Hasbr-uh-oh - Business and Tariffs Discussion

Platypus Prime

Well-known member
Citizen
I've heard Antarctica has very few investments in it so far, I imagine the local economy would appreciate a wealthy toy company offering to move operations in for pennies on the dollar. The only hangup is that penguins lack of hands makes the assembly a bit tricky.

Seriously, though, there eventually comes a point where 'move to WHERE?' is an issue, if you're always reliant on finding a place where you can get semi-skilled labor for cheap because their economy is behind yours, eventually that's diminishing returns.
 

LordGigaIce

Another babka?
Citizen
I've heard Antarctica has very few investments in it so far, I imagine the local economy would appreciate a wealthy toy company offering to move operations in for pennies on the dollar. The only hangup is that penguins lack of hands makes the assembly a bit tricky.

Seriously, though, there eventually comes a point where 'move to WHERE?' is an issue, if you're always reliant on finding a place where you can get semi-skilled labor for cheap because their economy is behind yours, eventually that's diminishing returns.
Trump still has it in his mind that the world works like it did in the 1920s-1960s where you can just bring manufacturing jobs back because "tariffs." That was his whole thing with iPhones.
"Why can't we just make them here?"
He has the mentality that because car factories got turned into tank and plane factories in WWII that it should be easy to convert factories in the US into iPhone factories. He doesn't understand that iPhones (and most consumer-grade electronics these days) require highly specific industrial processes to make. And if Apple started building that infrastructure in the US now, it would take 20 years before it was even at the level where we could think about moving those jobs to the US.

All of this is to say that the Administration's primary aim seems to be to move jobs back to the US. ofc the GOP 1%er class would love it if they could pay Americans near-slavery level wages, but unfortunately for them most Americans aren't going to go for that, even their most diehard MAGAheads.
So the alternative is to just raise tariffs on American goods being produced abroad to the point even with their cheaper labour, the price about evens out compared to what they'd be if they were produced in the US with minimum wage and other pro-worker laws on the books.

But as I said, industrial processes are highly specialized these days, so even if Hasbro or Apple or whoever just wanted to cave and move production back to the US, they just can't because the infrastructure hasn't been built here and can't be built in a timeframe Trump and co would want.

There's also the minor issue that if the end goal is to just make everything made abroad as expensive as it would be to produce in America and therefore companies should just migrate jobs back over anyway... well... even in a fantasy scenario where that was possible, the end result would be ballooning cost of living prices because now EVERYTHING is more expensive.
 

lastmaximal

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Even that's still being too generous about motives. That seems more likely to be what supporters think (the spin is certainly anchored on it), but the actual motive may be somewhere between just dumb flexing and posturing, and market manipulation (he's made public announcements at least once that "now is a good time to buy" just before rescinding/delaying tarriffs, and in this latest instance at least one person started an account just before the announcement and made millions).
 

LordGigaIce

Another babka?
Citizen
Even that's still being too generous about motives. That seems more likely to be what supporters think (the spin is certainly anchored on it), but the actual motive may be somewhere between just dumb flexing and posturing, and market manipulation (he's made public announcements at least once that "now is a good time to buy" just before rescinding/delaying tarriffs, and in this latest instance at least one person started an account just before the announcement and made millions).
It would not shock me at all if his "Trump Always Chickens Out" stuff was just him manipulating the markets so his buddies can make a quick buck.
 

LBD "Nytetrayn"

Broke the Matrix
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Council of Elders
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I've heard Antarctica has very few investments in it so far, I imagine the local economy would appreciate a wealthy toy company offering to move operations in for pennies on the dollar. The only hangup is that penguins lack of hands makes the assembly a bit tricky.
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