No not at all. just saying look at the stock. Buyers have the real power in the end. Don’t like price don’t buy. The reason no one is buying tesla is whole other fiasco, but just shows that buyers can change things on greedy corporations. (not saying PSA is one of those by the way)
Unfortunately small businesses are stuck in the middle now of all this mess. They buy from larger places and to stay in business have to raise prices. Tariffs is turning into death by a 1000 cuts for many of them. like Paul said, everything from packing materials to metal used in the products is going up.
I drove a 2020 Tesla Model 3 from December 2019 until early March 2025, at which point I traded it in at a below-market price for an EV from a different manufacturer. I liked the M3 but I could not deal with Elon Musk’s antics anymore (his Nazi salute was the last straw). Just yesterday, someone I know in New York City informed me that she has noticed a recent massive uptick in the number of Teslas driving around Manhattan. The speculation is that people are picking up Telsas on the used/secondary market at heretofore unseen low prices. So yes, sales of new Telsas are down, but people are buying used Teslas that others got rid of recently.
We had dinner at a favorite Japanese sushi place in South Bay. The tax is 10% and there is another 5% for employee health (used to be called Covid related cost), so adding 20% tip on top of the taxes and you get an idea how expensive eating out can be.
But even ordering to-go at restaurants and bakeries they are asking for tips too, and a few places are asking 18% to start! That is a bit aggressive, and I usually pay 10% for takeout if I am a regular customer. I am now going through their “Customed Tip” sections.
I have nothing aganist people of differnt origins or nationalities., and it’s to late now, but maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to out souce all or most of our manufacturing to other countries.
one country cannot produce 100% of everything. Have we built too much reliance on China? maybe. But we love our low prices. When a countries labor gets to expensive, corporations look for other places. Remember Japan? it was cheap labor in the 70’s. Not any more.
It was and (perhaps in general) still is. One acts always with circumstances with its current standards and rules to base decisions off. When these suddenly and drastically change, we all have to readjust. In hindsight, no one could have predicted something like this. Why? Because there’s no economic rational.
Bottom line is that everything now becomes more expensive. My bet is that if all production, and I mean all, production is US only, prices will be even higher. I’m not sure you would have wanted that beforehand, but I’m pretty sure most would have that option last on their wish list.
Whatever and I pretty much mean whatever is built here will be more expensive, and not by a little. If it takes a 25% tariff to move it on shore, that mean its probably going up at least 15-20%. Basic things needed to manufacture are more expensive. We do not have the infrastructure to do it either. That has to be taken into account. Which makes all this crazy talk even more crazy.
If course it’s not possible for any one country to produce everything they need, but we’ve definitely compromised our national security by outsourcing almost everything.
And yes if most things were produce here prices would be higher, but so would our stardard of living, because there would be more high paying middle class jobs.
Wouldn’t it be nice if all strata of our middle class’ real wages finally, decades later, saw a meaningful increase?
There are so many issues domestically and abroad that exist beyond the tips of our noses.
Yes, I’m sure there would be tons of people lining up to get jobs painting the eyes on dolls.
Corporations out sourced manufacturing jobs overseas because their costs decreased and their profits rose. A lesser side effect was that consumers got cheaper prices but there’s a reason why major corporations have been making record profits and it’s not because they fully passed on those cost savings to consumers.
Chicago is completely out of hand as well as many other city’s and hopefully it stops. It’s amazing to me we just let criminals run free and even celebrate them now. Just mind blowing.
