers don't really like selling at low quantities and most don't really love selling to education or hobbyists). Tariffs just directly make my programs less feasible. Note that de minimis-- which we're talking about here-- has something to do with what's at Amazon because of drop shippers, but basically nothing that is sold somewhere like Walmart.
      - ericmay 1y ago
        Well we were also talking about artisan products too and not electronics. I don't buy the general consensus that the US can't or won't build supply chains for these products - we can and will if the tariffs are high enough, it'll just be highly automated which isn't necessarily a bad thing. In your specific case yea you are probably just looking at higher prices, but I don't think that your general argument is necessarily applicable across the entire economy. That's not to say in your specific case yea maybe the tariffs are just a net negative. > Note that de minimis-- which we're talking about here-- has something to do with what's at Amazon because of drop shippers, but basically nothing that is sold somewhere like Walmart. Well yes and no. The availability of drop-shipped products en masse, whether it's through Amazon or Wal-Mart's own drop-ship marketplaces still enable cheap consumerism and generate lots of waste and poor quality products at cheap prices (along with some good products at cheap prices to be fair). But I think the point about Amazon just strengthens my argument (for the sake of argument) which is you get these artificially cheap products shipped in, sometimes with stolen designs, and we can't spin up mom-and-pop shops or cottage industries because everybody just looks at the price of the cheapest bullshit thing they find on Amazon and they don't care about any number of issues that factor in to that price.