Razer pulls new Blade laptops from its US store amid tariff concerns

[EvilRebar]

- 90 Pause on all tariffs except for China now. Wait I thought tariffs were good and going to bring manufacturing back to the US or... wait what was the argument again?

Also, looks like this is just good old fashioned market manipulation dressed up in jingoism.

I think you believe you're arguing with me, but I'm in favor of as few trade barriers as possible. Frankly we need to retire all of these old men who think that economic prosperity is unskilled workers on assembly lines.

 

[EvilRebar]

Biden was doing "Build, Back, Better", the CHIPs Act...and was actually funding the building of factories, etc in the US and creating a lot of construction / blue collar jobs...to try and get some of that high-tech manufacturing out of Taiwan / China. He didn't just slap a blanket tariff on countries out of the blue and for no reason while expecting American manufacturing to just "spring up out of the ground". They were for specific goods and trying to counter-act the heavy subsidizing China does for BYD EVs and other items. China puts a heavy governmental hand on its own industry.

BBB never passed, and Biden's policies were a hodge-podge of conflicting goals and huge price tags without follow-through. Look how few EV chargers were deployed, how difficult it was to spend IRA and CHIPS funds, etc.

China subsidizes it's industries, but we're also flat out uncompetitive while ALSO subsidizing our stuff. Their budget EVs feel like our luxury models at a fraction of the price. We still kowtow to the 6% of private workers in unions at the expense of the bigger picture.

https://www.marketplace.org/story/2024/05/14/how-tariffs-compare-in-the-biden-and-trump-eras

He was actually trying to help guys like Tesla, Rivian, Ford, Chevy, etc...be able to compete in the EV marketplace without just handing them money straight up. It's more or less how a tariff is supposed to be used since BYD is not competing in a "free market" at all.

Trump is trying to kill the CHIPs Act (ie: remove any help in "building out" a local manufacturing base) or incentive to do so.

There is "helping" and there is "coddling;" our auto firms are hopelessly adrift. They will never compete on a global market and only survive due to protectionism. You can hurt the climate by making foreign EV less competitive, but that's a long term loss

CHIPS was hamstrung by tying the new infrastructure to onerous union and environmental requirements that slowed down these projects to a crawl. Now Trump is raiding the corpse of this failure. The Biden administration scrambled to nominally spend the money by the end of his term, but they didn't make much progress.

A good example of the pointlessness of the last four years (from a substance somewhere):

"While the Inflation Reduction Act was reasonably effective at increasing inflation, it was not very effective at accomplishing its more tangible goals. Take green energy infrastructure, for example. The IRA earmarked $7.5 billion to install hundreds of thousands of electric vehicle charging stations. Two years later, you could count how many of these new, federally-funded chargers had been added on two hands: EIGHT.

The reason for the failure was mission creep, or what NYT podcaster Ezra Klein calls “everything bagel liberalism.” It wasn’t enough to spend billions on new chargers, no; the law also needed to make sure those chargers were installed only by unionized workers, that the component parts be made only in America, and that the chargers’ locations satisfy a complicated set of equity requirements."

 

[GodisanAtheist]

BBB never passed, and Biden's policies were a hodge-podge of conflicting goals and huge price tags without follow-through. Look how few EV chargers were deployed, how difficult it was to spend IRA and CHIPS funds, etc.

China subsidizes it's industries, but we're also flat out uncompetitive while ALSO subsidizing our stuff. Their budget EVs feel like our luxury models at a fraction of the price. We still kowtow to the 6% of private workers in unions at the expense of the bigger picture.

There is "helping" and there is "coddling;" our auto firms are hopelessly adrift. They will never compete on a global market and only survive due to protectionism. You can hurt the climate by making foreign EV less competitive, but that's a long term loss

CHIPS was hamstrung by tying the new infrastructure to onerous union and environmental requirements that slowed down these projects to a crawl. Now Trump is raiding the corpse of this failure. The Biden administration scrambled to nominally spend the money by the end of his term, but they didn't make much progress.

A good example of the pointlessness of the last four years (from a substance somewhere):

"While the Inflation Reduction Act was reasonably effective at increasing inflation, it was not very effective at accomplishing its more tangible goals. Take green energy infrastructure, for example. The IRA earmarked $7.5 billion to install hundreds of thousands of electric vehicle charging stations. Two years later, you could count how many of these new, federally-funded chargers had been added on two hands: EIGHT.

The reason for the failure was mission creep, or what NYT podcaster Ezra Klein calls “everything bagel liberalism.” It wasn’t enough to spend billions on new chargers, no; the law also needed to make sure those chargers were installed only by unionized workers, that the component parts be made only in America, and that the chargers’ locations satisfy a complicated set of equity requirements."

-The two TSMC factories in Arizona show that we are still capable of building stuff relatively quickly (at least compared to most things, there are houses in my neighborhood that are taking longer to build than the TSMC fabs) when we really want to.

Trump understands, in the worst way possible, that to get anything done in the US at this point you have to invoke national security. I wish Biden/Dems had been less concerned about propriety and process and more concerned with getting actual results.

Trump does crappy things the expedient way, while Biden did generally the right thing the slowest way possible.

 

[MaXtor]

So here is the problem. If you need to purchase items at a price that requires slave labor or automation not allowed here in the U.S. then I suggest going to a place this is allowed. If the cost of a "like" item is more because it is made here and not by a nine year old getting a buck a day wage, while the countries we buy these items from rake in trillions of U.S. dollars and give the people that produce the items nothing in return, then it seems the consumers are the issue not the tariffs!

I understand that perspective but you say it as if it's only smartphones and sneakers. It's building supplies. It's light switches. It's flooring. It's wiring. It's doors and windows. It's toilets. It's so much more than "like" items.

I think you're in for a rude awakening if tariffs return in 90 days on a permanent basis for all these countries.

 

[trents]

Do you think maybe all this might some day mean we will be buying laptops made in the USA? Heaven forbid we should think we could actually move that industry back on our shores!!!

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Do you think maybe all this might some day mean we will be buying laptops made in the USA? Heaven forbid we should think we could actually move that industry back on our shores!!!

- No, I don't think it means that at all.

It just means we'll all be buying $1000 Snapdragon Chromebooks made in Vietnam.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

I am amazed how people are crying over this whole thing. For so many years, businesses have been raking in billions of U.S. dollars and paying zero or even some at -% (that is being paid) to import goods from other countries. However, there was only one country out of the 200+ we exported to that was 0% and that was Japan. It is about time that U.S. made goods that are as good or better are priced similarly and that would help manufacturing and industries in the U.S. be more profitable and build more sustainable and well paying jobs for, I don't know, American citizens!

First off, businesses making money selling products customers want and willing trade their money for is how an economy works.

Secondly, trade deficits do not matter. Arkansas has a trade deficit with Texas and it does not matter.

I have a trade deficit with my grocery store. Those commie bastards at Kroger haven't bought anything from me! And it doesn't matter. I am not hurt in any way.

But suddenly, we mention China and people lose all reason. China "stole" our worst jobs by doing them better and/or cheaper than us. Who cares? I don't want to make Nike shoes or iPhone cables. Do you?

But China sells us more stuff than they buy! Yeah because they are poor! Are you mad we're richer than other countries?

These are all totally nonsensical arguments propped up by "China bad" without any additional thought about the actual policy.

 

[toooooot]

I am ready to admit that we cannot make everything at home. But what does it make us if only things we sell is service? What the f are we supposed to do if the ties with China are broken for another reason?
And last but not the least, why are we feeding this monster that never was and will never be friendly to our values or democracy in general? It was a huge mistake making a friend of China. A gamble in attempt to weaken USSR. Gambles work in card games, not in real life. Why do we still have so many crucial manufacturing in a country that could easily become our enemy regardless of how we treat it?
What happens once China gets say 30% stronger, making its army 30% more advanced. Are they going
to threaten and insist on their rights on owning certain territories or will they just take them?

 

[TempleOrion]

I am ready to admit that we cannot make everything at home. But what does it make us if only things we sell is service? What the f are we supposed to do if the ties with China are broken for another reason?
And last but not the least, why are we feeding this monster that never was and will never be friendly to our values or democracy in general? It was a huge mistake making a friend of China. A gamble in attempt to weaken USSR. Gambles work in card games, not in real life. Why do we still have so many crucial manufacturing in a country that could easily become our enemy regardless of how we treat it?
What happens once China gets say 30% stronger, making its army 30% more advanced. Are they going
to threaten and insist on their rights on owning certain territories or will they just take them?

You mean, "if they start acting like the US has for the last couple of centuries?" LOL Well you're about to find out...