Happy “Liberation Day” aka Economic Disaster Day

[gatomontes99]

14 minutes ago, robosmith said:

Because your understanding of economics is divorced from reality.

Strange that you cite that here when you were OBVIOUSLY WRONG.

Really? How?

 

15 minutes ago, robosmith said:

Only in the very limited circumstances when the vendor in the tariffed country is willing to eat the cost, which is something you CAN NEVER COUNT ON.

1 hour ago, gatomontes99 said:

It's not about limited circumstances or whether or not an importer is willing to eat the cost. It is about price elasticity (go ahead and Google it) and comparative cost analysis (Google that too while you are at it).

17 minutes ago, robosmith said:

In the long term, we're all dead. Clearly market traders are expecting far more damage than your delusions.

Yes, we know. The guy that is literally Hitler (because he's not at all like Hitler just like Hitler wasnt like Hitler so they are the same) killed us all. Whatever.

The grown ups are in charge now. Go play with your toys and let us do what needs to be done.

[gatomontes99]

59 minutes ago, Hodad said:

You certainly do buy a lot of bullshit. 

Raising the cost to import goods may or may not make the cost to consumers go up?

Jeebus. That was a huge mystery.

To borrow from last years trend, "tell me you know nothing about economics without saying I know nothing about economics."

The cost to the producer can be passed along IF the consumer is willing to pay it. However, ever cost to consumer increase results in less demand. How much less depends on the necessity of the product, the consumers' excess cash on hand and several other factors.

It is not automatic that a producer can pass on costs. Two good examples are diamonds and eggs. Diamonds have a very low price elasticity. Increased prices result in severe drops in demand because a diamond is not necessary. But eggs can go up because they are a necessary food item. Believe it or night, the rise in the cost of eggs is more likely to reduce demand in cars than it is eggs.

[West]

3 hours ago, robosmith said:

West doesn't understand the difference between a sideways moving market and one that declines precipitously in two days based on the whims of ONE MAN. 🤮

It'll stabilize. 

1 hour ago, gatomontes99 said:

No. I'm not in la la land. Why do you think I didn't expect a reaction from the markets? More accurately, a negative reaction. I explained, before he was elected, that tariffs may or may not cause a rise in cost to consumer. I also said that long term, tariffs drive up domestic production. Two days is nothing. Do like me, see the opportunity and buy the shìt out of everything.

Exactly. 

 

 

[West]

20 minutes ago, gatomontes99 said:

Really? How?

 

It's not about limited circumstances or whether or not an importer is willing to eat the cost. It is about price elasticity (go ahead and Google it) and comparative cost analysis (Google that too while you are at it).

Yes, we know. The guy that is literally Hitler (because he's not at all like Hitler just like Hitler wasnt like Hitler so they are the same) killed us all. Whatever.

The grown ups are in charge now. Go play with your toys and let us do what needs to be done.

Dude needs to do his SWAT analysis and take advantage of the fire sales caused by media trying to destroy the economy through fear and propaganda 

[Aristides]

2 hours ago, gatomontes99 said:

No. I'm not in la la land. Why do you think I didn't expect a reaction from the markets? More accurately, a negative reaction. I explained, before he was elected, that tariffs may or may not cause a rise in cost to consumer. I also said that long term, tariffs drive up domestic production. Two days is nothing. Do like me, see the opportunity and buy the shìt out of everything.

Of course they will rise in cost to the consumer, how else will he finance his tax cuts. Drive up domestic production at increased costs for American consumers for goods that no one else will buy because they are too expensive. The US will continue to fall behind the rest of the world because protected industries have no incentive to spend money on staying competitive.

[gatomontes99]

20 minutes ago, Aristides said:

Of course they will rise in cost to the consumer, how else will he finance his tax cuts. Drive up domestic production at increased costs for American consumers for goods that no one else will buy because they are too expensive. The US will continue to fall behind the rest of the world because protected industries have no incentive to spend money on staying competitive.

Oh wow. You've never even taken a college level economics course, have you? Like, none of that is Austrian, Keynesian or anything recognizable to economic theory. It's just a bunch of crap you spit out.

First, you don't pay for tax cuts. The money wasn't theirs to begin with.

Second, the tariffs (in large part) aren't permanent. They are restorative. We have trade imbalances with nearly every country. Giving domestic production a cost advantage is like paying yourself from your paycheck. When/if a country lowers their punitive tariffs, so do we. In the end, a fairer trade is established.

[gatomontes99]

Just curious. Does anyone want to tackle this question. If tariffs are so bad, why is China, who applies more tariffs to foreign goods than any other nation, about to become the world #1 economy?

[robosmith]

1 hour ago, West said:

It'll stabilize. 

I'm hoping it will go up when Trump realizes the boo boo he made.

1 hour ago, West said:

Exactly. 

He just explained he was Exactly WRONG.

[CdnFox]

2 hours ago, gatomontes99 said:

Just curious. Does anyone want to tackle this question. If tariffs are so bad, why is China, who applies more tariffs to foreign goods than any other nation, about to become the world #1 economy?

The conversation is starting to get a little silly. The idea that tariffs are inherently good or inherently bad is simply not a valid point of view. Tariffs are exactly like medicine, is medicine good or bad? The right medicine and the right dosage can be extremely good. The wrong medicine in the wrong dosage can be fatal.

So it is with tariffs. Tariffs properly applied where appropriate can help a nation protect its interest and grow its economy. Tariffs in the wrong places can cause an economic slowdown or worse.

Ceases to become are tariffs good or bad, the question we should be asking is are all of these tariffs appropriate? Will they achieve what they seek to achieve? What is the short medium and long-term intent and can the tariffs he has put in place achieve that?

It feels to me that his goals are two fold, to increase revenues in the short term to pay for tax cuts and other things, and to try to drive industry back to the united states over the medium to long term. 

I feel like  he might achieve the first one temporarily, but if the drives the economy into recession then he'll lose revenues due to reduced economic activity. 

I don't think there's any chance he will substantially drive business back to the us.  This has been tried before in US history and it absolutely did not work, nor is it likely to.  Money is already fleeing the market and investors will sit on their cash in safe investments and that means that there's no growth or construction or jobs or spending and the economy starts to die a sort of heat death. I have never heard of successfully increasing your economic wealth by reducing your client base. 

So i'm going to hope he takes the short term cash grab and then starts severely easing back on tariffs and encourages trade again and looks to other ways to increase america's economic activity . 

[Nationalist]

12 hours ago, I am Groot said:

Sure are. And this is just brainless. As a guy explained on BNN this evening, under Trump's tariffs an Iphone is going to cost over $2000. And when asked what it would cost if made in the US he said about $3500. The work done by Apple subcontractors in China like Foxconn is not exactly great. Their workers throw themselves off the building! You won't get Americans to work those kinds of hours, and even for an 8hr shift you'll have to pay them $25hr - at least and spend billions on the factory and parts makers.

What are you invested in, cocaine?

When the market goes down 2000 points everyone's investments suffer. Unless they have none.

Oh don't worry. I'll be just fine.

[Legato]

10 hours ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

I know mine did because I’ve seen the names of the companies I’m in going down, down, down but I just can’t bear to look. It will probably take a few weeks for me to summon up the courage. 

That was me and the missus in 2008. When our financial statements arrived in the mail we bunged them in a drawer unopened. Stopped listening to the doom and gloom on TV news etc.

What we did not do was panic and sell. Two years later everything had recovered with a small but tangible increase.

Hang in there.

[Aristides]

6 hours ago, gatomontes99 said:

Oh wow. You've never even taken a college level economics course, have you? Like, none of that is Austrian, Keynesian or anything recognizable to economic theory. It's just a bunch of crap you spit out.

First, you don't pay for tax cuts. The money wasn't theirs to begin with.

Second, the tariffs (in large part) aren't permanent. They are restorative. We have trade imbalances with nearly every country. Giving domestic production a cost advantage is like paying yourself from your paycheck. When/if a country lowers their punitive tariffs, so do we. In the end, a fairer trade is established.

Oh wow yourself. Unless you can force other countries to raise their production costs to the same level as the US, your manufacturing will never be competitive without tariffs and will always have to be protected. That should be obvious even to you.

[Radiorum]

On 4/3/2025 at 8:27 AM, BeaverFever said:

Relocation costs billions of dollars and takes more years than Trump will be in office. By the time companies complete the decision making process to move a factory Trump will be out of office. Plus his erratic actions have proven his word is meaningless he could sign a deal with you one day and welcome you with open arms then completely violate it the next and stab you in the back  

Yes, a plan to bring back manufacturing to the US requires a long-term strategy, and Trump is not a long-term-strategy kind of guy. He thinks and acts only in the short-term.

Trump says his tariffs will induce the onshoring of manufacturing back to the US, and at the same time raise $6 trillion dollars in revenue. These two things cannot happen at the same time! He only uses them as talking points to cover his true intentions – which is to use tariffs as bargaining chips to get what he wants out of other countries. He loves tariffs for one reason – for the power he thinks they gave him to bend other countries to his will.

For companies to suddenly invest the time and resources into building in the US requires a guarantee that the tariffs are permanent, and Trump has given every indication that they are negotiable. That kind of uncertainty does not invite long-term investment.

 

[I am Groot]

1 hour ago, Nationalist said:

Oh don't worry. I'll be just fine.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wall-streets-biggest-tech-bull-warns-of-3500-iphones-as-economic-armageddon-looms-from-trump-tariffs-122638699.html

[gatomontes99]

18 minutes ago, Aristides said:

Oh wow yourself. Unless you can force other countries to raise their production costs to the same level as the US, your manufacturing will never be competitive without tariffs and will always have to be protected. That should be obvious even to you.

These are reciprocal tariffs. If it wasn't for the other country having a tariff on our goods, we would be competitive. If we weren't competitive, why would they need a tariff on us?

[I am Groot]

7 hours ago, gatomontes99 said:

Second, the tariffs (in large part) aren't permanent. They are restorative. We have trade imbalances with nearly every country. Giving domestic production a cost advantage is like paying yourself from your paycheck. When/if a country lowers their punitive tariffs, so do we. In the end, a fairer trade is established.

Having a trade imbalance is not exactly a terrible thing. And raising the costs to consumers is never a good thing. You can't make cell phones nearly as cheaply as they do in China? Oh, okay, so you want to double the costs of buying a cell phone. And that helps America in what way, exactly? How does Americans not being able to afford the basic personal electronics everyone else in the world uses make America 'win'?

2 minutes ago, gatomontes99 said:

These are reciprocal tariffs. If it wasn't for the other country having a tariff on our goods, we would be competitive. If we weren't competitive, why would they need a tariff on us?

Many of them don't even have tariffs on US goods. The US still slapped tariffs on them.

[gatomontes99]

Just now, I am Groot said:

Having a trade imbalance is not exactly a terrible thing. And raising the costs to consumers is never a good thing. You can't make cell phones nearly as cheaply as they do in China? Oh, okay, so you want to double the costs of buying a cell phone. And that helps America in what way, exactly? How does Americans not being able to afford the basic personal electronics everyone else in the world uses make America 'win'?

You seem to think cost to produce = cost to consumer. Let's be very clear. The consumer pays what the market demands. The cost to produce (a tariff is about production cost) is only a factor when determining profit.

[Aristides]

1 minute ago, gatomontes99 said:

These are reciprocal tariffs. If it wasn't for the other country having a tariff on our goods, we would be competitive. If we weren't competitive, why would they need a tariff on us?

No they aren’t they are based  on trade imbalance, not tariffs. Anywhere Trump sees a trade imbalance he has applied tariffs even when there have been no tariffs against US products, even against penguins. There is a big recession coming and  a result of recessions is the rich always get richer and everyone else gets poorer.

[Michael Hardner]

3 minutes ago, Aristides said:

No they aren’t they are based  on trade imbalance, not tariffs. Anywhere Trump sees a trade imbalance he has applied tariffs even when there have been no tariffs against US products, even against penguins. There is a big recession coming and  a result of recessions is the rich always get richer and everyone else gets poorer.

No, some wealthy people are going to lose a lot of money.

[Aristides]

Just now, Michael Hardner said:

No, some wealthy people are going to lose a lot of money.

Some are but but the really wealthy will be snapping up distressed businesses and properties at bargain basement prices.

[Aristides]

10 minutes ago, gatomontes99 said:

You seem to think cost to produce = cost to consumer. Let's be very clear. The consumer pays what the market demands. The cost to produce (a tariff is about production cost) is only a factor when determining profit.

Now you are sounding like a socialist.

[gatomontes99]

35 minutes ago, Aristides said:

No they aren’t they are based  on trade imbalance, not tariffs. Anywhere Trump sees a trade imbalance he has applied tariffs even when there have been no tariffs against US products, even against penguins. There is a big recession coming and  a result of recessions is the rich always get richer and everyone else gets poorer.

No. They used trade imbalance to determine the reciprocal rate. But the tariff is a reciprocal rate in most cases. Some are for countries that have unfair trade practices. Know what you are talking about if you are going to be made about.

[Aristides]

Just now, gatomontes99 said:

No. They used trade imbalance to determine the reciprocal rate. But the tariff is a reciprocal rate in most cases. Some are for countries that have unfair trade practices. Know what you are talking about if you are going to be made about.

The tariffs are based on trade imbalances, they have even been applied where there were no tariffs. 

[gatomontes99]

34 minutes ago, Aristides said:

Now you are sounding like a socialist.

Lmao...wow. You need to take an economics course bad.

https://www.economicsonline.co.uk/competitive_markets/supply-and-demand-curves-explained.html/

Notice, the cost to produce has no role in the price the consumer pays.

1 minute ago, Aristides said:

The tariffs are based on trade imbalances, they have even been applied where there were no tariffs. 

I explained that. Read for comprehension.

[SpankyMcFarland]

There are great deals to be made in Trump’s America. I see Mordor just got its tariff rate down to 10% by agreeing to sell the Eye of Sauron to Google.