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Re:Wyze pays $255k of tariffs on $167k of floodlights by number6 on Thursday May 01, 2025 @03:48AM (#43854756)
If they had bought American floodlights they had saved 255k in tarrifs. So if they had paid 200k for the floodlights they would have still been better of.

One could argue, that there might be no American Floodlight Company - well here is the incentive to build one.

Secondly the money isn't lost, it goes to the state. Like a tax, but it is called differently. With this 255k more the state can now subsidise the local floodlight industry.

If anything of the above comes to fruition... That's a different matter...

Re:Wyze pays $255k of tariffs on $167k of floodlights by herbst on Thursday May 01, 2025 @04:22AM (#43854963)
> Secondly the money isn't lost, it goes to the state. Like a tax, but it is called differently. With this 255k more the state can now subsidise the local floodlight industry.

Is that what is planned? The US has a lot of dept internationally I assumed the additional money goes into paying that back, or at least stabilize the dollar somehow

Re:Wyze pays $255k of tariffs on $167k of floodlights by lurkshark on Thursday May 01, 2025 @05:09AM (#43855260)
During the last Trump trade war with China, there was about $28B paid out to American farmers as “Market Facilitation Payments”. So basically the taxes collected from our own tariffs went to subsidizing the impact of retaliatory tariffs. The whole thing is pretty dumb.
Re:Wyze pays $255k of tariffs on $167k of floodlights by oatmeal_croc on Thursday May 01, 2025 @04:50AM (#43855140)
Floodlight companies don't appear overnight. I suspect they won't appear at all, given the instability of the tariffs and the fact that the next President (or even the current one) could wipe them off, rendering their shiny new Floodlight factory completely useless overnight. This extends to any industry.

Tariffs need to be stable and updated with several months of advance notice - otherwise they don't serve their purpose.

Re:Wyze pays $255k of tariffs on $167k of floodlights by badestrand on Thursday May 01, 2025 @05:23AM (#43855354)
It still is a very possible effect.

Yes, less chaos and more predictability would be better obviously but the theoretical foundation is somewhat solid.

Re:Wyze pays $255k of tariffs on $167k of floodlights by worik on Thursday May 01, 2025 @05:06AM (#43855240)
> Like a tax,

It is a tax

Re:Wyze pays $255k of tariffs on $167k of floodlights by badestrand on Thursday May 01, 2025 @05:21AM (#43855344)
A tax on foreign labor, to be exact. (Not foreign products or materials per se).
Re:Wyze pays $255k of tariffs on $167k of floodlights by atwrk on Thursday May 01, 2025 @05:38AM (#43855471)
Actually it's an import tax - the importer pays it, not the foreign worker.
Re:Wyze pays $255k of tariffs on $167k of floodlights by badestrand on Thursday May 01, 2025 @09:36AM (#43857495)
Yes, true of course.

But I meant that if you take an example of tshirt production that gets sold in the US, with fabric that comes from Bangladesh, one producer in Vietnam, one in the US. The final price consists of materials, labor, shipping. Both effectively have materials and shipping tariffed and for the Vietnam company additionally the labor is tariffed.

So the only difference is the application of the tariff on the labor for the Vietnam company.

Re:Wyze pays $255k of tariffs on $167k of floodlights by badestrand on Thursday May 01, 2025 @05:27AM (#43855388)
> Secondly the money isn't lost, it goes to the state. Like a tax, but it is called differently. With this 255k more the state can now subsidise the local floodlight industry.

Alternatively the taxes can be lowered so that overall the American consumers don't lose buying power (imports get more expensive but people also have more money to spend).

Re:Wyze pays $255k of tariffs on $167k of floodlights by atwrk on Thursday May 01, 2025 @05:37AM (#43855466)
Thanks to the chicken tax we already know how this will develop: The US floodlight company will sell those US-made lights these lights for ~400k (so at the margin of market price plus tariffs), and no one outside the US will want to buy them. This is literally what already happened with the US car industry.
Re:Wyze pays $255k of tariffs on $167k of floodlights by glimshe on Thursday May 01, 2025 @07:56AM (#43856509)
There are many companies all over the world focused on local markets. The car industry is strategic, but I wouldn't mind buying a floodlight from a company that doesn't export anything.
Re:Wyze pays $255k of tariffs on $167k of floodlights by ahstilde on Thursday May 01, 2025 @08:06AM (#43856595)
So you want a worse floodlight at a higher price because of government protection?
Re:Wyze pays $255k of tariffs on $167k of floodlights by glimshe on Thursday May 01, 2025 @08:51AM (#43857026)
If it employs an American and helps recreate our middle class... Yes I do.

First they came for the floodlight maker's job. Next they will come for yours.

Re:Wyze pays $255k of tariffs on $167k of floodlights by lossolo on Thursday May 01, 2025 @10:16AM (#43857998)
There is no unemployment problem. Producing floodlight is not high paying job. If things become more expensive, more people will fall out of the middle class because they will no longer be able to afford what they previously could.
Re:Wyze pays $255k of tariffs on $167k of floodlights by glimshe on Thursday May 01, 2025 @11:58AM (#43859477)
There is an enormous problem with sub-employment. Scores of Americans "employed" in activities such as Uber/Lyft driving, food delivery and quasi-prostitution (OnlyFans and adjacent).

Floodlight making would be a huge step up for Americans leaving small towns for terrible jobs in big cities.

Check the problem with drug addiction in small and medium cities.

Re:Wyze pays $255k of tariffs on $167k of floodlights by 1659447091 on Thursday May 01, 2025 @01:40PM (#43860896)
> Next they will come for yours.

Like "they" came for middle-class Americans in stable US government jobs?

If they cared about re-creating a middle class with jobs, they wouldn't have started with wantonly eliminating so many of them using a method similar to checking if the packaged spaghetti is cooked. Toss it randomly at the wall and see what sticks.

Re:Wyze pays $255k of tariffs on $167k of floodlights by glimshe on Thursday May 01, 2025 @03:40PM (#43862413)
Is that your vision for middle class jobs? Government? And who will pay for these... The "rich"?
Re:Wyze pays $255k of tariffs on $167k of floodlights by 1659447091 on Tuesday May 06, 2025 @03:37AM (#43902630)
What are you talking about? Who said anything about vision for jobs?

You and I both want an employed middle class. Why are you okay with "them" coming for the middle class as long as it Government jobs? These magic employment factories are not going to spring up overnight. So in the mean time why not care about the families and lives being rocked for having the audacity to get what was a stable job that could provide security for their middle class family with the added benefit for those that value their work in civil service over joining the Ferengi?

> And who will pay for these... The "rich"?

Me for one (Im not rich), I recognize what this county provides and the opportunities available. Why be against helping that which helped you? If some people dont want to that, okay, renounce citizenship, leave the country. They can be free of a government taxing the people who benefited the most from the previous generations taxes that paid for the collective government effort providing the conditions the newly wealthy, and the much wealthier now benefited from. Musk immigrated to this country because he wasn't going to have the same opportunity to turn the money he had into the fortune it is by staying in South Africa. Yet instead of using the opportunity his American created money bought him and carefully pruning the weary looking government tree so it could grow back stronger and healthier, he took a chainsaw to it. There's more money to be made at his stage of wealth with an even weaker government; that path has greater profit and simultaneously, the chance to pull up the ladder he climbed on the backs of the middle class. So should the "rich" pay their dues? Yes, just as I do and for the same reason. Otherwise, it's the "rich" who are the freeloaders.

Is that your vision for middle class jobs? Wait til the "rich" buys whats left of the country's economy at discount, then graciously allow the masses to work in their floodlight factory for scraps 6 days a week in a new private owned unregulated job economy with no oversight for worker protections?

Re:Wyze pays $255k of tariffs on $167k of floodlights by phatskat on Friday May 02, 2025 @10:12AM (#43870041)
> helps recreate our middle class

These tariffs are probably the worst way to try to do that. America had its best “middle class” when companies and CEOs were heavily taxed and when unions were thriving. The politicians ranting about “bringing jobs back to America” are the same ones that dismantled the things that actually _made America great_, and if they actually cared about the quality of living for most Americans they would do actual work to get there instead of alienating our economy to benefit themselves and their rich friends.

Re:Wyze pays $255k of tariffs on $167k of floodlights by nojvek on Thursday May 01, 2025 @05:53AM (#43855585)
> state can now subsidise local floodlight industry.

Ha! State wants to cut taxes for corporations and billionaires. That’s where the money is most likely going to go.

Inflation go brrrr!

Re:Wyze pays $255k of tariffs on $167k of floodlights by thisisit on Thursday May 01, 2025 @03:51PM (#43862554)
That is not even remotely correct. The American Floodlight Company would sell the floodlights for slightly below the 392k - the total amount these guys paid. Something like 350k and tell the consumers they just saved "42k". Because the alternative is? Import it and pay huge tariffs. This is what happened last time with washing machines.

The protectionism also means American Floodlight Company no longer needs to innovate. Because they can keep producing the same lights over and over again. What are people going to do? Look for innovative floodlights overseas and pay huge tariffs?

It also means American Floodlight Company products cannot be exported. It is costlier and not innovative. Japanese, Chinese, Koreans brands are going to leave them behind.

In the meantime, American Floodlight Company is a business, not a charity. They will find loopholes like get cheap parts -- this will be easier as world moves on to newer, more efficient lights, so that overall input costs are low - despite the tariffs. Then assemble it in US and claim it to be "Made in USA".

Win, Win for the company while the consumers can take a hike.

Re:Wyze pays $255k of tariffs on $167k of floodlights by number6 on Thursday May 01, 2025 @04:00PM (#43862671)
Yes that's the most likely outcome, but OP asked for the benefits - and I guess my explanation is the naïve thinking that lead to the tarrifs in the first place