Amazon To Display Tariff Costs For Consumers, Report Says (punchbowl.news) 518
An anonymous reader shares a report: Amazon doesn't want to shoulder the blame for the cost of President Donald Trump's trade war.
So the e-commerce giant will soon show how much Trump's tariffs are adding to the price of each product, according to a person familiar with the plan.
The shopping site will display how much of an item's cost is derived from tariffs -- right next to the product's total listed price. In response, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said: This is hostile and political act by Amazon. Why didn't Amazon do this when the Biden administration hiked inflation to the highest level in 40 years? Update: Amazon is considering showing a tariff surcharge on items sold via its site for ultra-low-price items, called Haul, the company said. "This was never a consideration for the main Amazon site and nothing has been implemented on any Amazon properties," the company added.
So the e-commerce giant will soon show how much Trump's tariffs are adding to the price of each product, according to a person familiar with the plan.
The shopping site will display how much of an item's cost is derived from tariffs -- right next to the product's total listed price. In response, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said: This is hostile and political act by Amazon. Why didn't Amazon do this when the Biden administration hiked inflation to the highest level in 40 years? Update: Amazon is considering showing a tariff surcharge on items sold via its site for ultra-low-price items, called Haul, the company said. "This was never a consideration for the main Amazon site and nothing has been implemented on any Amazon properties," the company added.
Oops.... (Score:5, Insightful)
That may make clear what is happening and who actually pays the tariffs to some of the dumber parts of the population.
Re: Oops.... (Score:3)
What if the price before tariffs drops by the tariff amount? Will Amazon tell you that too?
Re: Oops.... (Score:5, Funny)
What if the price before tariffs drops by the tariff amount?
Yup, I'm sure this will happen: Chinese sellers will reduce their price by 245% - meaning they'll pay you to buy their merchandise!
See, that's the kind of genius math I came to expect from Republicans!
It's still not blunt enough (Score:5, Insightful)
You have to absolutely beat people over the head with reality these days because there is so much insane propaganda out there.
Years ago I had to go to a physical therapist and they had the regular morning news on a TV while he was showing me some exercises.
It was like watching Fox News for Christ's sakes but it was just the regular local news. Years ago some asshole billionaire bought up all the local news stations and turn them into Fox affiliates and they're just chock-full of right wing political insanity.
Never mind that the number one TV shows everywhere are copaganda that would make the writers of Dragnet blush.
If you're going to counteract that you get a few tenths of a millisecond per year to do it and you have to do it with a sledgehammer's Grace and subtlety
Re:It's still not blunt enough (Score:4, Interesting)
Years ago some asshole billionaire bought up all the local news stations and turn them into Fox affiliates and they're just chock-full of right wing political insanity.
Yeah, everyone likes to blame Reagan for eliminating the fairness doctrine which didn't really do anything, nobody wants to blame Clinton for signing the TCA which allowed media consolidation. But in this case, he's the bigger villain, and about 99 times more responsible for the rise of Faux News than anyone else except Murdoch.
Re:Oops.... (Score:5, Insightful)
That may make clear what is happening and who actually pays the tariffs to some of the dumber parts of the population.
Because a tariff is basically a sales tax at the national level, it should be displayed on sales receipts in the same way.
Re:Oops.... (Score:5, Informative)
Opposition to these stupid new taxes isn't partisan. We'll all be paying them, regardless of who we voted for.
And of course Amazon already tells you the sales tax you're paying.
Re:Oops.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Opposition to these stupid new taxes isn't partisan. We'll all be paying them, regardless of who we voted for. And of course Amazon already tells you the sales tax you're paying.
One of the question marks about this bit of tomfoolery is that a large number of people might simply stop buying things other than what they need to just live.
This is just conjecture now, but I liken it to my response to egg prices. After a certain point, I just quit eating them. So they can charge 10 Kilobucks for one egg - that doesn't mean much if we stop buying them at all.
So aside from just inflating costs, retaliatory tariffs cutting into American product export sales, there is a good chance that belt tightening as in buying as little as possible could be another kick in the US economy's crotch. For as mighty as the USA is, we can't just take on the entire world this way.
Re: Oops.... (Score:5, Insightful)
You may not need eggs, but your favorite restaurants probably still need them. We found we could live without them, until it was time to bake home made brioche.
People will have to pay more for essentials that are manufactured abroad. That is a loss of purchasing power, and disposable income. Eliminating purchases of unnecessary items can only free up so much. The tariffs will have inflationary effect on essentials, too. Stores may stop importing them if their customers can't afford as many if them as before. Foreign factories may furlough or shut down, without any domestic capacity to readily replace them. Be ready for literal bread lines. Ot brioche, in the case of eggs.
Re: Oops.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Oops.... (Score:4, Insightful)
If not one can afford the food, they'll close shop.
Re: Oops.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Welcome back to American style slavery but this time, the owner doesn't have to worry about your welfare.
Re: Oops.... (Score:5, Informative)
Also as as soon as bird flu starts going around (Score:4, Interesting)
Right now small flocks are pretty safe because they're just aren't a lot of them. Also nobody's craming a ton of chickens into a coup trying to make an egg-laying operation. It's really just a bunch of hobbyists and maybe the occasional small farmer selling boutique eggs at the Farmers market.
This is another example of libertarian types not understanding how anything works or why it works that way and just wanting to imagine they can do everything themselves. Human civilization is not an accident.
Re: (Score:3)
Right! But we have idiots at both ends -- the naiveté of thinking raising chickens because eggs are unaffordable is something *other* than subsistence farming, coupled with blithe ignorance from every level about bird flu
Re:Oops.... (Score:5, Informative)
is that a large number of people might simply stop buying things other than what they need to just live.
That is one of our economists' greatest fears, since it's how a deflationary spiral starts.
After enough people stop buying: overall economic activity drops across the board which results in a feedback loop -- the lost profits from customers no longer buying causes producers in those industries to cut their spending which result in unemployment and more and more consumers stop buying, Then you quickly have a massive collapse of the whole economy..
Re:Oops.... (Score:4, Insightful)
And that, right there, is the reason why everyone is talking recession. Because that's exactly what is already happening. And soon it won't even be a choice for a lot of stuff because the retailers stopped ordering because they didn't want to pay the tariff on things nobody is going to buy at the price they'll have to mark it up to.
Retail is going to crater. And it starts in a week or so.
Re:Oops.... (Score:5, Informative)
The money has to come from somewhere, and yes supporting higher income taxes vs taxation via tariff or some other means is partisan.
No it's not there are plenty of purely economic reasons to not support tariffs, I mean how can we say this when the conservative mantra for 50+ years has been "tariffs bad, free trade good". Also this approach came to conservatives through the teaching of people like say, noted hippie Milton Friedman. Is what he said not true now? If we are abandoning that then just let me know.
well it could if it was put in place in a consistent manner and left in place
There's no evidence of this. What it does do is *buy time* for your industry to catch up and that is usually coupled with domestic investment to increase production. Without that it's just extra taxes
I guess in her magical thinking companies pass on tariff costs but the don't pass on the cost of corporate tax rates?
They can't so easily pass on corporate taxes because it's different. These are different things. Two things can share a category and still be quite different in effect. Would you rather get shot with a .22 or a .50 cal?
We need to turn away from being specialists in things like software, education, AI, etc.
Turn away from the things that the USA is best at and created, what, 4 or 5 trillion dollar companies?
Turn away from education? As a nation state? Do you want to just collapse? China isn't turning away from education... hmm...
These are all dead ends because compute gets more availible and cheaper this stuff is easily replicated by well anyone.
It's just a natural law of the universe that compute gets cheaper with no effort. Those same American companies they had nothing to do with making it cheaper. Got it.
Both parties are running around bemoaning interest rates
Are you arguing against the independence of the Fed? Well you are a Trump supporter so I certainly can't expect you to try to understand interest rates or central banking.
The future of economic power is in the production of basic essentials that people will always need.
Is it? Why? Those tend to be the lowest margin, lowest growth industries and American workers are far too educated and productive to basically sew clothes. Also the USA already a world leading producer in food, medicine and energy. You just want textiles I guess? We import food because we are rich and like variety not for sustenance, we grow plenty.
We can cut the bullshit around ASML etc, too. China absolutely can just go take Taiwan and we probably could not stop them even now, at least not for a price we are willing to pay.
We absolutely could if we wanted to and ASML is like 10k miles from Taiwan. What we had before was called "a deterrnet", the economic cost would have been extremely high for China, take that away and war gets more likely.
Sooner or later they are going to want to leverage their advantage in basic essentials production by integrating and optimizing it with the most advanced technology.
And we do that by abandoning software and education. lol
Trump is responding, that alone is something.
No it isn't, i'm sorry but this is the dumbest excuse for Trump that you all are huffing on. Doing a bad thing usually is worse than doing nothing. We all intuitively understand this and you do to.
Re: Oops.... (Score:5, Insightful)
"guess in her magical thinking companies pass on tariff costs but the don't pass on the cost of corporate tax rates?"
Costs are deductible from taxes. You only pay on profits. Ipso facto, higher corporate taxes never have to be passed on to the customer.
Except for things that have national security (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because of automation. It means that even if the factories come back the jobs won't. The only reason China and India have widespread manufacturing jobs if they have mass unemployment so they can treat people very very badly and pay them very very little. They can also dump chemicals into their groundwater. If you take that stuff away people just don't automated factories.
So for something like computer chips yeah, we want local manufacturing because it's a national security risk. It was somebody... I think his name started with a B... Who had a plan to do something about producing computer chips locally. But I hear the plan got shut down by some other guy who's in charge now.
Trump isn't responding to anything. He just wants to create a national sales tax so that you will pay his taxes. The 1% pay very little taxes as a percentage but because they have such insane amounts of money and wealth and power as a raw dollar amount they still pay a lot of taxes and they want to take those taxes and make you pay them instead.
You are literally advocating for Donald Trump to make you pay his tax bill. Just to be clear that makes you a sucker.
Re:Oops.... (Score:5, Interesting)
This entire discussion and frankly the outrage at the tariff situation is entirely manufactured by the media and big international business to hurt the presidents agenda.
It's the economy. Biden lost the election because he was rightly or wrongly blamed for inflation, job cuts, and a perception of a souring economy. Now it's Trump's turn to be blamed, rightly or wrongly.
The big difference is that Biden didn't do much. Perhaps that is something valid to blame Biden for. However, Trump intentionally, forcefully, and unilaterally tanked the economy. As the surveys are now showing, most Americans outside the Republican base now recognize the prospects for stagflation with both a recession and inflation, and they are largely blaming Trump.
Trump and the base have cried fake news so many times already that the excuses sound fake.
Re:Oops.... (Score:5, Insightful)
This entire discussion and frankly the outrage at the tariff situation is entirely manufactured by the media and big international business to hurt the presidents agenda.
Yes, it's all one massive conspiracy to hate on the orange God-King, and couldn't possibly be because farmers are already getting bankrupted due to retaliatory tariffs and their market for pork and soybeans disappearing, and we're about a week away from product shortages and layoffs and furloughs across the logistics industry.
You fucking delusional cultists. The outrage at the tariff situation is that it's entirely manufactured by one idiot who has no idea what he's doing, and millions of people are suffering because of it. You may not see it yet, but you will.
Re:Oops.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Trump is responding, that alone is something.
Response for response's sake is just about the stupidest foreign policy one could take up.
A valid definition of stupidity is acting without asking "what happens after that" first - which is exactly what this administration is doing. They aren't thinking of the effects, and it shows every time they take action, and then there is counter-action that punches them in the balls and they have to cave in like a poorly engineered blood diamond mine.
Hey let's put ridiculous tariffs on Canada for no reason! Whoops, they're going to put excise taxes on energy for the Northeast and upper midwest! Backsies!
Hey let's put ridiculous tariffs on every country in the world! Whoops, bond holders started liquidating US treasuries sending the 10Y note yields spiking, and we have about $6T of bonds coming due this year which will have to be revolved at those higher interest rates now. Backsies!
Hey let's just make shit up about how many "deals" we're making without ever actually announcing anything specific - nobody will see through that obvious lie! Whoops, China just publicly said they aren't talking to anyone, and they aren't calling anyone, and said the only way out is for Trump to back the fuck off. I wonder what happens next?
"Responding" without having a real plan, isn't responding. It's purified stupidity.
Re:Oops.... (Score:5, Informative)
I've already been in favor of referring to it as a Federal Sales Tax and for this sort of reason. Because effectively that's what it is.
Re:Oops.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Except one not so minor problem... there is no alternative. Or to be more direct, one of the following is true
1. There quite literally is no alternative what so ever
2. The alternatives are in other countries, none exists in the US
3. If there is a US version, tariffs would have be around 1000% or more to make it cost effective to do it in the US
4. The US alternatives are more expensive and shittier, so the solution is to simply not buy at all and let small businesses go bankrupt.
So good luck. Amazon will ignore your stupidity and just list the tariff prices because that's far easier then spending several trillion to replicate what the Chinese have built over 2 decades with millions of people and specialists.
Re:Oops.... (Score:5, Insightful)
[...] or other, friendlier countries not run by assholes.[...]
Is that why tariffs were also placed on the closest US economic ally, Canada?
Re: (Score:3)
Are you asking for a breakdown of every penny of the sales tax, perhaps?
Re:Oops.... (Score:5, Informative)
The reason to break it out is so you can see it if you have to pay it. If you are in the USA it will help you tell how much of your purchase was from a local source vs imported as even your "Made in the USA" products may be manufactured from some imported parts. It will also be good as those of us not in the USA will be able to confirm we have not been charged it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What's more ridiculous is that we are going to be paying sales tax on the tariff value. Instead of sales tax being simply on the inherent value of the object, now we have this artificially added value (tariff) being added that makes the value of an item appear higher than it should... Sales tax shouldn't be also on the tariff amount or taxes paid to the federal government!
Re: (Score:2)
From the perspective of how things work, where do YOU think fees show up? If the vendor is getting hit by them, then sure, the vendor can list these things. On the other hand, third party sellers that sell on Amazon(or any other site) will also have things like what fees are charged by Amazon, and those will not be posted. You just don't like that Trump is being called out for what he and he alone is doing to add to inflation.
Re:Oops.... (Score:4, Funny)
Sooo, if you are concerned about that, why do you want tariffs? Tariffs are about keeping goods flowing. You should campaign for a complete stop of imports from China! I guess you are not smart enough to see how things actyually work...
Here is a hint: Most Chinese products are not made by children. For one, the Chinese do not have that many children. For another, most of them go to school. Yes, I understand that getting an education is an alien concept for you as is doing basic math or basic reasoning.
Re:Oops.... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Oops.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, these tariffs have stopped goods from flowing, because nobody wants to pay triple. The large retailers have cancelled orders because they don't want to pay triple, and know their customers will not pay triple.
We're going to see the downstream effects of this in about a week. Right now there is 40% less container volume running through the Port of Los Angeles, which is the busiest cargo port in the nation. Which means right now there is 40% less trucking coming out of the Port of Los Angeles. Which means there is 40% less stuff arriving at retail distribution centers, and subsequently there will be 40% less on the shelves.
And this is just the start. Next week there will be even less cargo arriving. And it won't stop if Trump relents on the tariffs - it takes two weeks to get a cargo container ship from China to the US, meaning that we still won't have any of that stuff for weeks after he folds like a cheap tent, because we all know he will.
He has absolutely no leverage over China right now, and China knows it. They're meaning to make it painful for him, because some things are absolutely universal across languages, and "fuck around, find out" is one of those universal things.
Trump fucked around, and he needs to find out. And that starts real soon now, and the rest of us are along for the ride.
Tired of all the winning yet?
Re:Oops.... (Score:5, Informative)
Er, tariffs are a protectionist tool. They are used (when used by someone who knows how tariffs work) to deincentivize imports in favor of domestic production. That is, plain and simple, putting up a barrier to trade. It doesn't get any more simple than that.
Your focus on the idea that a small tariff has less impact than a large tariff -- and therefore can be considered to have no impact at all -- is a red herring, and smacks of Trump's stated belief that the economy was stronger back in the era when the govt made its revenue via tariffs instead of taxes -- which of course is a childishly incorrect view of how the economy works (which is par for the course for Trump), since tariffs function as a flat tax, and flat taxes are regressive, and make the rich richer and the poor poorer. (Which is part of why he likes them.) Using tariffs in place of an income tax is also a self-defeating plan; the govt loses more and more revenue as production moves locally.
As has been pointed out ad infinitum here on /. and everywhere else, for the last 50 years, essentially all economists considered it an unquestioned truism that tariffs are bad and free trade is good. Tariffs depress all economies; open markets boost all economies. Then Trump comes along and believes that he knows better than all the people who understand the economy -- including the 16 Nobel-winning economists who warned of this happening before his election?
Re:Oops.... (Score:5, Informative)
I notice that your list doesn't say shit about child labor in the USA [epi.org]. Consequently it is political cheerleading horse shit. Compare to the CIA world fact book, which admits [cia.gov] that the USA is a money laundering center, drug trafficking center, and consumes most of the illegal drugs.
In the US right now we have children working at meat packing plants. If you actually cared about child labor, or about the USA, you would start by caring about that. Fuck your performative bullshit.
Re:Oops.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Florida allows parents to coerce their 14 year olds to pick veg and fruit. The parents are under massive economic pressure to coerce their children. Education is historically the way out of familial poverty like this, which is exactly why public education is being strategically weakened
Re: (Score:3)
I'm acquainted with a man who's now in his late seventies who back when we were closer acquaintances would remember fondly going to pick fruit and harvest other agricultural produce in the summers. This is despite the existence of the Company Store model where at the end of the summer he had almost nothing to show for his back-breaking work.
It didn't make any damn sense to me unless he had a girl in the work-camp that was willing to give him a go and he simply didn't talk about that part anymore. Otherwis
Re: (Score:3)
She's right. Kids need to do shit jobs so they understand that work isn't just sitting behind a desk. It's all the little things that keep society running: cleaning bathrooms, sweeping/mopping floors, clearing of weeds from fields, removing crap from storm drains, slicing deli meat for customers, etc. None of these are glamorous
Re:Oops.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, it's one of the reasons, but not THE reason.
The main reason is that an informed and educated electorate by-and-large doesn't vote for any of this shambolic horseshit we're seeing. Education teaches how to think critically, and that's anathema to right-wing populist bullshit - a little critical thinking and it all unravels as having no intersection with easily observed reality.
As the population has become better educated, they stopped voting for regressive racist / sexist / homophobic / transphobic / isolationist / nationalist garbage. That's why public education needs to be gutted in the far-right mind. It's all about grasping at power for them.
Re: (Score:3)
How well did totally disrupting and then trying to restart supply chains during COVID work out for you?
Re:Oops.... (Score:5, Informative)
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2023%2F04%2F27... [npr.org]
"In states like Iowa, Missouri, Ohio, and Arkansas, newly passed or pending laws allow companies to hire children without work permits and allow children to work longer hours under more dangerous conditions in places like construction sites, meat packing plants, and automobile factories."
You really don't care about children, you just want to pwn the libs, but you are failing in that, because the fact is your side is the bad side.
Re:Oops.... (Score:5, Informative)
No other country has been stupid enough to just put down a blanket tariff on EVERYTHING from another country. Setting a tariff to help balance demand for domestic vs. foreign has been around for a long time, but it's LOW, something like a 4-5% tariff is generally enough to take care of that. Oh, the USA is selling it for 10% less than our domestic stuff, but then the transportation makes the price difference around 5%, so, set the tariff at 5% for those specific items, and you have price parity.
When your own country does not make or produce a certain thing, then putting tariffs on imports of that thing makes ZERO sense.
Re: Oops.... (Score:3)
Even if you could get that number, how would you apportion it to a specific purchase, and more importantly, how would it inform your decision to purchase the item or not ? It's not like you have a choice of which country of origin to buy the item from, for most items. The manufacturers are the ones making that decision for you, and they made it over a time period of decades. It won't be reversed overnight.
Even many made in USA items are merely assembled from foreign parts. My husband works in manufacturing,
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
He indicated his uncertainty as to the spelling. I won't call you an idiot, but you do seem to be a bit of a jerk.
Re: Oops.... (Score:5, Insightful)
You do know we have (or at least did at the end of the Biden administration) full employment right?
I'm not overly happy with the fact so much of American industry decided to start off-shoring all manufacturing in the late 1980s, early 1990s (which is when this started, not Since October 10, 2000 - the number you're looking for would be "Zero" given that was long after America finished the off shored manufacturing transition), but the fact is America recovered decades ago. And honestly, most of the times of high unemployment since the 1980s can be attributed to psychotic monetarist economic policies - intentionally increasing unemployment and creating recessions in order to control inflation - than off-shoring.
All of these dumbass policies - tariffs, immigrants, etc - are to deal with issues America doesn't have, and are going to cause pain in the short term with no long term benefit. Businesses that rely on low cost electronics and other imported goods will see costs greatly increased, and will lay off Americans or even close due to the issues. Those laid off employees might, in five to ten years, be able to replace their office jobs with jobs in the factories that are supposedly the end point in all of this, but how are they better off in that respect?
* Some reminders: China and immigrants aren't destroying American jobs: America has full employment.
* Schools are not "transing kids", that's virtually impossible. Kids are not getting sex change operations, you'd never stop hearing about the lawsuits if they were. And cis-women are not being assaulted in bathrooms by transwomen (but are being assaulted by transphobes, go figure.)
* Household pets are not being eaten by Haitians.
* Immigrants are not raping their way through our neighborhoods. Immigrants, here legally or illegally, according to every statistical study are lower committers of non-immigration related crime than average Americans.
* "Illegal immigrants" are usually actually here legally. Crossing the border in order to escape persecution is not illegal as long as you present yourself to apply for asylum as soon as possible, and most of those being deported have done exactly that and are being deported back to countries that are dictatorships and/or cartel run. Asylum seekers are not a problem in a country the size of the US.
* Virtually nobody is voting illegally in elections. In the rare cases people have been caught doing so, it's usually Republicans! And when it isn't, it's usually the result of genuine confusion on the part of the voter. Regardless, the number of cases is so rare it's unlikely a single election has been affected by it.
Literally every problem the Republicans are claiming they're trying to fix DOES NOT EXIST. They're lies designed to distract you and justify the unjustifiable.
Re: (Score:3)
Well that's definitely going to change with prices spiking from unreasonable tariffs, isn't it!
Re: Oops.... (Score:4, Insightful)
You had the ability to vote with your wallet, and you chose to move the jobs to China by telling the market you didn't want more expensive, albeit higher quality, goods. If you want to see what American jobs producing American goods will cost, just look at the tariffs.
I'm as guilty as the next guy when it comes to complaining about cheap overseas junk (Wal-Mart etc). But when I see the domestic good priced at three times the price of the imported good, I balk, and end up buying three of the imported item knowing they won't last. Of course I've bought plenty of low-quality, made-in-America goods too; the Chinese learn from the best about cost cutting.
One thing to realize is that Chinese companies are willing to sell us whatever we want, at whatever quality we want, at the price we want. For the last 25 years, we've said bring on the cheap! That's why we've lost jobs.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, you might be too dumb to see this, but the tariffs will be the one, most extreme factor. Everything else is small in comparison.
Re:Oops.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
It might indeed be the biggest part of some disposable electronics junk from China.
Virtually all of the electronics for sale in the USA are disposable junk. Virtually none of them come from the USA, whether they come from China or not. You're asking for empty shelves, and what few things are left to be unaffordable to The People.
Why do you hate The People?
Re:Oops.... (Score:5, Insightful)
empty shelves are HOW you create the opportunity for someone to fill them.
No, they're a way to sucker idiots willing to believe that's what you're trying to accomplish. If you wanted positive, substantive change, you would
1) make a reasonable plan
2) explain this plan to others
3) execute this plan on a rational schedule which permitted the positive effects to occur
Trump doing all this sudden and wishy-washy flip-flopping bullshit has only one effect, causing chaos. Nobody can reasonably make business plans for the future in this environment. Only ignorant ass clowns who think things get done overnight because that's the only part they see can believe that this is an attempt to improve things.
Re:Oops.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, so you think multi-billion dollar factories spring up overnight like crabgrass. And educated people that used to make 6-figure salaries definitely want to go to work running injection-molding machines to make cheap plastic crap in a factory for half the income.
I think we found the flaw in your great plan.
Re:Oops.... (Score:5, Informative)
They would have never sacrificed so much - or ANYTHING - for Kamala.
They couldn't even make the sacrifice of wearing a mask or not getting a haircut in the middle of a pandemic.
Re:Oops.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Then what he should have done, is get the Congress (which his party controls) to write legislation to do that combined with a tariff structure (which is THEIR JOB and not the President's by the way - how's that constitutional textualism working out?) so that the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation can score the policy and tell us what the anticipated results would be.
You know, the legislative process that all taxation and budget bills undergo. Nah, let's just tariff everything unilaterally without any consistency or predictability and crater the economy first; and after we're done picking through the twisted smouldering wreckage we'll eliminate no income tax whatsoever because YOU DO NOT COLLECT TARIFFS ON THINGS PEOPLE DO NOT IMPORT because there's no market for the good at 245% of the cost combined with the easily predicted layoffs.
Idiot.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Because the change in tariffs is (1) rapid, (2) dramatic, (3) unexpected and (4) subject to frequent change. None of that is true for the other taxes you cite. If it applied to those other taxes, or if other countries pulled the same stupid stunt, yes, expect Amazon to reflect that in their pricing displays to try to maintain demand in the face of price instability.
Re:Oops.... (Score:5, Insightful)
If any other country had imposed a rapid, dramatic and unexpected tax increase of this sort on a huge swathe of the goods Amazon sells, you can absolutely be sure that Amazon would have done the same for its consumers.
It's not the mere fact of the tariffs that's the issues. It's that they are, to repeat myself, rapid, dramatic and unexpected:
- Rapid -- imposed with mere days of notice, certainly not long enough to develop alternative in-US supplies
- Dramatic -- very high levels for major suppliers, such that the costs couldn't simply be absorbed by the importer
- Unexpected -- not the fact of the tariffs, but which countries would have what rates, and just how high they would be, was all a shock
Additionally, it's the fact that the tariff regime keeps fucking changing. *That* is the main reason to do this. Amazon is saying "the core price is X. The tariff extra is Y1 today. Tomorrow it may be Y2, a completely different value, and we'll let you know if that happens". Price stability is important for demand, and this is an attempt to distance Amazon from the price instability of the Trump tariff regime.
Re: (Score:3)
Uh.,.. it's been the law that products show their country of origin for far longer than you or I have been alive. What exactly is an executive order supposed to accomplish beyond that?
Meanwhile, Amazon already shows the country of origin on every listing, under (oddly enough) "Country of Origin" under the "Product Information" section. (Of course, they are reliant upon their suppliers to provide this information.
Class act; I'm impressed (Score:2)
To often tax costs are hidden. Great choice.
Oooh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oooh... (Score:5, Insightful)
All the while ignoring that the US is practically the only developed nation to routinely quote prices ex-sales-tax on stickers in stores, a practice that seems wildly antiquated and stupid to European eyes, as it's just such an obvious cheat to make things feel cheaper than they actually are.
Re:Oooh... (Score:5, Insightful)
All the while ignoring that the US is practically the only developed nation to routinely quote prices ex-sales-tax on stickers in stores, a practice that seems wildly antiquated and stupid to European eyes, as it's just such an obvious cheat to make things feel cheaper than they actually are.
No, it allows direct price comparison since sales tax can vary across jurisdictions and Americans realize they will pay sales tax; as well as make you aware of what the government is collecting each sale. Unlike Europe, where the government tacks on 17 to 25% VAT; although some stores show prices ex-VAT, VAT and total price.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The price that is actually hitting your wallet is the price which should be displayed, and everything else is just additional information, which is nice to have, but of not too much of a consideration to your shopping decision.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't mean to be mean, but the notion that this is being done to help Americans see the impact of tax, as opposed to it being done to mask the true price of an item from consumers to make them more likely to buy, seems very much an example of the type 1 thinking you mentioned.
Re:It can matter (Score:4, Informative)
Sales taxes are only one component of the "real costs of the policy choices [consumers] make". There are choices all along the supply chain. And why should consumers be limited to knowing the real costs of the *policy* choices they make? When acting as consumers, people are transferring their money to other entities and individuals, going well beyond the government. If a PE house is making a fortune from my purchase of a gizmo, why is that any less relevant than a tax level? I may want to ensure my money goes to an entity with a lower profit margin, but I don't get all the info I need to make that choice on a sticker (not least, it would be impractical).
You consider yourself all realpolitik, but your view is wildly naive. Your naive view is that this sales tax exclusion from sticker pricing is being done to empower consumers; someone actually versed in the ways of the world would be quick to spot and acknowledge that it's quite obviously being done to con them into thinking prices are lower than they are. This dual aspect of cynicism towards the state and utter credulity towards corporate behaviours is a real hallmark of the modern conservative. It's very funny to people outside the bubble.
Re: (Score:3)
Consumers should know the real costs of the policy choices they make.
Consumers should also be able to do simple arithmetic in their heads.
Re: (Score:3)
“ How much extra are you, personally, willing to pay for the additional labor needed to customize the prices to each location on a multi-store chain?”
Um. Dynamic pricing has been a thing for about two *decades* at this point. The base price for an item frequently varies from store to store, as part of value-maximisation strategies. It’s incredible to think you imagine that stores have uniform pricing by default. Maybe some do as a customer pitch, but most have long ago concluded that the c
Re:Oooh... (Score:5, Insightful)
All the while ignoring that the US is practically the only developed nation to routinely quote prices ex-sales-tax on stickers in stores, a practice that seems wildly antiquated and stupid to European eyes, as it's just such an obvious cheat to make things feel cheaper than they actually are.
Hiding the total cost is very much an American affliction. Tipping is the same, allegedly "optional" but everyone knows it's now obligatory as service staff get taxed on their expected tips. It's all to make the sticker price seem lower so it appears people are richer or able to afford more... but realistically it's just fooling yourself.
It's one of the reasons the cost of living crisis has hit the US so hard... the system of trying to make things look cheap is faltering.
Also, it's not just antiquated to European eyes, pretty much everywhere else as well. South America, Australia, Asia, et al. The displayed price must be inclusive of all applicable taxes, duties, fees and charges... meaning it is the price you buy it for.
Re: (Score:3)
All the while ignoring that the US is practically the only developed nation to routinely quote prices ex-sales-tax on stickers in stores, a practice that seems wildly antiquated and stupid to European eyes, as it's just such an obvious cheat to make things feel cheaper than they actually are.
Europeans apparently can't do grade school math, so they call Americans stupid? I mean you can't make this sort of thing up.
Now I understand why you all find it impossible to work in metric or imperial. Metric only. When I routinely turn out imperial parts when needed on my metric shop equipment, and not think a thing of it, y'all have a limited range of mental ability, and are proud of it.
First off... Europeans do use metric of imperial... in fact they're the only place that does...
Secondly, nice try calling Europeans dumb when you don't even know the US doesn't use the imperial system. The imperial system was defined by the Weights and Measures act of 1824 (UK), some 50 years after the US cut the apron strings. The US uses "United States Customary Units" which predates the imperial system and is why we use different gallons (US gal. is the old wine or Queen Anne gallon, the imperial gall
Re:Oooh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, no mr dipshit, the European system assumes everyone *can* do grade school maths, because it assumes you're capable of starting with the final price and working out what percentage of that was VAT, assuming you give a shit about this.
Eg, I buy something for 15 quid in the UK, I know that £2.50 of that was VAT, because I'm capable of working out that 20% of £12.50 = £2.50, and 12.50 plus 2.50 equals 15 quid.
But here's the crucial point -- virtually no-one gives a shit, and so no-one is forced to fuck about making these calculations if they don't want to. Unlike the US system, where you have to make these calculations if you want to know the final price before you get to the till.
Dangerous (Score:2)
This could provoke Trump to get pissed off.
Re: (Score:2)
It looks like we have found the limit of Trump's influence. Even as POTUS, once it starts to really eat into the bottom line, they will turn on him.
Re: (Score:2)
That may be the intent here. If the quality-level of Trump's politics looks this bad for Amazon, then things are degrading fast.
Re: (Score:3)
Worth remembering that Bezos is one of the billionaires that sponsored Trump's run to power and used his media control to ensure that Americans forgot what had happened and didn't understand what was to happen. This is the point where the insiders are beginning to realize that they have messed up bad.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Dangerous (Score:4, Interesting)
And even then, possibly the most consistent theme in Don's life is betrayal of others. He does it to everyone around him, sooner or later. Wives, friends, "friends", allies, businesses, associates, everyone. And each time, there's another egotistical twat who thinks "I'm too clever, he won't be able to do it to me". So many men like to sneer at the stereotype of women thinking they can "fix" their partners, but this is exactly that behaviour.
Re:Dangerous (Score:5, Insightful)
What doesn't?
When (Score:2, Insightful)
Considering almost all of their inventory was still sourced pre-tariffs, they better not be preemptive on this just to make a quick buckâ¦
Re: (Score:3)
And why would they not? Are you expecing a _business_ not to profit from a business-opportunity? That would be anti-capitalist ...
Re:When (Score:4, Insightful)
One perfectly valid way to price an item is to charge what you expect it will cost to restock it, with some worst-case evaluation thrown in. That is what you do if you prioritise availability.
Re:When (Score:5, Informative)
Most retail businesses will add the tariffs on their existing inventory. This is normal and it's not to "make a quick buck", but to be able to restock. In some cases they may be able to absorb one restock cycle with profits (to get a price advantage over competitors), but given that retail margins are usually low, if something got stupidly high increases like a 20% or 50% tariff, you need to plan ahead or you'll end up understocked
Re:When (Score:5, Insightful)
Most retail businesses will add the tariffs on their existing inventory. This is normal and it's not to "make a quick buck", but to be able to restock. In some cases they may be able to absorb one restock cycle with profits (to get a price advantage over competitors), but given that retail margins are usually low, if something got stupidly high increases like a 20% or 50% tariff, you need to plan ahead or you'll end up understocked
This.
You need to restock using the income you've got from selling your existing inventory. Using debt to purchase stock and hoping to sell it in time to pay off the debt is playing a dangerous game. So expected cost increases will be added ahead of time.
Re:When (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
>"Considering almost all of their inventory was still sourced pre-tariffs"
And they are changing often, so it isn't going to attribute the actual tariff paid on that exact stock, either. It also ignores that there were tariffs before Trump as well. So this will attribute all the expense to him.
Personally, I would love to see *all* things that affect prices, not just import tariffs but also export ones (that we don't control), taxes (not just sales tax), transport, insurance, regulatory expenses, etc. I
Re: (Score:2)
Prices have already been going up based on when products arrived in the USA.
Re:When (Score:5, Informative)
This is a common misconception with how retail works. Think of it like this. Let's say you sell widgets for $10 and buy them for $8, and you have 5 widgets in inventory. That inventory is a sunk cost because you need to keep inventory on the shelves in order to make sales. Now suppose your supplier calls up today and says, "I'm going to have to raise my price of widgets to $12." You decide to keep your price the same. You sell a widget for $10 and then go buy one for $12. You're now in the same position as where you started (you still have 5 widgets in inventory) but you just lost $2. You have to set your prices based on the replacement cost, or else you constantly lose money due to inflation.
Clever Amazon (Score:3)
It's a very defensible position to Trump and his coterie as well: "why, we are only trying to help you. This way, consumers can see what attracts a tariff and what doesn't, and choose to Buy American!!". Obviously, the truth is that consumers will find almost everything has a tariff. But what matters is it's a defensible position, and some of Trump's band are too dim to think this through and realise why these price signals are bad for them.
Re: (Score:2)
But what matters is it's a defensible position, and all of Trump's band are too dim to think this through and realise why these price signals are bad for them.
Fixed that for you. You are completely right that this is a defensible position, even more so as "transparency" was one of the war-cries of the (D/Tr)umb-Administration...
Amazon (Score:4, Interesting)
Filter by country (Score:5, Insightful)
The State of the Slashdot (Score:3, Funny)
You know it's going downhill fast when TFS references as its primary a link something called "punchbowl.news" which appears to be a poorly designed news aggregate site. That is, when it doesn't bail with a 504. But wait, I guess at this point you could consider Slashdot to be a poorly designed news aggregate site, except that it doesn't bail with a 504. Hmm.
Poor Amazon (Score:3)
This is the same Amazon that had $40,000,000 to license a documentary about Milania Trump.
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fco... [theguardian.com]
They don't want blame for higher costs due to tariffs? Screw 'em. The last few items I bought from Amazon were either not the specs that were listed or were very likely outright counterfeit. I was willing to gamble if the price was cheap and hope the value was there, but the prices have been creeping up long before these tariffs were in place.
Stupidity reigns in this regime (Score:4, Insightful)
This is hostile and political act by Amazon. Why didn't Amazon do this when the Biden administration hiked inflation to the highest level in 40 years?
Well golly gee, DEI hire, because Biden didn't deliberately cause inflation to happen. Unlike tariffs which are a conscious, deliberate act, inflation comes about because of a variety of issues, most of which are out of the control of an administration.
And why is it a "hostile" act? Isn't transparency the name of the game? How is Amazon showing the true cost of a purchase a "political" act? Shouldn't people know why their product suddenly went up in cost by 10 - 30%?
It is truly amazing how nothing is ever their fault. Nothing. Their actions are never to blame for anything and calling them out makes you the bad guy.
Uh, no. (Score:4, Insightful)
why is Trump opposed? (Score:4, Interesting)
I've seen people asking Amazon to label whether products were made in America, so they could buy American. Labeling products not made in America with the tariffs that have been applied because they're not made in America seem like the same thing. Not to mention that Trump believes tariffs are beautiful. Why would he object to spelling out which items have tariffs and how much they are?
Amazon Folds to Trump (Score:3)
Re:Tariff calculation. (Score:5, Informative)
Aren't tariffs based on wholesale costs [see link source]? I.E. the cost your retailer pays (say $20) when it is brought to a warehosue and sells to a consumer (say for $150 for example)? If so are they saying they are going to show their costs by showing the tariffs on their costs thus revealing the price they paid? https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thebignewsletter.c... [thebignewsletter.com]
A tariff is going to be passed on in it's entirety unless someone is willing to take a chunk our of their profits. So if an importer pays $20 in tariffs, he has to charge an extra $20 to the distributor, who adds $20 to the price he sells it to the store which adds $20 to the amount he sells the product to you. Something very easy to figure out and add on to say, a pair of sneakers that are imported as a finished product.
I suspect you're thinking along the lines of intermediate products. Bits used to build other things. If a manufacturer builds a widget, chances are that widget will contain an intermediate product like screws, brackets, flanges, capacitors, et al. built by someone else because economies of scale make that more cost effective. Now if there is a new 10% tariff introduced on flanges and each widget uses 3 flanges, that's not flat 10% increase on the total cost of manufacture, but it is an increase in costs. This is a bit harder to show as often this widget is in itself an intermediate product in a whotzit made by someone else (which may also be paying a tariff on screws). The end result is that the whole thing costs more when it gets to a shelf near you, it's just more difficult to determine exactly how much is directly attributable to tariffs.
The kicker is, someone in Belgium makes an identical widget and doesn't pay the 10% flange tariff... So someone making whotzits in Canada has a choice between an American widget or a cheaper European one.
Re: (Score:3)
No.
A tariff is something that the consumer pays for the privilege of buying a foreign product, not something that the foreign producer, or the importer, pays for the privilege of selling it to you.
The tariff is assessed to the importer, sure, but the importer doesn't eat that cost; the importer charges that cost to the consumer.
If the importer doesn't think the consumer will pay, the importer won't bother importing.
Now, there was a bunch of stuff already in the shipping pipeline when the tariffs came down,
Re: (Score:3)
I'm not sure if you're agreeing with me or not.
As I point out, the importer brokers the fee, in that they're the ones that remit it to the government, yes. But they immediately pass that cost on to the consumer, as you say, rather than eating it as a cost of doing business.
So while the tax is assessed to the importer, it is a defacto tax on the consumer (specifically, to encourage them to buy non-tariffed products) rather than a cost to the foreign manufacturer, or to the middle-man importer.