mpantone

DAalseth said:

My systems are Google Free. This isn’t a way to get me excited about Apple Intelligence.

Once again you are NOT the center of the universe. The overwhelming majority of people online have a Google account and use at least some of their services (Search, Gmail, Maps, YouTube).

My guess is that you have watched YouTube video and guess what, Google knows that someone using a particular browser with your IP address block watched some video even if you didn't log into a Google account. Same with seeing a little Google Map widget on some store's webpage. And you've probably purchased something online from a merchant who uses an order fulfillment delivery service that utilizes Google Maps for address location. So even if you don't have a Google account, some merchant knows that DAalseth lives at 101 Main Street Apt 42, Curmudgeonville, USA and passed that information along to UPS.

Whether not any given feature helps out any single individual is irrelevant. What matters is how it addresses a significant portion of the user base. 

Your usage case -- while important to you -- is not the sole one on this planet. We already know that Joe Consumer has started using ChatGPT and other AI chatbot assistants. It's becoming more mainstream every day whether you like it or not.

You hate AI. We get it. Yet having a temper tantrum on an anonymous Q&A forum won't make it go away. There will be more AI in twelve months than today.  And there's no one pointing a gun at your head saying you need to use every single feature on all of your devices. For example, you are free to use Photo Image Cleanup and not use AI Writing Tools. Or you can use Genmoji and not Mail Summaries.

So get used to it or throw all your tech away and go back to chiseling cuneiform on stone tablets and navigating with paper roadmaps you got at the local AAA office.

Enjoy the rest of your day!

    

Congress is not involved in the creation of these recent tariffs. This round of increases is strictly an executive branch action. Your representative or senator did not vote Yes or No on these tariffs. Even Congress understands that a tumbling dollar is not beneficial to the USA in the long run.

Note that the same can pretty much be said most other places. If the US applies a higher tariff on Country A's goods, Country A's electorate doesn't head to the polls to vote whether or not their country should react with a similar tariff on US goods. Nope, their leader typically applies the tariff without voter approval.

Look, the topic of reciprocal tariffs has been beaten to death. Before the current administration, a lot of tariffs weren't reciprocal.

Here's a TIME article from mid February on the topic:

https://time.com/7222082/what-are-reciprocal-tariffs-who-might-be-impacted-by-trump-plan/

Not only did the current administration apply reciprocal tariffs, it subsequently also increased them in many markets. And then escalated tariff wars with certain countries.

Like I have repeatedly said, these tariffs aren't really beneficial from a global economy perspective. And the reasoning behind them is even more debatable. But the calculation itself isn't pulled out of thin air. The logic behind using that particular formula is not sound but that's what the current administration has decided on. They aren't picking percentages randomly out of a fishbowl.

However the main point the Pegatron CEO is making is that the flow of goods between borders will be constrained to the point where American consumers will see some empty shelves. Not every product but for some things yet. My guess is that we'll start to see it in August/September with some back-to-school supplies becoming harder to find, followed by Halloween costumes/decorations, then Christmas decorations will likely get hit hard. The lead time for these wholesale orders is like six months so the Christmas merchandise will be the first major wave under the higher tariffs just due to timing.

I never said the tariff calculations were reciprocal. They are just based on halving the trade imbalance percentage which as I mentioned many economists think is asinine. Your comment is that the tariff calculation was based on nothing. This simply isn't true. They are based on a primitively simple calculation that a ten-year-old could do. You're the one who commented on Charlesn's contribution here.

Let's remember that there were reciprocal tariffs that existed for some products before the current wave.

Reciprocity happens when both countries levy the same tariff percentage on each other. Leaving China out of the discussion, the other countries (and the EU) stated that they were going to increase tariffs on imports coming from the USA to the new levels proposed by the current administration. There's a temporary reprieve right now for many regions -- a stalemate one might say -- but at some point reciprocal tariffs will kick in for both sides. If the USA levies 36% tariffs on Thai imports, Thailand will levy 36% tariffs on USA imports. That's reciprocal. Because Thailand has an interest in protecting its economy and its companies too. 

It's the same with visas. Travel reciprocity is when different places have the same standards. Like the EU waiving visa requirements for US travelers and vice versa.

And yeah, a tariff is basically a federal sales tax without showing up on a store receipt. Governments like revenue that is hidden from plain view for consumers like gasoline taxes, alcohol taxes, tariffs, municipal bond measures, etc.

Mike Wuerthele said:

sdw2001 said:

Oh, look, calling his tariffs “nonsensical” and using scare quotes.  Shocker.

That's because they literally are nonsensical.

They aren't based on anything, they aren't reciprocal by any definition of the word, and the math that they used to derive them makes no sense at all.

And, worst of all, they injure US consumers more than they do anything at all to foreign interests.

They are called reciprocal because when one country applies a tariff to another, in almost all cases, that other country will apply the same tariff. So if Country A levies a 15% tariff on Country B's imports, Country B reciprocates with a 15% tariff on Country A's imports.

There's nothing new about reciprocity between governments. Hell, even interstate wine shipments are governed by reciprocal shipping laws. California wineries can ship directly to consumers in most other states because those states' wineries can do the same and direct ship wine to California consumers.

As for the tariff calculation, there is a formula. It's based on trade balance between imports and exports to a country.

For example, the US imports $136B in products, yet only exports $13 so the trade imbalance is -$123B which equates to 90% (123 divided by 136). The Trump tariff formula just halves that trade balance percentage: 90% / 2 = 45%. So the Trump tariff on Vietnam is 46%.

Thailand: $63B imports, $17B exports, balance -$46B, 72% imbalance pct. Tariff is thus 36%, half of that 72%.

So there is some rudimentary calculation, very crude and basic. Economists don't think it will actually provide any advantage for the US economy. In that sense, yes they are nonsense but the calculation isn't random. It's based on something even if the reasoning for it is defective.

But for sure, US consumers will be paying more for things next year than this year.

The damage to the US dollar's reputation as a reserve currency is by far the more grave effect of these tariffs. Even if all the tariffs were rolled back to more reasonable levels, there's still far less trust by foreign investors in the US dollar and Treasury notes. There has been a significant swing into gold and European bonds, something that will not swing back for years; it will likely happen when a new administration takes over and instills more trust in foreign investors. And let's face it, the rest of the world knows that the current White House administration is very, uh, capricious. There's no stability at all with the current administration, things can be flipped at any given hour. Not being able to plan ahead for the long term will slam the brakes on a lot of dealings with the USA.

The Pegatron CEO is probably right that American consumers will see tightening availability for some items but not all. There's a dropoff in container ship arrivals in the Port of Los Angeles for the upcoming weeks indicating fewer imports from Southeast Asia. A week ago I read some article reporting that Christmas decoration factories in China were idle and some companies hadn't received a single wholesale order from the US during what should be their busiest time for wholesale orders.

Even the service industry (travel, hospitality) is seeing a dropoff in bookings for this summer, including overseas visitors, so growth may come to a full halt. It won't happen overnight but for sure we will be looking at a vastly different economic climate a year from now.