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I told her late last year that it would be a good idea to order a new one because of the probability of serious inflation hitting next year. This was one of the reasons why I got my Asus laptop repaired/replaced. Our Mac laptops should be good for another 5 years or more, we'll see if OS revisions makes them stale before then.
Anyway, had some problems ordering her a new base 16 yesterday, but resolved it this morning and she'll have a new phone sometime Tuesday. We're keeping her 13 Mini as a backup and for international travel in case of border trouble. I replaced my 13 Mini shortly after the 16 released last year as it had a couple of problems that were defying easy diagnosis. Thus far, OS-problems aside, it's been an excellent phone. Takes great photos even though it's not the Pro model.
Apple apparently shippedthreefive planes-full of phones from India to the U.S. in three days last weekendmonth to avoid tariffs. And I note that the FedEx shipping confirmation for the new phone has it shipped from California: frequently when I buy big ticket items from Apple, they ship from China. This morning I saw an article that Apple stores were slammed over the weekend with people seeking new equipment before anticipated price hikes.
So. Tariffs and inflation. I'm going to talk about inflation first, in relation to Canada and Mexico since they were the first targets.
What do I think will happen. Well, we're already seeing pain in red states because Canadian businesses are stopping buying from them before last week's launch of the international trade war (including Penguin Island). With Canadian stores clearly labeling Canadian-manufactured products, it was easy for their citizens to avoid buying American products with very little effort on their part. This especially hit the liquor industry, which has lots of manufacturing in the south. Their products are slowly losing shelf space because it's not moving, so that's unsold inventory that is gathering dust. Not only is their revenue down because stores are not buying more product, at some point, stores are going to start wanting refunds on unsold merchandise from distributors.
But that's just sales, which can be a component of inflation. Let's talk about what the tariffs might do to what we see in shelf pricing. Bob and Tom are American manufacturers and they make largely the same product. Bob's source materials are American-made, and cost a little more than Tom's. Tom's source materials are now getting slammed by the tariffs and he has to pay more for his goods. To maintain profits, he has to charge more, so now his goods are a lot more expensive than Bob's. Clearly Bob, who already has decent sales, is going to sell more goods.
But is Bob going to keep the same price? Hell no! He'll raise his price, not as high as Tom's, but there's an opportunity here to make more money! Just like hurricane season and the aftermath when some lumber yards and such raise prices. There's no reason to leave money on the table if consumers must buy the product, as long as he keeps his prices lower than Tom's, who is stuck with the tariff, he's in great shape and everyone else is not only paying Tom's tariff if they buy Tom's because they like Tom, but they're also lining Bob's pocket.
And then there's poor Fred, who gets his source materials from China. He's just flat-out screwed. There's limits to how much you can raise your price and be competitive, and if he lowers his price to close to Tom's or Bob's, he may be losing money, which is no way to run a railroad.
What you'll see is manufacturers directly affected by the tariffs will raise their prices. Maybe not on current stock already made that's in the shipping pipeline, but they'll have to raise it on new stuff being made. And everyone other supplier or manufacturer is going to turn that dial up a couple of notches - not because they have to, but because the public will get used to paying more because they have no choice, and they're doing it because they don't want to leave any money on the table that they can't get ahold of.
That's my take on what we'll see on inflation. There's no way to say how high it will go or how wildly it will vary. But we are in for a wild ride.
Last week's tariffs. The most bat-shit insanity of it is that there was no sound mathematics behind it. It did not take into account the service industry, thus did not accurately reflect any potential trade imbalance. For example, Australia is a net importer of American goods (they have no automobile manufacturing there, etc.) yet were hit with a 10% tariff. There's also that arctic island that has no humans living on it, entirely populated by penguins and such, that has tariffs levied against it. It has been noted that the countries seem to have been selected/targeted by their internet Top Level Domain (.us, .uk, .de, etc). Absolutely non-sensical.
AND, just like when Premier Ford threatened an energy export tax to the USA, the piggie squealed when China threw a 34% tariff against American goods. He tried to hide behind the bluster of 'Big mistake!', but the fact is that he's never been able to handle strong opposition. He expects everyone to kowtow to him, viewing everything as a zero-sum game in which he must always win. Ignore the fact that in international trade, well-executed treaties can have everyone benefiting.
The most curious thing about his relationship with China is that all of the merchandise crap that he hawks is made there! But it's probably all paid out of a slush fund, so he probably never sees the costs and doesn't care as long as hissuckers voters continue buying it.
My expectation: the billionaire class, behind the scene, will apply pressure to reverse the tariffs and it'll get done while victory will be declared. Too much money has been wiped from the exchanges for them to be happy with this uncontrolled and turbulent situation, and they're telling the news that they don't like it. "We got what we wanted, everyone is coming to negotiate a fair deal. WE WON! MAGA!"
One last note. I was so amused that his best pal forever, until he throws him under the bus, Leon Ketamine-head, was screaming that the 5 million or so protestors Saturday were all being paid by George Soros. Uh, bud, who was handing out checks in Wisconsin last week?
And Leon was screaming about losing $30 BILLION due to the tariffs. That is, until someone told him to delete his tweets. Which he did.
So there you have it. I'm probably wrong on everything, but that's my take on what's going on and what I expect to happen.
EDIT: to update Apple shipping phones from India. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/mobiles-tabs/how-apple-flew-5-flights-full-of-iphones-from-india-and-china-in-3-days-to-beat-trump-tariffs/articleshow/120044321.cms
Anyway, had some problems ordering her a new base 16 yesterday, but resolved it this morning and she'll have a new phone sometime Tuesday. We're keeping her 13 Mini as a backup and for international travel in case of border trouble. I replaced my 13 Mini shortly after the 16 released last year as it had a couple of problems that were defying easy diagnosis. Thus far, OS-problems aside, it's been an excellent phone. Takes great photos even though it's not the Pro model.
Apple apparently shipped
So. Tariffs and inflation. I'm going to talk about inflation first, in relation to Canada and Mexico since they were the first targets.
What do I think will happen. Well, we're already seeing pain in red states because Canadian businesses are stopping buying from them before last week's launch of the international trade war (including Penguin Island). With Canadian stores clearly labeling Canadian-manufactured products, it was easy for their citizens to avoid buying American products with very little effort on their part. This especially hit the liquor industry, which has lots of manufacturing in the south. Their products are slowly losing shelf space because it's not moving, so that's unsold inventory that is gathering dust. Not only is their revenue down because stores are not buying more product, at some point, stores are going to start wanting refunds on unsold merchandise from distributors.
But that's just sales, which can be a component of inflation. Let's talk about what the tariffs might do to what we see in shelf pricing. Bob and Tom are American manufacturers and they make largely the same product. Bob's source materials are American-made, and cost a little more than Tom's. Tom's source materials are now getting slammed by the tariffs and he has to pay more for his goods. To maintain profits, he has to charge more, so now his goods are a lot more expensive than Bob's. Clearly Bob, who already has decent sales, is going to sell more goods.
But is Bob going to keep the same price? Hell no! He'll raise his price, not as high as Tom's, but there's an opportunity here to make more money! Just like hurricane season and the aftermath when some lumber yards and such raise prices. There's no reason to leave money on the table if consumers must buy the product, as long as he keeps his prices lower than Tom's, who is stuck with the tariff, he's in great shape and everyone else is not only paying Tom's tariff if they buy Tom's because they like Tom, but they're also lining Bob's pocket.
And then there's poor Fred, who gets his source materials from China. He's just flat-out screwed. There's limits to how much you can raise your price and be competitive, and if he lowers his price to close to Tom's or Bob's, he may be losing money, which is no way to run a railroad.
What you'll see is manufacturers directly affected by the tariffs will raise their prices. Maybe not on current stock already made that's in the shipping pipeline, but they'll have to raise it on new stuff being made. And everyone other supplier or manufacturer is going to turn that dial up a couple of notches - not because they have to, but because the public will get used to paying more because they have no choice, and they're doing it because they don't want to leave any money on the table that they can't get ahold of.
That's my take on what we'll see on inflation. There's no way to say how high it will go or how wildly it will vary. But we are in for a wild ride.
Last week's tariffs. The most bat-shit insanity of it is that there was no sound mathematics behind it. It did not take into account the service industry, thus did not accurately reflect any potential trade imbalance. For example, Australia is a net importer of American goods (they have no automobile manufacturing there, etc.) yet were hit with a 10% tariff. There's also that arctic island that has no humans living on it, entirely populated by penguins and such, that has tariffs levied against it. It has been noted that the countries seem to have been selected/targeted by their internet Top Level Domain (.us, .uk, .de, etc). Absolutely non-sensical.
AND, just like when Premier Ford threatened an energy export tax to the USA, the piggie squealed when China threw a 34% tariff against American goods. He tried to hide behind the bluster of 'Big mistake!', but the fact is that he's never been able to handle strong opposition. He expects everyone to kowtow to him, viewing everything as a zero-sum game in which he must always win. Ignore the fact that in international trade, well-executed treaties can have everyone benefiting.
The most curious thing about his relationship with China is that all of the merchandise crap that he hawks is made there! But it's probably all paid out of a slush fund, so he probably never sees the costs and doesn't care as long as his
My expectation: the billionaire class, behind the scene, will apply pressure to reverse the tariffs and it'll get done while victory will be declared. Too much money has been wiped from the exchanges for them to be happy with this uncontrolled and turbulent situation, and they're telling the news that they don't like it. "We got what we wanted, everyone is coming to negotiate a fair deal. WE WON! MAGA!"
One last note. I was so amused that his best pal forever, until he throws him under the bus, Leon Ketamine-head, was screaming that the 5 million or so protestors Saturday were all being paid by George Soros. Uh, bud, who was handing out checks in Wisconsin last week?
And Leon was screaming about losing $30 BILLION due to the tariffs. That is, until someone told him to delete his tweets. Which he did.
So there you have it. I'm probably wrong on everything, but that's my take on what's going on and what I expect to happen.
EDIT: to update Apple shipping phones from India. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/mobiles-tabs/how-apple-flew-5-flights-full-of-iphones-from-india-and-china-in-3-days-to-beat-trump-tariffs/articleshow/120044321.cms
