Yes, but it's not how the US government wants them to work. So they legislate more to close the bugs and make it work the way they want.

It's a known flawless way to evolve code... Never revise, never delete, add enough so the tests pass.

But I don't think your lesson is reasonable. Fucking with multivariate dynamic systems is what governments do. And it's well settled that in the absence of the government doing that, everything goes to hell quite quickly.

Tangential, but it seems this will also accelerate the move to even more flimsy plastics in everything from appliances to construction materials to cars.

>But wow, are tariffs (and other micro taxes) disruptive on getting things done efficiently.

Well, that depends on what you are getting done.

If your objective is solely to get a product done, the most efficient way is probably going to involve terrible salaries plus ample disregard for the environment and human life. Anything else is going to be disruptive to that end.

I have the problem since weeks. An electric device made for me with billing isnt in the catallog of regular stuff or whatever and now they need to figure out what it could be because my description is not enough -.-

You mean this fixes the first order effect that penalizes domestic manufacturers, assuming correct information. It does not solve it, there's second, third, fourth, ... order effects. And there's no rule those are smaller than first order, in fact, they're almost universally more.

Domestic manufacturers are still disadvantaged by having to pay tariffs for materials used for the product, but not present in the final product. And foreign manufacturers still don't. If used in machines (and used up), used in mining (and used up), used in transport, used in energy production, ...

These costs are very large, especially because specific materials are often not available worldwide, or have large differences in quality due to availability of tiny amounts of additives for alloys or compounds. These things do lead to very large differences in quality, and thus in value. You can't model that as a government, it's just not going to happen.

There's no way to fully analyze an entire economic chain (especially when almost everyone involved has a financial incentive to sabotage you doing that correctly, and that includes foreign governments). You'd think this wouldn't have to be explained to either Americans or especially a supposed "defender of capitalism", but here we are.

I mean...they're still punished by tariffs with these changes, but they're also punished without them.

I have to say it’s quite entertaining watching this from not the US.

I don't think Olimex understands tariffs. Maybe they shouldn't have to. But you don't have to specify the breakdown of your PCB by mineral content. That's what the harmonized tariffs schedules are all about, to account for this very issue.

Yes, I am seriously looking at either splitting my production between internal and external uses to avoid passing tariff costs on to the majority of my customers who are foreign. I've worked at using US companies for many components but that is becoming less attractive. I wish it weren't this way but that is how it goes.

The capricious implementation of the tariffs is another issue. Biden raised tariffs but the implementation involved a months long comment period, then a notice months in advance, and finally implementation. It wasn't ideal in my mind (the specific tariffs) but there was a way to work through the consequences and plan accordingly. This administration does not believe in that. Maybe congress would if they took back responsibility for tariff policy but I don't see that happening right now.

That's one of the primary problems with tarrifs especially broad untargeted ones: the first thing they encourage is offshoring everything because it becomes cheaper to only be hit once on import, rather then multiple times by your suppliers and compliance costs, who in turn are also getting tarrifed on their supplies and tools.

Short term yes. But (this isn’t a defense of tariffs), the concept is that this will spur on domestic production in raw materials. So with this example, if there is a domestic source of copper it wouldn’t be subject to tariffs at all. In theory only, well balanced tariffs would make it cheaper to import US sourced raw materials for use in US bound products. In practice, I don’t think anyone knows what’s involved in doing that.

It’s not anymore. Section 232 came into effect on August 1 and totally changes things. I linked to some info on 232 in a previous reply to you.

The difference now is the US wants mail carriers to collect tarrifs themselves and pay the US government.

They have no way to do this, because it's normally not done - tarrifs are paid by the importer, and responsibility for correct labeling is by the importer.

Careful where you get that gold from. The administration recently announced a 40% tariff on refined gold imported from Switzerland.

I don’t need to justify it. The other explanations are only partly correct if they ignore this giant red flag. The number of people who willfully ignore this is massive. Its a shock to process — no one wants to be even WILLING to believe it.

We’ve been had and the number of people covering for this grows daily, and will continue to do so until one day we all wake the fuck up.

They claimed a trade deficit with islands that are inhabited by penguins and imposed a tariff on said penguins.

You are being governed by someone with dementia who has surrounded himself with people who appear unable to say 'no'.

I don't think it's at odds with other explanations. If you wanted a working tariff regime you'd make the tariffs graduated and reasonable - big enough to sway customer choices and ithus investment decisions, but not arbitrary seeming. More importantly, you'd work hard to ensure it rolled out smoothly and minimized commercial disruption so as to allow your price signals to function clearly.

The purpose of a system is what it does.

I think that’s a little extreme, but here is a balance sheet based explanation where it works.

The US just sort of randomly decided to tariff everything from people they don’t like anymore. Because of the randomness of these tariffs, they impact not only consumer goods but production equipment.

The justification for these tariffs is something along the lines of “let’s bring production back to the United States.” That’s likely a good idea (says the Canadian), but when they use that justification while simultaneously tariffing production equipment the same as consumer goods you have to wonder what’s actually going on.

With production equipment, you amortize the cost of that tool over the years of usage. These tariffs are not amortized, meaning they must be paid at import. That takes cash off the balance sheet, puts it into equipment and hits liquidity.

If I was wickedly powerful and really hated Americans, going after SMB liquidity would be the most convenient (and profitable) way to cause generational harm.

They also have very publicly stated they wish to “punish the liberals”, a big part of which is… “destroying the economy”.

So which is it?

There's something I've never understood about resource extraction and globalization, maybe you could help.

If the US has a ton of Lithium but finds it too expensive to extract, why not buy it now while it's cheap, wait for it to become rarer in other countries so more expensive, and only extract it once it's worth it (or close to worth it)?

> For example, the US has some of the largest lithium deposits in the world, but it's not being exploited because extraction is dirty and polluting,

It's important to get news from politically unbiased sources, because the reality is that US lithium sources are being stood up! Especially in that politically incorrect state of California which is supposedly a hellhole that would never approve something of the sort.

As for tariffs being a good way to support these industries citation needed! It's exactly the opposite type of policy for driving the investment that's needed. It's actually drastically collapsing all of the massive investment that was happening under Biden, in a complete disaster for the US. So I totally agree that you are not pro-US, but let's be honest about the disaster of tariffs.

The children yearn for the mines

Do you think that there shouldn't be any steel mills in the US?

So it's cool that foreign steel mill workers are instead maimed.

That's not what I was saying with my comment. There was no implication I want to go back to 1890s pre-labor rights. How did "raw materials should be cheap if you want to encourage manufacturing" get to "get rid of labor laws!!!". Your reading comprehension needs to be higher. Stating a basic economic principle does not imply the erosion of labor protections.

The foreign factory workers will still have jobs making the same products, except those products won't be exported to the US. Luckily for them, 95% of humans live outside the US.

It's also the price you pay for being unable to purchase specialized equipment.

That tiny German company making lab equipment which happens to be absolutely essential for your company? Their shipments aren't getting through customs anymore, and dealing with the additional paperwork is way more than the two-and-a-half people in charge of shipping can handle on top of their regular duties. The US is only 5% of their market, so rather than drown in an attempt to serve the US they'll just suspend shipping until the US fixes itself, and serve the other 95% of the world instead.

Can't do your job without a replacement MacGuffin? Oh well, sucks to be you! Not our problem that your company is going to lose millions, take it up with your government.

> Price I pay is not getting my $20 fairy lights that made my backyard look cute.

That is all of your imports that are impacted by tariffs? Whatever it is that you are smoking is some good stuff.

US size in international trade does not match the size of its consumer economy. When the US cuts it's own dick off, trade between everyone else compensates.

The EU is the top trading partner for 80 countries. By comparison, the US is the top trading partner for a little over 20 countries. The EU is the world’s largest trader of manufactured goods and services.

Longer term all trade will just be rerouted to exclude the US.

The EU is making moves right now to position itself as the preeminent center of world trade.

Losing that position will hurt Americans more than anyone else.

I guess that is my core problem: no empathy default. Opinion can be changed only by anecdotal example person (“you are one of the good ones”).

Yeah, I've made friends with a bunch of (mostly ex- at this point) Republicans because we can agree (1) that other people matter and (2) structural inequalities exist and should not.

If we have that in common, then I find the difference in politics is mostly implementation and method. I'm happy to debate civic policy on the merits all day at that point.

The people who are drawn to the performatively cruel side are not rational actors and can't be reasoned with. I've tried.

You have my admiration for trying, especially in this political climate. I've had younger folk straight up not believe me when I say this is exactly the same playbook they ran against gay men in the 90s.

> I live in Switzerland and Swiss post, which is the state owned postal service, does not ship to the US anymore.

That is not what the link says. It says that goods consignments are not accepted -- which is not at all the same thing as "does not ship to the US anymore". The link explicitly says that they're continuing to ship letters, will continue to ship goods via another service, and (I can only presume) will continue to accept personal packages, since those aren't affected at all by these tariff changes.

The discussion on this topic on HN is far more heat than light.

Same here in Belgium, and many other European countries.

Same in Australia now, I believe.

They will never own their mistakes. That's the point of lack of democracy.

I do not need to and democracy does not require me to. The price of their mistakes is permanent shunning. I'm not going to go around conducting inquisitions, but I find I've been inspired by the tenacity of old folks carrying grudges against communism from the Cold War, and I'm confident I can carry this grudge until I'm an old folk myself.

Well, no. This is no longer really an option. 47% of Republicans would still support Trump even if he was unequivocally proven to be a vicious pedophile: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/fact-check-survey-found-...

These people have lost all sense. The only remaining option is to make their party electorally impotent. Dominate through any available dirty trick. Redistricting. Impeachment. Ignoring judges. Endless executive orders. Shock and awe. Whatever they've done, return straight back to them. (Except the really grotesque parts like sending innocent people to a foreign torture prison.)

It seems that many people still haven't gotten the memo that we're not really living in a democracy anymore.

"When they go low, we go high" hasn't worked for a long time. They always find new ways to go lower and drag everyone with them.

'Fight them by collaborating as best you can' is an absolute losing strategy. The GOP isn't a normal political party any more, where you can appeal to long term interests, the back and forth of the political pendulum, national values and so on.

> Conflating the people in charge with Republicans as a whole, and writing them collectively off

Maybe not "as a whole" but the majority of Republicans voted for this so at least those need to be written off. The rest have an opportunity to claim that they oppose the takeover by the personality cult. A great way to do it is to change their voter registration to anything else.

At this point, ever Republican has absolutely opted in to the current leader and platform.

Trying to call the democrats corrupt on the same level of the trump administration is fucking rich.

It's like saying that both antarctica and oregon are 'cold'. Fucking stop already.

There's a way to show you don't agree with your head of state, it's called protesting.

> yet if you force them to choose an R or D label, most of them are still going to count as R.

this is to say they have a glowing endorsement of the trump agenda of authoritarian intervention in both social and economic issues. they could have stayed home, or voted for democrats who were pushing a more traditional conservative policy.

they also could have voted for local politicians who are against trump policies, but the local republicans are lockstep with trump too.

you need to reevaluate what the people in your community believe in. they mught say theyre libertarians, but their actions say theyre very favourable to criminal dictators. if they werent, they would have acted dofferently in elections, and the votes speak louder than words

The Republican leaders could have removed Trump from office after Jan 6.

All those traditional conservatives and "lowercase-L libertatians" could speak up now, and do something about the ongoing fascist takeover, but they are not. American democracy is probably doomed, we will find out in 2026 whether we can have fair mid-term elections.

"If there’s a Nazi at the table and ten other people sitting there talking to him, you got a table with eleven Nazis"

Ah, bullshit. The Republicans have been playing that game for >30 years and just escalating steadily. Democratic efforts at bipartisanship are never reciprocated, whereas every time Democrats try to act unilaterally they are demonized.

Obama was wrong. Look at your own article, which quotes Tulsi Gabbard gushing about the need for a little more of that 'aloha spirit', and compare it with her actual behavior now that she's Director of National Intelligence in the current administration.

https://users.wfu.edu/zulick/454/gopac.html <- a 1995 strategy document from former GOP speaker Newt Gingrich's GOPAC.

And how well has pandering to the Republican-light voter base been going the last few elections?

Zohran Mamdani is doing so well for a reason: a decent part of the voter base is getting increasingly fed up by the center-right politics the Democrats have been selling. Young left-wing voters really don't like the fossils currently leading the Democratic party. If the Democrats don't start selling something better than "we aren't the Republicans", they are at risk of losing yet another generation to the next right-wing populist who claims he's going to "drain the swamp".

So no, call-out culture isn't the problem: the complete lack of left-wing values is.

> polarization and alienating voters has worked out so well as a strategy for the Democrats for the past 12 years, has it?

It's worked really well for the Republicans for decades. The Democrats just need to try harder.

Obama spent most of his time in office trying to compromise with Republicans. The result was that they stubbornly resisted almost everything, and then elected Donald Trump in a fit of pique.

Polarization and alienationg and being offensive worked great for conservatives.

Democrats were nice and polite, always letting themselves be guilted into treating Republicans nicely. It was loosing strategy.

The Republican media-political machine is by far the most competitive, and they have been punishing bipartisan behavior since the 60s. Such actions are imitation, and therefore the best flattery.

The Repub model is being replicated globally too. It just works.

Maybe you could have hid behind the "vibes" line the first time around, but not anymore. We're way past where we could realistically give people the benefit of the doubt.

> voters have essentially zero influence over policy and overwhelmingly vote on "vibes"

The "vibes" that attract conservative voters are fucking disgusting.

free trade was a reagan republican idea. hes the last republican god.

the dems gave up fighting against it, but its still a republican idea to wreck the manufacturing base and put the publicans into unemployment

c'mon. IT outsourcing was done 100% to drive shareholder value, not to improve globalization. Don't drink your own kool aid. The party and its members engage in an incredible mutual hypocrisy with each other. It's all facile BS.

??? Republicans were also a huge driver of offshoring manufacturing, not just the neoliberal Democrats. What are you talking about?

Didn‘t know Nixon and Reagan were Democrats.

Maybe you realize that neither do something for the working class but the big corporations and billionaires.

The ones who try are labeled socialists.

So your claim (based on your link downthread) is that

- new regulation changing trade in a way that companies are struggling to follow

is child's play compared to

- a memo from a think-tank suggesting a particular choice of words

?

I’m genuinely interested in which “purity tests” you are referring to. I’m all for bi-partisan ridicule if it’s warranted.

what actually costs something though?

you want to pay more in taxes for everything because you dont like the high standards democrats have for themselves?

some democrats also want to raise taxes? why not support them if you eant to raise taxes?

Donald Trump did get elected about a decade ago, so sure?

Haha, right??

I didn’t say let it slide, I’m just over all the shocked faces, us doing the shocked step is something they bank upon, as it sorta stun-locks us sometimes for lack of a better term as they continue the bombardment.

Also, let's not forget that Apple / Google is violating PAFACAA right now (the TikTok act, by allowing TikTok in the U.S. AppStore / PlayStore) b/c DoJ is instructed to sue anyone who is following PAFACAA. This will create a lot of headache for Apple / Google when a different administration comes into power. (The extension signed by EO is not to do the 90-day extension permitted by PAFACAA, it is merely says DoJ won't enforce PAFACAA and will sue anyone following PAFACAA b/c DoJ should be the only one who enforces PAFACAA).

> "History doesn't repeat itself but it often rhymes," attributed to Twain

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/01/12/history-rhymes/

The court's opinion in Knife Rights v Garland upheld a prior opinion where a "credible threat of prosecution" was interpreted to mean that a prosecution had occurred within the last 10 years.

So if a single prosecution (including your own) under the relevant section occurred at any time in the decade prior, that's likely enough to argue standing to challenge that section, provided the other tests of standing are met.

The truth likely lies in the middle. Some are truely just insane, some are trying to shoehorn or steer special interests through the insanity, etc.

I don't think that's the case. Rather, GP argues that the policy is rationally corrupt. I tend to agree. Many people in the political center would rather believe that terrible policies are the product of stupidity than malice. I too am a fan of Hanlon's razor, but if stupidity were controlling you would expect occasional stupidly good outcomes as well as stupidly bad ones. When you have a decade-long pattern of evidence that decision-making is driven by animus and greed, blaming all the bad outcomes on stupidity or insanity devolves into hand-wringing helplessness instead of a willingness to take the necessary action. Hence the current Congressional Democratic non-policy of condemning Trump but also just waiting for him to die rather than trying to mount any serious effort to remove him.

Even better if who is an enemy and who is a friend changes daily based on whoever sucked up the most/bribed someone.

I thought it was more the case that shippers are asking the exporter to pay up front (and pass the prices along as they see fit) to limit the risk that the customer refuses to pay customs duties and rejects the package delivery, causing it to sit taking up valuable space in the shippers' warehouses.

> "Tarrifs" are paid by the importer. [...] These are being charged to the exporter

Ultimately, that's always the case.

But just like VAT or sales taxes are usually paid by the seller on behalf of the buyer, so could customs duties be levied by the exporter.

bullshit. they often make things impossible in practice. I have numerous examples in my own life dealing with their "straightforwards". It is anything but.

Also why would they go through all that trouble? Easier to not sell there anymore.

I don't agree with it, but isn't that ostensibly the end goal? That is, to force/encourage the manufacturing of goods in the US, rather than importing them. Of course, the metal itself still needs to enter the US either way.

> otherwise they assume the entire PCB consists of copper, aluminum, and steel, and charge a 100% tariff on the whole product.

This seems like it could also lead to absurd situations. If a device contained both, would customs pretend it was simultaneously 100% made out of copper and 100% made out of steel and apply both tariffs?

It’s easiest to not make any money in general. Per capita Americans consumer more stuff than almost everyone else. It’s a huge and highly lucrative market and will remain such for at least some time still.

Losing a significant proportion of their revenue can easily bring down plenty of businesses.

The two statements in the OP seem opposed to each other. Why would one need to estimate if an estimate isn't sufficient?

Even if you build in USA, you'll likely still need to import materials or pay a premium for domestic.