Quote (thesnipa @ Apr 7 2025 10:52am)

hey i saw that and agreed too. people will be happy to pay the tariff tax on the corners of their finances if it hurts the investment class more. sure there's 5d chess theories about the rich holding cash to buy up the crash, but right now Tennessee plumbers aren't freaking out, its New Jersey brokers.

Quote (SBD @ Apr 7 2025 10:56am)

I don't think that's necessarily true, a significant amount of low cost products come from overseas. Dollarama does exceptionally well during recession but all its items are overseas cheap manufactured items. China, Cambodia, Vietnam, India, just look at the tags on any of your cheap walmart clothing. You can say, well that's not core like food, but it is everyday spending, and a small hit obviously already hurts this people enough.

I think it very much will have an impact, and the attempt to downplay it is just service to a party that's causing more havoc than anyone originally anticipated and its just a cope to say it won't. Look at almost every product distribution company that does well during recessionary pullback periods, its ones that carry ultra cheap manufactured items from overseas.

Quote (Goomshill @ Apr 7 2025 10:07am)

What are the biggest sectors its going to hit? Luxury goods like consumer electronics for sure, which almost everyone already has an only looks to upgrade, it will hurt imported vehicles that people can delay buying. Theres plenty of cheap clothing / shoes / plastics that will get more expensive but won't hurt people much given the infrequency it can be bought. Eggs famously saw very inelastic consumer demand despite their wild increase in price because food is a staple, but its also something we produce domestically. Gas, oil, electricity. Rent prices. But there will still be classes of goods that have fairly uniform demand but are imports, like coffee.

I think the people at the lowest rungs will realize pretty quickly the stuff that doesn't affect them. Its not their stocks, not their multinational business, not their BMW, not their leather products or gemstones or bicycles or rugs. There will be downstream effects of industrial crop imports used for feed/materials/fabrics, or machinery or mineral products, but that's where the price inelasticity of retail prices to tariffs from Trump's chart is actually a real factor. I mean holy shit, an atomizing humidifier retails for $90 when its made with chinese plastic worth a few cents and an ultrasonic piezoelectric transducer that costs 50 cents. I'm pretty sure it could be assembled in America

Quote (SBD @ Apr 7 2025 09:56am)

Newsmax is in the top 25 US ratings , its about half of CNN's rating so its still certainly smaller but fairly large still in its reach.

Also note worthy, might see a surge in viewership in this and next months ratings since Trump just endorsed it.

Quote (MadMan87 @ Apr 7 2025 10:15am)

I don’t consider it mainstream. In fact I personally never heard of it until just now. Had to look it up.

Quote (SBD @ Apr 7 2025 11:16am)

You might not, but it's still within the top 25 in overall ratings, much higher obviously if you just do news ratings then its within top 10.

Quote (MadMan87 @ Apr 7 2025 10:18am)

Yes but when 6 outlets hold 99% of American media coverage it’s irrelevant. Buzzfeed is also popular as is Vox and no one considers them either.

Quote (SBD @ Apr 7 2025 11:09am)

I think this is a downplay, I come from rural farmland before the north and dollarama and walmart were the place to be. Its your one-stop shop when times are tough and its all imports. If used cars go up in price because new cars become more unaffordable for the middle-class taking used away from the lower class that hurts even more.

Again, from a pure dollar value, yes obviously those that have wealth have the most to lose, from an impactful amount, the poor will be hit the hardest because what we deem as insignificant is significant to them.

I don't think you're going to see those cheap department stores stocked up with American made items all of a sudden. You will never get that cheap because of labour laws, safety, etc. Even with a sizable terrif, its still going to be cheaper to be made overseas in countries with essentially slave labour.

It might feel good as a impoverished person to see big numbers like 6.9 trillion lost on Wall Street, but I doubt anyone of wealth lost sleep. Prices go up slightly at walmart and rent suddenly looks harder to hit, you will lose sleep. Shit typically rolls down-hill and its almost always the poor that will suffer. I don't have any reason to suspect otherwise here.

Quote (thesnipa @ Apr 7 2025 10:31am)

clothes are about the only sector that i see really hitting the common man, elsewise i think they'll get sticker shock from price increases on goods they may otherwise buy but will skip this time. (cheap electronics, etc).

in the long run it's not poor US people vs rich US people. its Poor resolve vs Chinese resolve. China seems to be playing tough atm, they want to double down AND are telling people IP theft is open for them. a tump double down may not even be in their short term interest. i honestly think in a hard quick recessionary period they might not last even a month, they simply have too many mouths to feed. US Poor people can last a month. its gonna be a bumpy ride or all sides tho, nothing about this has quick fixes unless both sides back down to pre-tariff levels, and trump wont imo.

Quote (SBD @ Apr 7 2025 11:50am)

It all feels like an amplified dejavu for me with China.

Quote (Goomshill @ Apr 6 2025 04:36pm)

Lets say the Widget Corporation of America in Skokie Illinois makes widgets
It decides to ship its jobs overseas where widgets can be made and imported cheaper than producing locally, then sell them cheaper and double its profit margin. The widget makers in the US lose their jobs, consumers save a bit on widgets and widget executives double their salaries. Investors pour money into the WIDGT stock and the index rises at 4x the rate of inflation. Soon forerign investors and foreign executives are involved and the Widget Corporation of America merges with a chinese conglomerate. Soon all the savings are passed onto some upper class of chicom billionaires, who ship their jobs out to vietnam. Americans pay slightly less for widgets but the only job they can get is stocking widgets onto shelves at costco

Trade protectionism can't be calculated on reciprocal tariffs alone. Trade imbalance might not be a real measure either, see Lesotho, but you simply cannot quantify the chinese undermining of American markers by any realistic metric. How do you add up the effects of tariffs, subsidizing electric cars, dumping cold rolled steel, operating without living wages or worker safety or pensions or protecting the environment.

We couldn't afford to continue playing the zero sum game of free trade. We were losing and getting hollowed out. Does that mean the blunt instrument of tariffs will solve it? Doubtful. And it may do more harm, and the worst scenario is Trump's plan implodes and hes forced to rescind them after damage is done. I don't know how it will end. Its experimental surgery to solve a chronic condition