Comment by sethammons
17 days ago
Stop. Hold on. You just heard a solid set of examples and logic on why the tariffs were bad for Brazil's consumers and your takeaway was that one brand that couldn't compete in the US moved to the sheltered manufacturing environment and that is good?
The policy is good for uncompetitive manufacturing - and so you are in support of it? Why is that less-competitive manufacturer from Philly who couldn't compete anywhere but Brazil more important than the people of that country?
Not at all - I'm not really taking a solid stance one way or another because I'm not an economist.
My only point was that Philco was being used as an unknown crappy Brazilian brand example. It used to be an American company that actually made quality things, and through outsourcing and general 'physical and financial enshittification' is pretty much an unknown to Americans now.
If you're in favor of quality things being made in the US, it's an argument for said policy.
But the examples _just_ given show that the same kind of tariff policy in Brazil caused shitty local options that could never compete with the outside world and cited example after example. The whole "grey" market for un-tariffef foreign goods.
There is nothing that says tariffs cause quality things to be built locally and the examples are counter to that.
Yes I understood the post but the difference is that Brazil didn't have a burgeoning or top tier electronics industry at any point I can remember. The US did and slowly gave it away to cheaper producers. Further, the average American has more disposable income and won't necessarily just grab what's cheapest.
So it's not easy to conclude they are the same in any fashion.
The question is what would happen today if the US ends up in the same situation. Will we go back to producing top tier electronics, or get stuck with crappy brands taking advantage of the situation? It's hard to say. I'd guess a mix of both. Top tier stuff would probably in house what they can, but the low end would get much, much worse. But that's just me guessing.
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