Dan Romero
@dwr.eth
A surprisingly non-emotional, non-partisan economic take on tariffs. No actual conclusion / prediction beyond what happens to currencies and rates. (And I'm not a big Dalio fan.) https://x.com/RayDalio/status/1907489922359132627
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Dan Romero
@dwr.eth
(I have no idea what happens in 6 months with the tariffs.)
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Monteluna
@monteluna
Yeah I think the logistics and operations doesn't make sense. My fundamental worry is none of this is even feasible. Dalio and others claim "tariffs" are necessary citing data from the 50s and 20s like we're the agrarian and industrial economy of the past. Today have a hyper global supply chain now where some components travel between the border *multiple times* as they are manufactured. Then these might be shipped in containers where the container company can mix multiple components from different countries. I really don't think we have border systems in place to actually account for goods that are packaged and entered into ports, and there is absolutely no way to crack every container and look at every item in the containers and charge each item correctly. Maybe if you automated and digitized almost every part of this it would work, but then you'll get the longshoreman angry again!
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samgslastlife
@samgslastlife
I’d have to ask my sourcing dept about this but I’m sure whatever system manages the tracking and payment of tariffs is fairly sophisticated bc we can’t even get our shit out of the container without paying it.
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Monteluna
@monteluna
True but again what happens when everyone gets smart and makes shadow factories in cheaper tariff countries, and just re-routes the goods through there? Tariffs make sense 200 years ago when you only trade with the town next door. We have this weird complex network now, and you can easily just relabel the source. I mean actually cracking open every container and proving the source of the item. Do we actually have a system in place to *really* do that for every item?
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samgslastlife
@samgslastlife
Yes, I work in an industry that ships goods into the US and we just got hit with a 54% tariff (if the 34% stacks on the 20% for China which is unclear at the moment), those longshoremen and stevedors won't even touch our containers until everything is paid. Tariffs were not ZERO prior to yesterday, they have always been there, just not at these absolutely retarded levels. The system is in place. Which is why this is FUCKED UP bc we have product en route that is already sold at a contractually obligated price that we will now have to pay that tariff negating our profits and likely going red before we can deliver to retail. And again I can tell you from experience in his last term, there's not "shadow factories" there's just factories in other countries, but this time they fucked that too because most of the other factories are in Vietnam and other countries he tariffed the fuck out of yesterday.
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Monteluna
@monteluna
Interesting. Honestly I'd love to hear more on this. My physics brain is saying, "this can't work because atoms don't have an origin label, and the market will find a way". It sounds like you're saying this is totally possible, but the friction is already so high with costs and finances. Fun stuff! ðŸ˜
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samgslastlife
@samgslastlife
Yeah, that's why I wrote a whole thread on some of the detail of the tariffs yesterday. I realized with so many here not working in industries with physical goods or supply chains there may not be as much awareness of what the micro level impacts will be that can lead to much larger effects. I get emails a about all kinds of things related to global logistics, ports backed up, strikes, that time that boat got stuck in the Panama Canal lolol. I worked here in the previous term so I also have direct knowledge from then about what our business was doing to survive. That is also why I am so concerned bc the tone my CEO took last time was grim and this is exponentially worse. I'm not being hyperbolic when I say there could be a lot of businesses laying off workers or shuttering if they can't mitigate the damage.
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