Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony Ask Trump To Skip Tariffs on Gaming Consoles (cnet.com) 122
President Donald Trump's plan to increase tariffs on goods produced in China would affect a wide range of consumer goods. One gadget that could see a price increase because of a trade war is the video game consoles, and the three biggest companies behind consoles have come together to ask Trump for a pass. From a report: Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony sent a letter dated June 17 to the Office of the United States Trade Representative requesting that video game consoles be removed from the list of products covered by tariffs. The companies say a tariff on consoles would stifle innovation and harm the larger gaming ecosystem -- threatening jobs and injuring consumers, video game developers and retailers. Microsoft makes the Xbox console, Nintendo makes the Switch, and Sony makes the PlayStation. "While we appreciate the administration's efforts to protect US intellectual property and preserve US high-tech leadership," the three companies said in the letter, "the disproportionate harm caused by these tariffs to US consumers and businesses will undermine -- not advance -- these goals."
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Microsoft should manufacture in America but Sony and Nintendo? Why do they hate Japan?
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If Microsoft manufactured in the USA, an Xbox would cost over a $1000. Sony and Nintendo are Japanese companies, but they still have their console components made in China.
The real problem here is that Trump is a fearmongering crybaby who instead of encouraging US companies to actually make competitive products at competitive prices simple slaps a tariff on everything to make US companies "cost competitive".
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If Microsoft manufactured in the USA, an Xbox would cost over a $1000. Sony and Nintendo are Japanese companies, but they still have their console components made in China.
The real problem here is that Trump is a fearmongering crybaby who instead of encouraging US companies to actually make competitive products at competitive prices simple slaps a tariff on everything to make US companies "cost competitive".
On the contrary, Trump has removed so many regulations that it's become attractive again for companies to manufacture in the US. I'm not sure an Xbox made today would cost $1000, given that companies now have a lot more leeway on how much they can automate.
The tariffs are more often than not counter-tariffs - imposed when another country has its own tariffs against American products, to level the playing field. It's not something they've imposed just b'cos they feel like it. Yeah, they sometimes use ta
Re: Gotta ask.. (Score:1)
Show us by lowering your own salary first.
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Perhaps the USA ought to lower minimum wage so that these things could be produced cost-competitively. This would help solve the homelessness crisis and put everyone, even the lowest skilled people, back to work.
Just giving Microsoft a pass to continue manufacturing in China does none of that.
Problem is that there are 2 opposing forces on wages. On one hand, more adults are using minimum wage jobs as their primary income, which it's not meant to be: it's supposed to be entry level jobs for young people just entering the workforce. Which makes lowering it really ugly for them. On the other hand, as you point out, lowering them would help keep some of those jobs from leaving the US, since an increase or decrease on regulated minimum wages has a ripple effect on wages over the rest of the spectr
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Perhaps the USA ought to lower minimum wage so that these things could be produced cost-competitively.
Yup! "Race to the bottom," that always works.
Re:Gotta ask.. (Score:5, Insightful)
They are companies. They want to make money. Tariffs mean higher prices.
Oh and that means higher prices for consumers. You see, that's the problem with tariffs. The guys in the White House don't pay for those tariffs. The companies certainly won't absorb the extra costs. So it's you, when you want to buy a console or a computer, that pays it. That's higher costs for consumers and business. They are the people that get punished by it. And if it pushes down demand, count retail outlets and all the spin offs (like game stores and the like) who pay the costs. That means at least job losses.
So the question then becomes, why does the White House hate American consumers so much?
If tariffs always get passed on to consumers (Score:2)
Fact is inflation has been around 4.5% while wages have fallen. That money didn't disappear, it's going to the top. This means there's a _lot_ of room for increased costs (read:tariffs) without price increases. And with so little buying [cnbc.com] power [bbc.com] companies are likely to be forced to absorb the costs.
Now, this is not to say these tariffs are a good thing. But they're not really a bad thing yet. Trump has backed down from virtual
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There are limited cases for tariffs. For instance, China's steel dumping, which has heavily disadvantaged steel production in the US and Europe, most certainly is a legitimate target for tariffs. But targeting gaming consoles, where there is little evidence of any overt state assistance in China, and where there's no domestic industry to be disadvantaged, is ludicrous. That's just a pointless trade war that causes harm to the domestic economy. It basically becomes an arm wrestling match, and not a sane or r
Re: Gotta ask.. (Score:1)
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Why do these companies hate America?
Tariffs don't fix the fundamental reasons behind why manufacturing left the USA in the first place. It's like you're playing basketball against a professional, and in order to make the game more "fair" to you, you make a rule that the pro must wear ill-fitting shoes and an eye patch. Forcing the pro to be a worse player doesn't improve your athletic ability in the slightest.
Worse, tariffs don't always handicap your opponent. They primarily just reduce the buying power of your money. So to continue the a
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you don't understand the function of the subject at hand.
Trump imposed tariffs because he gave a big honkin' tax cut to the rich [washingtonpost.com], and needed ways to generate additional government revenue.
It has absolutely fuck-all to do with trying to save American jobs that are never coming back. That's just Trump pandering to his base, like the wall Mexico was going to pay for, or how Hillary was supposed to be "locked up".
Hence, you just look stupid and you're still not winning.
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Why do these companies hate America?
You're modded down, but the question I have is - what's so important about them that tariffs have to be waived on them? If they're that great or important, make them in the US. Or in another country w/ whom we don't have hostile economic relations. Like Vietnam, Philippines, India, Thailand.... As it is, much of the manufacturing is automated, so there's no reason that slave wages will do that much for their bottom line
Plus at least in Microsoft's case, their company, like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Tw
In the interest of Fairness and Equality... (Score:3)
the tariffs should stand. No special exceptions.
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Companies have been able to apply for exceptions and some have gotten them. But the way they've been handed out has been clumsy and opaque. And inept and poorly planed and slow, like everything the Trump admin has attempted.
Replacing a legal regime where companies beg the government on a case by case basis is.. Real bad. It will inevitably lead to corruption as bad actors find who to slip money to to grease the wheels.
Trump, turning the US in to a cleptocrat shithole just like his beloved Russia.
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These tariffs shouldn't even be there in the first place.
These tariffs should never have been removed in the first place. For most of the history of the US we funded the bulk of the federal budget with import tariffs, not taxes. The current regime is the result of colonial thinking; wealthy western countries using their lucrative markets to coerce smaller, less powerful and less wealthy nations. Every "trade deal" that has occurred in your life has been another such arrangement; you adopt the policies we demand and we give you MFN or some other tariff free sta
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The entire Rust Belt would like a word with you.
You could also compare GDP in India and China. since.. 1980 or so? India started out at parity with China. India pursued a service based economy while China went with manufacturing. Both have improved dramatically, but India is no where near as developed as China at this point.
Divorcing labor from the wealth it produces is the best way to destroy the middle class.
Elections have consequenses (Score:1)
If these companies aren't happy with what the present administration is doing, they need to open their pocketbooks and start donating to the opposing party. You'd think tech companies would've figured out by now that politics is pay-to-play.
Wrong approach ... (Score:3, Insightful)
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For someone neither in the US nor in China you sure do have a great deal of opinions to share on the run-up to a new election season.
You are confusing opinions with actual observable facts:
https://hillreporter.com/bombs... [hillreporter.com]
https://www.huffpost.com/entry... [huffpost.com]
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Nah they donated to Hillary and the DNC already. Why isn't that paying off?
And yet Trumpkins keep telling me that they voted for Trump because he's such beacon of honesty who's going to 'drain the swamp'. If you point out that he drained the swamp straight into his administration, they alluvesudden pivot and claim they knew all a long he was a crook but they support him because he's 'their' crook. The same seems to apply to his dismal record as a business man.
Election soon (Score:2)
Re:Election soon (Score:5, Funny)
Did you ever think that God might want Trump to be president? He's visited plagues upon nations before.
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Don't know about you, but most American's will actually tell them life is better under Trump than the last two POTUS before him.
[citation needed]
Even if so, you can't credit Trump for riding a wave any more than you could Clinton.
Re:Election soon (Score:4, Interesting)
But Democrats and media look like they're going to pull the same stupid mistake that got Trump in, by running a candidate who is "part of the system"
if Biden runs, you're gonna be Trumped
mark it down
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if Biden runs, you're gonna be Trumped
I think the 25+ Democrat candidates will knock each other out. Or be hit with some scandals . . . like Bernie's private flight splurges; a real jet-set socialist; or something like Biden with "roaming hands". I don't think these leaks are coming from Republicans.
In the end, when the Democrat conventions comes around, they will settle for a classic "Dark Horse" candidate . . . Hillary.
She still has all those delegates who were "previously known as super."
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lolz, no Hillary is what cost the Democrats last time
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if Biden runs, you're gonna be Trumped
It depends on if the companies who stand to gain by Trump being ousted decide to put some real financial backing behind the Democratic nominee.
I'm also pretty sure China wants him out, too. Maybe they'll decide to take a page out of Russia's book and "interfere" in 2020.
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Honestly Id vote for biden before a lot of those others. Biden is well respected among republican senators. Hes genuinely a nice guy and does not typically engage in the us vs them bullshit thats been going on for 25yrs. He does not dismiss an idea just because of who came up with it. IMO hes the best shot dems have.
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this will hurt them bad (Score:1)
The other stuff the tariffs are hitting are staples, stuff where people may buy a little less and/or try to find non-Chinese alternatives, but in the end, they'll just suck it up and pay it, but these game consoles, these are exactly the kind of purchases where people will just choose to live without if they don't like the price but they will pitch a mighty bitch in the process. Given how many neckbeards and incels back Trump, exactly the sort most impacted by this move and the sort most likely to take to
Orange-nosing (Score:1)
He values loyalty and flattery. Kiss up to the orange guy or kiss your profits goodbye.
Let the tariffs stand (Score:3, Interesting)
The more tariffs continue to cover, the more manufacturing will shift away from China, the sooner China will relent and negotiate to where the tarrifs can be listed.
Lots of people seem to forget the tariffs are there merely as a tool to force a fairer deal with China than we have had in the past, once they agree the tariffs go away. It's not like they are there just for the heck of it.
In the case of Mexico, the tariffs worked so well they never even had to go into effect. China is a lot more stubborn but they do not have too much longer they can maintain their stance as more manufacturing shifts away to other countries...
That won't really help anything much (Score:4, Interesting)
I said this elsewhere on the thread but if you want jobs vote for the Green New Deal. A large scale government jobs program is the way to go. The private sector responds to one thing and only one thing: Demand. And with all the money going to the top there just isn't enough demand to drive a robust job market. Not when automation means this [youtube.com]
Oh goody, a "Centrist" (Score:2)
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It is interesting to see the Republican party so rapidly go gung-ho for tax increases (tariffs are excise taxes collected on the importing side) and abandoning free trade. It's one thing if you had say, Sherrod Brown, pushing a protectionist line, it's quite another to have all these free market types bend the knee as long as it's a big enough bully forcing the issue. I guess we'll see if they remember that they ever had principles once Trump is
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China isn't going to give massive concessions to a President who may well not be in office in 17 months. They will either wait him out, throwing in some retaliatory tariffs and blacklists to ensure that his successor plays ball, or they will fob him off with something he can spin into a win.
Mexico is a great example, glad you brought it up. What did Trump really get? He certainly sounded pretty triumphant about it... But actually was just fobbed off.
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And why would a company choose to do that? Because, that is what we are talking about, companies, not countries. And they would have to know that they were spending billion moving their manufacturing to a country that wasn't going to be hit by tarifs, and even Trump himself wouldn't be able to guarantee that. He can't even lay specifics on why he imposed these tariffs in the first place, and can't tell anyone clear criteria as to when he will lift them. In his mind, these manufacturing jobs are coming t
Will this raise prices for US Consumers? (Score:4, Insightful)
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We want decent wages and jobs.
Speak for yourself. I want robots to do all of the "jobs" so I can spend my entire life having "fun".
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This is a fantasy. Even if the supply chains could be replicated in the US, most of the work would be done by robots. Even in China it's getting that way already, not because of labour cost but because humans can't compete with the consistency of robots operating in a clean environment.
If you want good quality, mass produced goods you get robots to build them.
Good for us in Europe (Score:1)
I should hold up any purchases.
Less demand on Chinese products can only mean lower prices.
As an added bonus cheaper imports and better competitiveness through this VS China to USA should be good too.
The bad part is of course maybe lower exports to a poorer China and in the long run if it would make more competition in USA too.
they must be removed! (Score:3)
consoles must be taken of the list at all costs!
these are devices nobody can live without, the impact of the costs rising for consoles is a disaster!
you know the basic needs of a person are; food, shelter, a console.