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355 points Aloisius | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.274s | source
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trhway ◴[] No.44391823[source]
Foundation of US economy is domestic consumption. The current administration has significantly increased taxes - in the form of tariffs - on that consumption. So, the results are and are going to be as expected by any economy textbook.

Additional obvious effect of tariffs is introducing friction, to say the least, into supply chains, similar to how pandemics did at the beginning with about the same result - inflation and loss of productivity.

I personally have no panic here though - during my quarter of century here i noticed that US economy is extremely resilient and can take a lot of hits and damage, can even get knocked down, yet nothing can get it knocked out, and it would always come back even more roaring. It is though very hard on those who gets the sharp end of stick here, i'd wish that the society would get a bit more empathetic to them.

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gotoeleven ◴[] No.44392225[source]
The hope, at least, is that the tariffs will encourage the creation of more, better, jobs in the US through re-shoring. This would, in theory, also increase domestic consumption though the time frame is longer.
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trhway ◴[] No.44392314[source]
>the tariffs will encourage the creation of more, better, jobs in the US through re-shoring

that isn't possible for any production other than a primitive one. The modern production is very complicated, and in particular contains long lists of components, materials, tools, technological stages of production and engineering services. I.e. it is a pyramid with very wide base. Even large country like US is too small to maintain all what is required for any even moderately complicated product. Tariffs are kind of shrinking the pyramid's base - the result is lower pyramid so to speak.

Of course, you and anybody welcome to bring counter-examples.

>This would, in theory, also increase domestic consumption

It would increase prices, and decrease productivity thus resulting in lower consumption.

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gotoeleven ◴[] No.44392759[source]
Dell used to make computers in the US. Then they moved manufacturing to China. You're saying Dell can't make computers in the US ever again? If the economic incentives are there then the supply chains can be (re-)built, right?
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1. trhway ◴[] No.44392996[source]
>then the supply chains can be (re-)built

similar like with networks the value of supply chain grows with its size, ie. more competing suppliers decrease the prices and increase the productivity and efficiency. It also lowers the risks of failing suppliers, and the supply risk is also an additional cost.

So, you suggest to rebuild supply chain hosted by the "technologically civilized" half+ of the world, i.e. by 4B+ of people, in a country of 340M. I.e. a supply chain at least 10x smaller, with at least 10x less competition (or the alternative - same number of suppliers 10x smaller in size). We all know what happens when there is 10x less competition. (and the alternative is even worse - the suppliers being 10x smaller in size is a loss of manufacturing efficiency which comes and goes with the scale of mass production and probably isn't possible at all as small suppliers usually quickly fail and/or scooped by larger ones, especially given that their addressable market is also 10x smaller)