Tariff like it's 1897, Trump's Great Economy, Maybe the Best Ever

Apple, like most “American” multinationals, exists primarily to suck money out of the actual economy and deposit it into its own coffers where it can be deployed more effectively to increase shareholder wealth.

It just happens to be historically good at this.

But iPhones are cool, and that makes people who buy them cool.

Fuck that, I’m a 3.5mm reactionary.

Ooh! I’m finally cool. Thank goodness for Apple.

I always thought you were taller.

Sorry. Even Apple can’t make me cool.

I wasn’t down playing anything, I was wondering if anyone has noticed anything in their daily lives. Was just curious.

Thanks for the info on Apple, I didn’t know that’s how it works or why people buy their products.

Their products are a prime target of the tariffs though, so it wouldn’t be at all surprising if the recent price increases were part of that. Just not to the degree they did go up.

I’ll give an answer to the tariff impact. Not daily life, but measurable.

In January the price per Metric ton of steel was around $700. Global prices varied from $550 (China) to $650 (Europe) so the net import price was roughly similar in the US.

Today that price stands at about $970. So prices have seen a roughly 40% bump since the tariffs. Now if you see from this chart, global prices have not tracked with this, unlike the historical trend where US steel prices were very close, though often slightly higher, to other countries.

So this piece jump will show in anything that uses steel, or in employment in steel consuming industries. Which is why it gets fuzzy, how do you track a 40% raw material jump at the consumer level? Even something like industria construction doesn’t track 1:1 with steel prices.

Given that many steel consuming companies are smaller, sub 500 employees, this will hit especially hard. The net effect is likely to be less consumer price increases and more scaling back or closing of US companies, the exceptions being energy and construction. So projections are for net job losses in total of 150-200k. Which is to say that if the optimistic projection of 30k new steel jobs is met, then we still see from 6-8 jobs lost in downstream industries for every one added to steel.

That’s the real consumer impact.

In my daily life no, but I’m not a business owner.

NPR Marketplace has been doing a good shop contacting small business owner impacted by the tariffs, most of whom voted for Trump. Many of them have laid people of or are expecting to do so if their exemption requests is refused.

Something like 38,000 request for exemption have been filed. (A typical exemption is I need steel part made of certain type of steel with +/- 1 mm tolerance and only a German or Japanese firm can make it.) So far only 10% have been heard. The owners are very frustrated because the exemption process is completely black box, they have no clue why some requests are denied and other approved, when they will be completed. It is basically textbook bureaucratic frustration, and not at all sitting well with Republican business owners.

And I bet they still love Trump. I was listening to a farmer being interviewed on NPR a month or so ago. Tariffs are killing his business and he doesn’t believe the business he lost will ever come back. Still supports Trump, this all just takes time he says.

Some still did but others were less enthusiastic

Getting billions in welfare from the government to help lessen the blow probably helps with the farmers.

How does it affect me? I bought a new washer and dryer recently. Looking back at the same ones? The difference between ~ $450 each to $600 each.

It’s certainly impacting the markets, if you have a 401k or any investments at all. Every time the Asian markets try to get anything going, Trump says something moronic about tariffs again and they dip. It’s dulled the US market gains this year too.

According to this article, tariffs are costing an extra $9,000 for anyone building a house. That’s a sizeable amount.

My sister and hubby (Trump supporters) are building a house in Seattle, I’m visiting in couple of months. I don’t think I’ll be able to not pass on this bit of info. Is that evil?

If they’re against being informed, I’d say you know who’s evil :)

Trump supporters in Seattle? Building a house?

Must already be multimillionaires I guess?

Heard on NPR this am that china is considering stopping trade with US companies entirely for some components, which would effectively shut production of those products down.

Who knew trade wars were so complicated?