I already buy a lot of clothes at least partially made in OECD states. Even with that “partially” doing a lot of work and my avoiding paying extra for “fancy” brand names… I don’t think Americans earning closer to median household income are gonna be happy about paying the kind of prices I pay.
I'm not certain, but I suspect this'll work out better for Monoprice than it does for individuals.
I _think_ Monoprice will pay the couple of hundred dollars "per package" fees for the pallet or container full of cables they bring in, amortising that cost over thousands of items. They'll still get charged the 145% tariff though, but they'll probably cost something like 3x rather than 10x. (Until they work out that they no longer compete with individuals buying from AliExpress/Temu/Shein, or probably even with side hustle Fulfilment by Amazon micro-importers).
Tangent. I got into building hi-fi tube amplifiers some years back. Part of it was a kind of nostalgia for the days of Heath-Kit which I am only just old enough to remember the company's sunsetting years.
It was a fun few years deep-diving into the various amplifier topologies, buying NOS vacuum tubes on eBay, looking through electronics flea markets for parts. I made several amps, tried different tubes, topologies.... Eventually I settled on a small stereo amp and designed a PCB for it, created a small kit even.
Using a drill press in the garage, a table saw to cut aluminum sheet stock down, even learning to powder-coat parts in a toaster-oven I picked up from Walmart, I made increasingly nicer looking amps. With two large output transformers and an even large power transformer they were fairly heavy beasts.
Nonetheless, though I built them a decade or more ago, every one of the amplifiers I built are still in use today. The music I am listening to at this moment is coming from one. Another is down in my "lab". I have given several away to friends, co-workers in the past.
I guess the reason for the tangent was to say that I did indeed find that when you have (or make) a thing of real quality it can last … perhaps a life time?
And thinking again a little nostalgically, I like that too about electronics just up to the post-modern era: a new electronics purchase might have cost you a paycheck or two, but you got I think more mileage out of that device.
EDIT: come to think of it, the heavy iron transformers are from the U.S., the tubes NOS from U.S. WWII bombers. I didn't built them of course with tariffs in mind, but surprisingly they are not so cost-dependent on overseas suppliers.
And here's a photo of the finished amp (from when I once considered selling the kits): https://imgur.com/PBKOQMk
Thanks for sharing, that’s really cool and something I wish I had the time/skill/patience for. The amp looks great and love the name - might have to dust off the tools for a “Now and Then” model.
I don't think so. There is an argument for -individuals- buying too much electronics and they should revisit that, but it's not anyone's business other those people. Tanking the economy and destroying lives "just becuz consumers" is a really really bad way to run the country. Just giving back and going back to horse and buggy while China eats your lunch is not a good thing, because soon you will be making "cheap trinkets" for them
Too bad that’s not the argument being made by people pushing the current policies, instead of the idea that this will magically lead to us having more and better things.
It sure is funny how the party that has spent 2 decades screaming at anyone they could that "climate change isn't real" and "the people saying we should output less carbon are REALLY just degrowth cultists and we can consume everything forever with no issues" are outright, willfully, destroying the American economy in such a way that average americans WILL have to consume less
the thing is that life is about freedom of choice, I didn't buy they cheap junk, I'm fairly normal. I might be the occasional hobby board off alibaba express a couple times a year. Choice is good, not bad.
The market does what people want. Fast fashion is exactly what people want because fashion has always been changing fast and about the "new thing" and people like to be able to buy new stuff all the time.
Proper jeans aren't really washed more than once a month or at all. Especially every day. They also will last for years therefore buying 1-3 pairs a year means your wardrobe will have plenty.
Maybe local production will get cheaper once more people start keeping their money in local communities. Sending it to China is just awful for your country/region and kills local businesses.
Disclaimer: from Europe so I don't care about USA at all. It's still having the same effect here
> Maybe local production will get cheaper once more people start keeping their money in local communities.
Is the thinking here that increased scale would allow production to get cheaper? How would this account for the fact that production was scaled here, but was not cost-competitive when it was operating at scale? What's different now?
Let's say currently it costs $15 to make thing 1m units of X in China and $50 to make 10k of them in the USA. USA could be scaled to make 50k of them for $40 and 100k for $30. 1m could cost like $25. There are people for who are ready to pay more for local products so the current production volume makes sense, but majority of people will go for cheaper option when given the chance so it doesn't make sense to scale up the production currently. If the import cost of the item goes above local production cost and there is still enough demand for the item, it can make sense to scale up that production even if you cannot compete with the China made things internationally.
Of course that assumes your own costs (like raw materials) do not increase at least on the same scale and that you can rely on the situation being long-term thing (i.e. will last years rather than weeks) as costs include your CapEx on things like new machines.
> say currently it costs $15 to make thing 1m units of X in China and $50 to make 10k of them in the USA. USA could be scaled to make 50k of them for $40 and 100k for $30. 1m could cost like $25.
So here we are assuming that we could get a 50% reduction in cost by scaling to 1m units of a thing. The problem with this logic is that many product categories currently made overseas were produced domestically at scale until relatively recently.
This assumption also appears to imply that the goods in question either have a very low labor input or are produced using automation that is not available to Chinese manufacturers.
Reframing my initial question, what advantages would a US manufacturer have today that they didn't have in e.g. 1990 that would allow them to manufacture for only 66% more than the same manufacturing in China?
> Proper jeans aren't really washed more than once a month or at all.
I've had a lot of people say this to me. I've known their policy on washing jeans without them ever having to tell me, though.
People become noseblind to their own stench. Unfortunately, it's not easy to ignore the stench of someone else wearing pants with a month of sweat and fecal bacteria soaked into them. I know lots of people also only wash their coats once a year, and trust me, being more resistant to stinking isn't the same as being completely immune to stinking.
Wash your clothes. The idea of not washing them is a meme and it's incredible how many people have fallen for it lately.
I don't know about you but it feels icky to me to wear dirty pants. I could probably get by wearing them two days in a row. If I have one paid of jeans, im washing them at least every other day. If I have 7 pairs of jeans im washing at least half of them once a week. I'd rather have 7 pairs of jeans. They last long enough for me(a few years). Maybe its just because I dont have to taken them to the laverie (as the french would say) but clean clothes just feel better.
The business-to-consumer businesses, which take the largest markup, employ the most people and pay the highest wages in the supply chain, have thrived under this system.
It's not the customers that demand products be made in China, it's these "local" businesses.
Well, given how many of their products come from China, right? How many of the products on sale on Amazon are partly or entirely produced in China? Those will have 125% (145? How mush is it today?) import duty on them, unless they're electronics.
I'm surprised the Chinese sellers are able to compete for fast fashion. Clothes are the one thing I don't really buy online because getting sizing right is already hard even when you're not dealing with Temu-style "well actually we said there's a +- 25 tolerance in the fine print and this is within tolerance" bullshit.
AliExpress is indispensable for small technical items. If they're available locally at all, shipping included they'd often cost 10-20x as much.
No idea about Shein, but I was shocked how easy/good Temu return policy was. My wife bought some rugs and some prints and they were not as described/pictured.
Took a minute in the app to generate a qr code, then I had it to the post shop the same day and they refunded within 3 days.
I wouldn't (personally) buy clothes to wear normally from them, but something like beach shoes or a poncho for a festival I'd maybe get there.
TIL Temu has a return policy. I thought the return policy was "throw it in the trash and be out the money (albeit 1/10th of what you would have paid in a regular store)".
It's not fast-fashion they are competing with — they invented ultra-fast-fashion. Their platforms (Shein and Temu) are fully geared towards allowing manufacturers to jump on board the latest hypes and trends and have a saleable product on there within a week or so, to sell for a few weeks until it is no longer trending.
They need to get their priorities straight - stop directing trade policy towards tech companies employing 1000's of workers on $250,000 a year and start building factories employing 100's or people on 25c an hour.
International shipping from China to the US is subsidized by USPS under the Universal Postal Union rules since China is classified as a developing country. Terminal dues to the US have been increasing over the last 5 years to compensate for this.
It's still crazy to me that we classify the second largest economy as a developing country. Especially when said "developing" country is trying to flex it's muscles over the world stage and attack its neighbors.
China can either remain a developing country subject to rules imposed by developed countries. Or it can join the developed countries and shape those rules. It can't do both.
That would probably require that they receive federal funding to subsidize postage rates, which is unfortunately not going to happen (especially not under DeJoy).
Yes, perhaps the government should subsidize (or allow states to subsidize) the fixed costs of mail, just as we subsidize the fixed costs of roads, so that our business can be competitive. Is this what China does domestically, or what the US does when we charge for international shipping? Point is, we should at least list all the ways that we can be more competitive, rather than cheering isolationism that makes us all worse off.
How do you demonstrate that User B earned their stablecoins via “salary, trading, mining, and etc.”; as opposed to through crime, whether the conventional crypto sort or through subverting currency controls?
What, other than money laundering, would motivate a person who had a supply of such stablecoins to want to supply them to into a market with currency controls? Is the concept there “I make my expat wages in dollars, I want to turn them back into $CURRENCY at the black market rate”?
User B is sending a peer-to-peer transaction, akin to a Zelle or Venmo. In most other countries, these peer-to-peer payments (PIX, UPI, etc.) do billions of transactions per month. And since you're sending your own funds, you're not a money transmitter. If we do work with any larger entities (e.g., an OTC desk, liquidity provider), we'd certainly be cognizant of the relevant licensing.
Hahaha we've had this conversation internally a couple of times.
Definitely a few places that we'd probably avoid. But also plenty of others (e.g., Kenya, LatAm, Turkey, etc.) that have been quite friendly and would be fine to visit.
I thought this, and nothing could be further from the truth. The gym (and gymbros) have been one of the most positive uplifting experiences of my life so far. I had a BMI of over 35 when I stepped into a gym for the first time ever at 41 years old.
The non-zero financial expense is really the only issue I can see as "real" on your list. You can avoid #3 by spending money on a personal trainer to learn. Gym memberships are also not cheap. The long-term costs of not doing so I would argue are far greater.
I didn't say "they're all going to laugh at me because I'm fat". I intentionally left the reason unspecified, but fat-shaming wasn't even on my list of considerations.
To be more specific: They're going to laugh at me because I have no idea WTF I'm doing. I have no idea what my own (or anyone else's) expectations are in a gym. I don't know what anything does, how to use it, or even what it may be called. I don't what cultural norms, unwritten rules, or written rules may exist in that environment.
I don't even know when to go, when not to go, what to wear, what not to wear, or et cetera. All I really know is that gyms are things that exist -- and that those who do go to gyms all seem to have the broad assumption that everyone was born with the specific knowledge needed to go to the gym, and that it is all implicitly obvious to anyone who is breathing.
But it is not implicitly obvious at all, to me, except for step 1: I am going to fuck this up.
And then: Yes, they're all going to laugh at me. (That's step 2.)
Step 3 is: Fuck it, I'm done. (I can get right to step 3 without even bothering with steps 1 or 2.)
AFAIK, absolutely zero of my friends "hit the gym" (or ever have) so it's not like I can ask for local guidance from someone who I know and trust.
It's daunting just to think about, much less consider actually doing.
> To be more specific: They're going to laugh at me because I have no idea WTF I'm doing.
This was my exact fear as well. I included BMI in my reply to illustrate I had never stepped foot in a gym before but perhaps that was a mistake to focus on.
In fact I could have written your entire post nearly verbatim 2 years ago. Even down to the "what do I wear" question. I was terrified for all the reasons you list, and am in general quite socially anxious from the get-go. Especially in totally alien environments to me. I spent months selecting gym wear and a bag prior to first stepping foot in one.
> and that those who do go to gyms all seem to have the broad assumption that everyone was born with the specific knowledge needed to go to the gym, and that it is all implicitly obvious to anyone who is breathing.
This is an assumption I held as well, but is simply outright wrong. The folks who are hardcore gymgoers love nothing more than helping newbies out, and they don't make these assumptions in my experience. They have a hard time not coming over and helping you out with proper form if they see you doing something that might injure you. They don't do so because they are afraid of making you uncomfortable. If anything, they get excited to see someone putting in the consistent work - they know how hard it is to do so, and love to see people attempting to improve their lives since they generally know how positive it is in theirs. There are assholes in all demographics, but they are rare in my experience.
My first trip to the gym with a personal trainer was highly specific: I want to be taught like a 5 year old on the easy machines so I can use them without feeling like an idiot on my own. This lasted a few sessions and definitely was a totally new experience for my trainer. She obviously felt a bit uncomfortable doing it since it was so far off-script for her.
Over time I graduated to feeling a lot more comfortable, but those first few months were really difficult for the reasons you describe. I felt like an outsider and a complete idiot since I barely had a clue. At some point I just surrendered to looking like a moron.
I am very lucky I have a wife who is very socially capable and was in the gym a lot beforehand. I was able to use her to setup that first training appointment and explain how out of the ordinary I wanted it to go. Otherwise though, I did it on my own with said professional help once a week.
I honestly wish you were close to me (maybe you are?) because I'd love to bring you to my gym and take you around - tell my trainer there is another one of me who needs the same treatment! It was life changing to me and I wish I had figured out a way to do it sooner in my life.
I still feel awkward as hell in the gym. I do half my routine "wrong" and still feel self conscious about it. But I'm slowly getting better, and I slowly realize literally no one cares.
If I can work up the courage, anyone I ask is quite happy to show me proper form/give advice vs. judgement. I'm sure a few do judge, but they thankfully keep it to themselves. I also continued to work with a trainer and developed a nice rapport where she can laugh at me in a good way while we correct my fuckups with a sense of humor about it all. She's basically become a family friend at this point.
Even with all that said, I now look forward to my training sessions. Less so my solo trips, but I feel amazing afterwards. Both physically, and the sense of accomplishment. So many of my "feeling like shit" days have been cleared up, and I now have a little bit of self confidence in my strength as well.
What I'm taking away from the discourse here are these things:
1. Yep. I'll fuck it up.
2. But that is usually fine, because people tend to be kind and helpful in a gym.
4. I can also hire someone to help, and perhaps I should.
5. Although none of this come without cost, the rewards of doing these things tend to be greater than the cost.
And that brings me a hell of a lot closer to being able to make informed decisions and set reasonable expectations (for all things gym) than I have been previously.
I know that feeling, I was nervous about the risks you listed when I was broke and started lifting around 2000/2001 anyway. Trust me, the expense of losing one's health due to inactivity is higher than any financial cost. I trained intuitively, which mostly means going it alone at the school of hard knocks by trying everything and keeping what sticks. I got hurt countless times from ego lifting too much weight in my 20s, not going through the full range of motion, etc, but nobody else got hurt on my watch. But athletes pretty much always recover anyway. That's the important part - learning that proper exercise, nutrition and supplementation makes the body fungible, so there's really no limit to what it's capable of. Now I'm one of the biggest guys at the gym as a lifelong natty and nobody's laughed at me since I got the eye of the tiger about 3 months in.
You can avoid all 5 almost* entirely and make amazing progress by doing bodyweight exercises at home, 2-3 times a week :) There are plenty of free guides out there where you can start at almost any level. E.g. can't do a pushup? put your knees down. Still can't? Do it at a head-up incline. Still can't? Push against a wall. Keep track and make progress until you can move to the next harder exercise. And always remember it's a marathon, not a sprint, so be patient with yourself.
* Can't make any promises. You might get hurt. You might need to pay for some kind of pull up system. But generally speaking: the sooner you stop looking for the perfect time/situation and just start, the easier it all becomes.
I keep getting hurt via various forms of exercise. My last injury was a herniated disc which has cost me so much time and money for surgery and PT and missed work time and such.
So a big #1 and #3 for me...
Maybe they were because of #2, but I tried to learn as best as I could.
I couldn't care less about #5.
A lot of time, money, and effort and I still have pretty much nothing to show for it. I am still quite thin and weak. I wont give up, but it's definitely not as simple as some people make it seem.
It takes an hour at most and you can go twice a week, working different muscle groups. Your muscles need 3-4 days of rest especially as you increase intensity.
So you can only do bicep workouts once a week for example. Even then, any exercise is better than none.
You can even just start at home with adjustable dumbbells and go to the gym when you hit those limits..
If I did everything people said isn't a big time commitment, I'd have no time left!
Edit: A more direct response - I agree with you that it's not a big deal, especially if you have dumbbells etc at home. (I think it's worth it, and lift weights.) It's still a time commitment, and therefore opportunity cost. That is a downside, irt the parent comment. I think you'll find many weight lifters spend more than the amount of time you cited. (Especially if they don't have a home gym), and I suspect any benefits are proportional (not linearly) to time spent doing it.
A lot of people where work is tied to your healthcare are not independent. A lot others work so much it leave them no choice to not be sane after a while. And sometimes people can't afford the expensive tools needed to deal with lots of personal issues (tools like therapy) so they turn to the cheaper options, like drugs.
I don't think it's so shocking that not a lot of people would actually be above that bar.
I had a feeling somebody would quibble with "independent." In context, I don't think it's a high bar. If we're talking about sex workers, we're not talking about people with regular jobs so work is tied to their healthcare. "Independent" has to mean no more than an independent-minded personality; exactly the sort of person who can cope with running their own business doing something that's less socially acceptable.
Therapy is not the universal requirement for mental health that many people seem to think it is. Most people just muddle through and manage to stay reasonably sane without developing substance abuse disorders. In many cases that might not be optimal, but it's not insane or drug-addled either.
Most sex workers I've come across are not drug addled nor mentally unwell. Obviously that's a tiny proportion and not enough to draw solid statistical conclusions from, but at least it's more data than you have.
people have been making that argument or warning for a long time, yet I am up 11x (1000 percent ) overall on my accounts since 2014 thanks to leveraged funds, big tech. good thing i ignored those people
> Barter economies never had inflationary periods.
Barter economies have also never existed in human societies. They have either been gift economies (esp. with smaller tribes) or credit economies (records dating back to the earliest tables from Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt). See:
Barter economies also make it next to impossible to save for the the future. Most goods produced by common are perishable and therefore one cannot be “saved” in any meaningful way. This keeps people at sustenance level and working until they die.
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