mcliu

LOL

https://amp.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong-economy/article/3339776/hong-kong-corporate-governance-activist-david-webb-dies-60 Sad news. Lost another legend. RIP

Thanks. Do you still need to go into the branch or can everything be done through the banker?

What makes Scotia's PB better than RBC?

IMO, this is the kind of stuff where governments should mandate a domestic supply chain. Yes it'll be more expensive but it's such a small input in the grand scheme.

Imagine if you’re one of the tens of millions of people in the US facing food insecurity and you find out your government is giving billions to foreign countries to help solve their hunger and other issues..

Rent and sold prices are already down 15% from the peak but still quite pricey relative to incomes.

I don’t know about Hermes but wasn’t there that a whole made-in#Italy scandal a while ago where the fashion houses either sourced from China and assembled in Italy or outsourced to Chinese workshops in Italy to make the products? it’s not rocket science, the Chinese can probably make the same or similar product if they can source the materials.

https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/solo-stove-breeo-fire-pits-trump-tariffs-8aedca80?mod=mhp Tariffs Will Hammer Solo Stove. Its Amish-Made Rival Is Ready. Solo Stove’s Chinese-made fire pits face steep tariffs while rival Breeo advertises its ‘tariff proof’ products

So this whole thing was a set-up to put massive tariffs on China?

I think there's an argument that outsourcing has largely benefited corporate margins at the expense of labour and now we are facing a reversal of those policies. Is it really the end of the world if corporate margins go back to its historical averages?

Aren't corporate profit margins are at all time highs? It's almost like the more companies offshore, the higher their margins. The stock market drop might be a reflection that margins will compress. But it's not existential as margins were far lower in the past..

Why not? Say you run a shop. You buy something for $2 and you sell it for $10 but because of tariffs it now costs $3 and you try to sell it for $11. But you see that sales has slowed at $11. So what do you do? Keep it at $11 or cut it to $10.50 or back to $10?

I think it just shows that there's opportunity to reduce the trade deficit without resorting to making cheap textiles and toys as people have implied. If there's a tight labour market, attracting talent to the US should be the easy part? 100% this is a multi-decade project that needs thoughtful planning and buy-in from both parties. The chaotic approach might get the ball rolling but end up nowhere,

This might be one of those lost in translation misunderstandings right? I think a majority of the factory workers 10 or 20 years ago were what's called 农民工 in China. Which translates to farm worker or peasant worker. They had rural hukous (registration) but worked in the urban areas. The term is pretty widely used: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02723638.2023.2278959 https://research.nus.edu.sg/eai/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/EAIBB-No.-1785-Chinas-peasant-workers_post-COVID-trends-synopsis_exsum-1.pdf Today, most Chinese would be considered middle class though but there are still hundreds of millions that can be considered peasant workers. I think in the West, the word peasant has somewhat negative connotations.. I think there's a mix. There's still considerable low-value production but labour costs are multiples that of SE Asia but that's offset by supply chain and infrastructure advantages. But China also has the world's largest base of advanced and automated manufacturing. This is the kind of manufacturing that you want to onshore from China.. But other than tariffs, what else can do you do?

Why do people automatically assume the outsourced jobs are shitty sweat shop menial labour stuff? That stuff doesn’t even make the top 10 list. So what are the top 10 US imports? The following are the top 10 US imports in 2023. This top 10 accounts for over 65% of the total US$ value of all imports to the US. 1. Electrical Machinery & Equipment – US$463.4 billion (14.6% of total US imports) 2. Machinery Including Computers – US$459.2 billion (14.5% of total imports) 3. Vehicles – US$381.0 billion (12.0% of total imports) 4. Mineral Fuels – US$266.6 billion (8.4% of total imports) 5. Pharmaceuticals – US$177.8 billion (5.6% of total imports) 6. Optical, Technical & Medical Apparatus – US$118.3 billion (3.7% of total imports) 7. Gems & Precious Metals – US$89.5 billion (2.8% of total imports) 8. Plastics – US$72.3 billion (2.3% of total imports) 9. Furniture, Bedding, Lighting, Signs & Prefabricated Buildings – US$69.0 billion (2.2% of total imports) 10. Organic Chemicals – US$66.6 billion (2.1% of total imports) https://www.agi.global/news/what-are-the-top-10-us-imports

Yeah I agree with you on that. Trump's way of doing foreign policy is insane, but I don't think the ultimate outcome will the as dire as people think. Don't they blame covid on the US too?

Isn't China facing some pretty severe economic issues? Housing bubble, overcapacity, low FDI, youth unemployment, aging demographics etc etc?

Most likely this is where it'll end up. US allies will have very low tariffs but US companies will get better market access. Non-allied countries will have higher tariffs. Certain national security and critical industries will have higher tariffs.

I think the problem with this line of reasoning is that once your entire industry gets killed it can't get ever become competitive. It'll be interesting to see how Japan and Germany react to Chinese vehicles since they're the other 2 major auto countries.

The increase might be far less than that. Imagine $100 shoes, with a cost of $20.. a 50% tariff increases costs to $30. However, due to excess capacity, that tariff difference is split between importer and manufacturer. So you end up with a cost of $25 and a final price of $105 at 50% tariffs. But most tariffs are only at 10%. So it's entirely possible that the tariffs might be deflationary if it affects aggregate demand. Consider energy prices which have declined 15%. That's on $2T/yr energy expenditure for the US and is an input in essentially everything.

Is it obvious that inflation will be higher in the short-term? Energy prices and asset prices are coming down along with demand, isn’t that deflationary?

Thanks, that's really interesting. Definitely agree that this approach is chaotic and haphazard. It'll be quite tragic if despite all the economic damage, these tariffs fail to achieve re-industrializing just because of poor planning and execution. I think with any tariff approach, higher prices is the end goal. The reason is that domestic manufacturers aren't competitive at global clearing prices. By moving that clearing price higher, the idea is that domestic production increases, leading to more demand for workers and higher wages, which creates more demand, and so on.

Yeah you got it. Countries are buying on credit when they have a trade deficit!