Comment by pixelesque
9 months ago
> to determine the price that people would pay to be meaningful in just about any way
Not convinced that would be meaningful, but even if it was, it'd be totally useless if you can't actually manufacture items in the US with less overhead than what this company managed.
Saying "people would have bought it if it was only 35% more for the same item" is not helpful if it's not possible to profitably manufacture them at 35% more than in China.
The greater context is tariffs. Tariffs make foreign products more expensive. If everyone is willing to pay 1% more for the benefit of their own economy, then a 1% tariff probably wouldn't be very unpopular, it might even be responsible, especially if that money is then immediately invested in helping the given industry grow.
It's a measurement of the pain of tariffs or a measurement of how many people would "willingly" pay a tariff.
Of course that assumes a low corruption government with informed and forward looking policy, rather than past looking policy. Tariffs as they are frequently exist so that our own companies don't have to compete as hard and are able to spend their money on stock buybacks rather than investing into R&D, or to choose winners and losers allowing a tariff wielding king to reward loyalty or punish dissent.
I am absolutely a layman though, and this is my layman understanding.
But that's tariffs on imported things, not actually manufacturing them in the USA, which is what this article is about.
If I am willing to pay 10% more for a locally made product, then a 10% tariff has no effect on me assuming that the local company has non colluding local competitors, likewise if I am not willing to pay an 85% tariff, then an 85% tariff, which is what it would take to be locally competitive according to this, would make a product I want to buy 85% more expensive or un-purchasable.
These tariffs are somewhat about consent/mandate, nationalism, and economic policy and this story aims to be a data point, although I'm not really clear what the author wants people to conclude.
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