This is how you know most economic theory is a total lie, if it wasn't they would just "price what people are willing to pay" and be forced to eat the loss. Is that cause copper bathtubs are a special item or are you just making up more rules after the fact to patch holes in your leaky theory.
> This is how you know most economic theory is a total lie, if it wasn't they would just "price what people are willing to pay" and be forced to eat the loss
... Wait, why on earth would businesses do that? "Yeah, we're in the business of buying X for a dollar and selling it for 90 cents". What economic theory are you referring to that makes that in any way plausible?
When input prices go up, output prices go up, and usually consumption falls.
Because the cost of goods continues to fluctuate wildly due to ongoing tariff wrangling that nobody asked for or needed.
Also farmers can’t sell anything because retaliation has destroyed international demand (I’d say decimated but it’s way worse than reduction by a tenth)
Now that I think about it, creating confusion and uncertainty is actually a pretty effective move if you want to play protectionism.
Any "known" tariff would just be paid as far as still profitable.
Sorta how those Fox Raw livestreams on YouTube Live consistently show the inner workings of room-to-room shuffles and background whispers INSIDE the White House for the entire online world to dissect; it's definitely a security flaw but maybe not considered so by either Fox or the admin.
While there are industries where that might be the case (and, if and when the Trump tariffs are removed, companies will absolutely take advantage for a bit), most industries are actually pretty low-margin, due to competition. If you're a supermarket chain, say, your net profit margin is probably under 5%.
> Repricing, though, isn’t as easy as changing a tag—in part because suppliers and big-box stores are engaged in an epic tussle over who will pay what.
> Retailers, including Lowe’s and Home Depot, buy Thompson Traders’ wares and set the retail price themselves. And they have been reluctant to pay Thompson Traders more.
It seems like this sort of scenario would benefit from some kind of risk protection, like insurance, or a futures market
I kind of welcome this. Corporations panicking and being afraid to raise prices too much, and perhaps having to take a loss because they're essentially giving away product, is the LEAST that could happen to them after their naked and abusive COVID-era gouging.
EDIT: You had years of corporate stimulus and ZIRP expanding M2, but the inflation floodgates only opened after a paltry return of a small fraction of the real wage losses the middle class and lower sustained over that period? Live by the macro grift, die by the macro grift. And I wrote-in Bernie both times.
In NYC, for the first 6 months of 2025, 994 new private sector jobs were created [1]. During the same period last year, there were 66,000 new jobs created.
Higher cost of doing business from tariffs has frozen hiring. With a frozen job market, there’s less revenue coming in.
NYC is a leading indicator for the rest of the country.
If you are looking at tarrifs to explain NY small business market collapse, you clearly have not followed Louis Rossmann's struggles to keep his business in NY over the years.
New York is teeming with what appear to be newly arrived "immigrants" who do no speak a word of English (and frankly are rather aggressive about their refusal to do so) yet are employed in various crafts. We had fairly substantial renovation recently in our building. Every single worker was clearly a recent arrival. How do we know how many jobs were actually created if so many of them are not "officially recorded"?
(I am an immigrant myself (via the legal means) lest you take my observation as a xenophobic expression.)
I know that this is the result of summing a much larger gain + a slightly smaller loss, but it's weird reading this number in isolation and knowing that my company is responsible for roughly 5% of this gain.
Trump is even using Tariff threats to strong-arm other countries to retreat on their climate goals [1]. If the Supreme Court agrees that the Trump can do this then that means we have a dictator — one that will do way more harm than the one in North Korea.
He's a very simple-minded person with a hammer that up til now (court case) seemed to be working. He doesn't understand nuance or negotiation or any of that, he understands having the upper hand (military, economic power) and how to bludgeon people with it. That's why when he comes up against similar sized bullies (Putin/Xi) he is flummoxed and beaten every single time because they're much more cunning than him. Sure, he can bully Laos or Thailand and get deals, but the big dogs beat him every time.
As well as big business, this is just shutting down or radically altering many small industries. FIlmmakers, authors/book publishers, musicians etc. are negatively incentivized to ship product to the US, so good luck if you are an American consumer with niche cultural hobbies or a specialized importer who does a lot of small-batch orders.
I’d like to lay out an argument about why tariffs are good.
The only businesses that are derailing with tariffs issues are those that import goods to sell. The argument against tariffs is that they make goods more expensive.
Of course, this argument is true. But that’s not the end of the story.
Because prices are higher for imported goods, demand for domestically produced goods increases. This increase in demand leads to increased demand for labor, which can increase wages. Additionally, the money multiplier effect is higher when money is kept domestically vs paid to offshore parties.
Finally, I think it’s ridiculous to expect that this nation can maintain its wealth without producing anything. We act as if the producers of food are fungible cogs that businesses can swap out. But I think we’ll find that management is the fungible part. Anyone can sell a quality good. Knowing how to make it is what’s important. I’m surprised that mindset doesn’t resonate more with software engineers.
Do you think you just have to flip a switch somewhere in buttfuck nowhere Wisconsin and all of a sudden you get a full fledged factory and the trained workers needed to compete with China on low quality/high volume products?
Even with triple digit tarrifs Chinese goods would still be cheaper.
American companies will move manufacturing offshore long before they’ll open factories in the U.S. The economics of using domestic labor for cheap goods don’t add up.
In the end it's the biggest leopard ate my face moment ever:
China has very high growth momentum that surpasses American living standards soon, and not long before it will surpass American security standards too. China's purchasing power is probably more comfortable than most western countries, with extensive housing and high speed rail and electric cars etc. When a country becomes rich, inevitably other countries ask for their help. That's why China's growth must be curbed, fast > tariff them to their death or so. But I really don't think it will work at all. And personally I don't even think it's a good idea at all to begin with.
You’re not “tariffing them to death”, you’re hurting yourself. This would only work if the USA was the main importer of goods from China, which it is not - only about 14%.
China’s GDP growth is no longer in double digits; it’s in the 4–5% range, and many analysts expect it to fall further due to demographic decline and low productivity growth due to capital investments in infrastructure not needed but politically necessary due to city politics.
U.S. per-capita income is roughly $80,000, while China’s is about $13,000. Adjusted for purchasing power it would take decades (at current trajectories, which may be slowing due to EU backlash etc.) to converge.
China leads in high-speed rail and EV adoption. These don’t automatically translate into higher overall living standards — healthcare, wages, pensions, and social safety nets matter more.
China’s lending practices have also led to accusations of “debt-trap diplomacy,” and some countries are now cautious about overreliance on Chinese help. This is why China negativity amongst all of their immediate neighbors is so high.
The originally announced tariff rates have been “paused” (in reality they were never implemented), but in their place has been a 10% global tariff. China already had tariffs of 25% from the 1st Trump admin, plus 20% from February, so tariffs on goods from China are currently at 55%. But the rest of the world is at 10% right now (only the UK has actually signed a trade deal).
FWIW, we’ve been affected by the tariffs (10% for now; we import mainly from Vietnam and Thailand at this point). Did our second price increase a few weeks ago. We’ll probably test out how much the market will bear because operating in this market really demands a risk premium. So far it’s not as crazy as the pandemic supply chain crisis, but it’s close. The most insane ending to all of this that I can imagine is that the tariffs get conclusively ruled unconstitutional and all the tariffs payed get returned. Would be a huge wealth transfer from consumers to businesses.
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[ 0.22 ms ] story [ 73.2 ms ] thread... Wait, why on earth would businesses do that? "Yeah, we're in the business of buying X for a dollar and selling it for 90 cents". What economic theory are you referring to that makes that in any way plausible?
When input prices go up, output prices go up, and usually consumption falls.
Also farmers can’t sell anything because retaliation has destroyed international demand (I’d say decimated but it’s way worse than reduction by a tenth)
The american public asked for it loud and clear for it last november. We should respect that.
> Retailers, including Lowe’s and Home Depot, buy Thompson Traders’ wares and set the retail price themselves. And they have been reluctant to pay Thompson Traders more.
It seems like this sort of scenario would benefit from some kind of risk protection, like insurance, or a futures market
Yeah, complicated, costly and always changing regulations are great for doing business... /s
The world now: "oh wow these dirty Chinese thieves stole everything from us how did it happen?!?"
This whole situation really is a mystery... A single variable equation the globalist brain cannot comprehend
EDIT: You had years of corporate stimulus and ZIRP expanding M2, but the inflation floodgates only opened after a paltry return of a small fraction of the real wage losses the middle class and lower sustained over that period? Live by the macro grift, die by the macro grift. And I wrote-in Bernie both times.
Higher cost of doing business from tariffs has frozen hiring. With a frozen job market, there’s less revenue coming in.
NYC is a leading indicator for the rest of the country.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/13/nyregion/nyc-jobs.html
https://youtube.com/@rossmanngroup
(I am an immigrant myself (via the legal means) lest you take my observation as a xenophobic expression.)
I don't think not doing tariffs would have had much of an effect.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/climate/trump-internation...
The only businesses that are derailing with tariffs issues are those that import goods to sell. The argument against tariffs is that they make goods more expensive.
Of course, this argument is true. But that’s not the end of the story.
Because prices are higher for imported goods, demand for domestically produced goods increases. This increase in demand leads to increased demand for labor, which can increase wages. Additionally, the money multiplier effect is higher when money is kept domestically vs paid to offshore parties.
Finally, I think it’s ridiculous to expect that this nation can maintain its wealth without producing anything. We act as if the producers of food are fungible cogs that businesses can swap out. But I think we’ll find that management is the fungible part. Anyone can sell a quality good. Knowing how to make it is what’s important. I’m surprised that mindset doesn’t resonate more with software engineers.
Even with triple digit tarrifs Chinese goods would still be cheaper.
China has very high growth momentum that surpasses American living standards soon, and not long before it will surpass American security standards too. China's purchasing power is probably more comfortable than most western countries, with extensive housing and high speed rail and electric cars etc. When a country becomes rich, inevitably other countries ask for their help. That's why China's growth must be curbed, fast > tariff them to their death or so. But I really don't think it will work at all. And personally I don't even think it's a good idea at all to begin with.
You’re not “tariffing them to death”, you’re hurting yourself. This would only work if the USA was the main importer of goods from China, which it is not - only about 14%.
U.S. per-capita income is roughly $80,000, while China’s is about $13,000. Adjusted for purchasing power it would take decades (at current trajectories, which may be slowing due to EU backlash etc.) to converge.
China leads in high-speed rail and EV adoption. These don’t automatically translate into higher overall living standards — healthcare, wages, pensions, and social safety nets matter more.
China’s lending practices have also led to accusations of “debt-trap diplomacy,” and some countries are now cautious about overreliance on Chinese help. This is why China negativity amongst all of their immediate neighbors is so high.
This is a Premier Cru Red Herring.
Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.
Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45079542 and marked it off topic.
Which is also very destructive because such instability is very bad for long-term business planning.
The most insane ending is that tarrifs are reverted but most of the price hike will stay for good.