Tariffs hit RV prices

down home wrote:
I have noted no decrease in steel nor aluminum on semis, from ports, on our Interstates.

I pull a flatbed. You sir, are absolutely correct.

The economy is booming. Freight costs have gone thru the roof. Shippers are having trouble finding carriers to move products...carriers are demanding more per mile.

As a company driver my cents per mile (cpm) has increased as well as my benefit package. Companies are working hard to retain drivers in the trucks to meet shipping demands.

To be totally fair...truck availability has decreased because of a change in industry regulations, which has increased demand, raised rates. However the trucks you see MOVING are not a result of any shortage...they are the result of a booming economy.

For all the whinning and sniveling, things are still being made and bought. Will the cost eventually be passed on to the consumer..most likely, it always is.

I'm trying to make this apolitical but...

the bad side of the tariffs is easy to see because it gets reported on in the MSM and almost immediate (higher prices). If there is ultimately a positive side to the tariffs that positive side will be much harder to measure, demonstrate, explain and will probably take some time to develop. This makes the whole subject much more difficult for those that support the tariffs versus those that oppose them.

I tried :).

I read about some domestic steel plants starting to be unshuttered and people coming back to work. I personally don't mind paying a bit higher on prices if it means US workers. We all know that if steel prices drop, prices on RVs will stay current, so I'm sort of smelling an excuse to jack up prices.

I'm not an economist, but I'll wager the increase in US wages will outstrip the increase price of anything we buy. If they apply the tariffs to reducing the debt instead of compensating soy bean growers, then we'll all be better off. Or we can all learn to love tofu.

Yes, still apolitical and from someone who used economics for work in corporate financial planning.

We are now suffering from the unintended consequence of our drive for open trade by pressuring countries to lower their tariffs for our high-value products, cars, being an export dynamo.

Simple really. We can import their cheap steel and aluminum. Make them into high value-added cars and export to these countries under low tariff.

What happened is that it killed our steel and aluminum industries while these countries were able to make their own cars while US car manufacturers found cheap trainable workers in low wage countries and do the cars domestically and zero tariff.

GREAT excuse to raise prices!

RTCastillo wrote:
Yes, still apolitical and from someone who used economics for work in corporate financial planning.

We are now suffering from the unintended consequence of our drive for open trade by pressuring countries to lower their tariffs for our high-value products, cars, being an export dynamo.

Simple really. We can import their cheap steel and aluminum. Make them into high value-added cars and export to these countries under low tariff.

What happened is that it killed our steel and aluminum industries while these countries were able to make their own cars while US car manufacturers found cheap trainable workers in low wage countries and do the cars domestically and zero tariff.

The U.S. and world economies are so interconnected and convoluted I think is near impossible for the average individual (myself included) to figure out what will be in the best interest of the U.S long term.

They learned to use hypothetical excuses from the oil industry. Always an excuse to raise gas prices.
You can bet that this type of claim will draw negative political news against the current administration.

And, my brother works at a company that builds overhead cranes and buys a massive amount of steel and he says that business is booming and there has been no fear of these proposed tariffs causing a major riff in the industry.

2edgesword wrote:
The U.S. and world economies are so interconnected and convoluted I think is near impossible for the average individual (myself included) to figure out what will be in the best interest of the U.S long term.

x2. There's nothing simple about it.

Forget the steel and aluminum, think of all the stuff in your home that is manufactured in China, tv, phone, radio, computer, plates, mugs, silverware, some furniture, appliances, some tools, some clothing and linens, even some of the material to biuld houses so yea it will eventually hit home and all that tax credit and savings just got wiped out with the tariffs.

navegator