Well good thing Apple just benefitted from a massive tax break so that now they won't have to raise the prices on any of their products, right? Right?
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Trump's Planned Tariffs on Imported Steel and Aluminum Would Likely Apply to Apple Products
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He has a point about domestic production of certain materials, but yeah it's not as bad as he makes it out.
If Trump stood on his head and pooped solid Gold bricks people would find fault and complain at least he has done better than the last guy holding the title.
Sweet.
Globalism is a purely political term. It's economic nonsense to imply a system that does not involve trade or recognize the fundamental importance of trade. Specialization and exchange is one of the basic principles of economics going back to old Adam Smith. Good luck talking around that one.
Mercantilism is also a political term, one that happens to be the polar opposite of globalism. It denotes a system of economic nationalism, i.e., protectionism. So to argue that "globalists" and "mercantilists" are opposed to these tariffs is pure doublespeak. Hiding it behind an Econ degree doesn't help.
We (by which I suppose you mean the U.S.) no more engages in "free trade" than any other country. Just to pick one prominent example, our system of agricultural subsidies provides huge advantages for exporting those goods. How, I wonder, do the receiving countries feel about their domestic agricultural industries having to compete with subsidized U.S. agriculture? Pretty easy answer on that one; they create their own support system, and tariffs are hardly the only means for doing so.
Your stock example is a real head-scratcher. No idea how this pertains to this discussion, but it seems to imply that economics is a zero-sum game. Which, of course, it is not.
At one time most American's supported a ban on same sex/inter-racial marriage, slavery, etc....Just another reason to get a lot of hits on Macrumors from Trump Deranged people,
and another excuse for Tim Cook to raise prices and have a scapegoat.
Btw, liberal Democrats mostly support this, NOT Republicans! There's your irony of the day.
But despite the comments here, most Americans in general support this, whether Europe or Canada or China likes it or not.
Those positions were not right or good for the public even with support from 'most Americans'.
Except judging by my quest to buy a good tea kettle, after my newest Chinese made but American brand name "stainless steel" one rusted since I got it for Christmas... and going by the product reviews on Amazon for all the replacements I'm evaluating, Chinese steel rusts when it is supposed to be "stainless".
As someone who watched my mom get 20 years from her vacuum cleaners and small appliances when they were made in the USA, to now seeing our family have to replace appliances that are barely a year old, I think China isn't doing anything better besides making stuff to clog our landfills and theirs faster. Yeah, cheaper, sure. Better, no. We've rigged all of our values and our entire economy to fill landfills faster and put more people out of work. Fair trade my azz. There's little fair about any of it. The customer gets shafted over the long term and wages go down and job opportunities dry up.
They aren't finding other things to do with their talents. Where are these great free or affordable retraining opportunities I keep hearing so much about? People whose towns and livelihoods that revovled around an industry that shuts down and goes overseas within the space of a year don't just miraculously find another job after a few night classes somewhere. They can't just pack up and move to where the jobs are. Who would want to buy a house in a dying town? How will they afford new housing in a new town or city when they can't sell their existing home? How do they go about getting a new education when they struggled through school the first time in a poor district and now are adults with families to feed?
What's the answer? Welfare? Go on to one of these towns and see what's happening to people who have nothing to do but live for a pittance from the government. Or grow up like I did where these folks resettle only to end up foreclosed on with their stuff out on the street because they can't keep up with the loss of jobs to other countries or wage competition due to illegal immigration.
I now live in a comfortable semi rural suburb in one of the wealthiest counties in the US. If I didn't have family in the steel towns and didn't grow up with kids from the coal towns, I would be easily dismissive of the struggles I've never seen firsthand and only see in newspapers and upvote your post.
Before you jump to conclusions, I did not vote for Trump. I'm still not entirely convinced he's all there. You can be a Democrat and have voted for Hilary and still see that something's broken and things aren't running the way the professors at the universities tell you they ought to. The real world is a messy hands-on lab and most especially when it comes to economics.
I can't dismiss the observation that once a product I value and respect starts getting made in China or with mostly Chinese parts, it stops being reliable and long-lived. Lol, excepting iPhones.
Again, this is my experience as a consumer. I may pay less at each purchase but over the course of five years I end up paying much more and taking more dead appliances and aquarium equipment to the dump. Even the repair shops often won't touch this junk.
I’m sure the uninformed just what to continue to let China price dump for another 30 years. Why are other alleged free trade countries allowed to setup up protection barriers? Once the US decides to fight back people want to go cry to the WTO. Hilarious.
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That is a concern. There are a lot of variables and factors to consider. Economics always did make my head explode in college. There are too many ways to do harm when you're trying to do good.
2/10 of 1% on items that have profit margins that are astronomically high? Really, an iPhone X costs around $300 to make by all accounts, but even if that were $500, they are selling them for $1,000. Let's just go with the phone costs $500 to make right now including all labor of assembling, shipping, selling, etc., add in the tariff and it would cost an additional $10 to make, meaning it would cost $510 at most and that is probably a bit high.
Now, I don't think the tariff is a good idea for a variety of reasons, but let's not pretend that it is going to have a huge impact to the cost of most devices. And in the end it won't encourage manufacturers to build here instead of overseas.
Now, I don't think the tariff is a good idea for a variety of reasons, but let's not pretend that it is going to have a huge impact to the cost of most devices. And in the end it won't encourage manufacturers to build here instead of overseas.
We must look inward: we all want stuff to cost less, but we also want it to be well made and last a long time. These desires are fundamentally incompatible for most consumer products. The demand-side drives the product decisions that companies make more so than "it's made in China so it's cheap ****". As you note, iPhones are highly reliable, made of premium materials, and made in China. It's not surprise that it's a quite expensive product.
He's so funny, he mentioned India having huge tax on Harley Davidson's but he failed to mention that almost every bike sold in India is also assembled in India so it is never in effect. What a clown
So now Republicans not only feel that that Government should interfere with business (Delta), but they no longer believe in free trade. Guess what happens when we start putting tariffs on stuff, these other countries will start putting tariffs on our stuff.
If you really think this would make Apple change suppliers to those American made raw materials, you are sadly mistaken. If the tariffs are high enough and if they apply to all imported aluminum, not just the raw materials, the most action Apple would take is probably transition to other "slave labour derived materials in countries with no human rights," as you would say. Unless The US government is willing to tax all countries that produce said raw materials cheaper than the US, I doubt this will make any difference.
