Rabbit hole time.
Apparently, caffeine in soft drinks is synthetic. I thought they just used caffeine that is extracted from decaffeinating coffee beans - not so. Also it’s barely produced in the US (anymore), and we mostly import it from China.
Neat part is: it doesn’t look all that complicated to synthesize and requires some common-ish organic compounds and solvents to make. As a bonus, the “the raw synthetic caffeine often glows - a bluish phosphorence”. If anyone is on his Patreon, please give NileRed a nudge to give this a shot; I think it would be right up his alley.
So we can get by without coffee, but short of running your own chemistry lab, it’s going to be a bit before industry can ramp up production of the synthetic stuff. Meanwhile, caffeinated beverages across the board would be more expensive were synthetic caffeine a part of any tariff scheme.
More here:
Finally, the Step Too Far.
Maybe? We also import a shed-load of tobacco. Combined, that’s not gonna be pretty.
https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/raw-tobacco/reporter/usa
All this insecurity about tariffs has me hoping he have a Boston Tea Party situation. If I recall the story correctly, they threw the expensive British Tea overboard to protest the tax.
Similarly, I also recall a sugar tax, and either an ink or paper one: basically, I hope I can see something similar to see there’s still a small piece of American values from our ancestors (not the twisted Conservative heaven MAGA wants, but on the American dream of freedom, liberty, and justice for ALL.)
No Taxation Without Representation!
Can we do it without fucking up the environment in the process?
Nah. Environment needs to pay
What has Mother Earth ever done for us?
It’s hilarious how everyone knows the Tea Party and all of the taxes, when the real reason the American revolution happened was that England wasn’t going to let us drive Native Americans out
They were definitely just going to protect the natives, that’s the lovable British empire that I know
For sure, this wasn’t out of benevolence. The Brits mostly wanted to avoid more war. Remember why those all those taxes were raised? Sending soldiers over to fight Frenchmen and Indians is expensive. If those backwards colonists keep fucking with them, the Indians are going to cooperate more with the French.
Some folks were a little late to figuring out what tariffs were okay!
I feel like most people I have heard talking about them while supporting Trump seem to know that tariffs are taxes, but have no concept of how they play out in a real economic situation. Most fall into one or both of two camps:
A) Tariffs are taxes, but they’re taxes for companies not individuals, and they’re only applied to importing, so they won’t affect me.
B) Tariffs are taxes for foreign companies, to level the playing field and keep American business competitive. Since the companies that have to pay it are foreign, it won’t affect me.
Spoiler alert, guys: no matter where the tax is levied in the system, the consumer is the only person who ever pays for it, since they’re the only ones that can’t pass that cost on to anyone else.
Also, while this can make domestic competitors more competitive, it’s important to remember two things: first, if it works, it’s only working by making things more expensive for consumers, and second, this assumes that the domestic competitors want more business, have the ability and posture to increase their production to meet the new greater demand, and will operate in good faith. Much more likely is that they simply also increase their prices in reaction to the tariffs, so they’re not producing or selling any more volume and aren’t creating any jobs… they’re just padding their profit margins at the corporate/shareholder level while doing nothing for their employees, all while having the average consumer foot the bill.
That’s exactly what happened with the steel tariffs in the first Trump term and that’s exactly what will happen now…the only difference is that this time it seems like there will be significantly fewer economic buffers between the tariff and the consumer, so more people will more directly feel the sting here…and presumably the mental gymnastics from the MAGAts will be even sadder in their attempts to somehow make it not a criticism of their orange leader’s incompetence.
“Surely the company that sells a product for $100 will keep selling the product for that price once tariffs mean that it costs a $125 to produce and import!” - crazy people.
Tariffs are taxes, but they’re taxes for companies not individuals, and they’re only applied to importing, so they won’t affect me.
Typical Magoo (literally my dad in 2016): “you can’t tax business owners, they’re going to just make everything more expensive for us! They pass on the burden to us!”
Also Magoo: “Yay tarrifs! They are a tax on business but that won’t get passed on to me!”
The Magoo motto: Whatever words I need to use to suit my purpose I will use, to hell with reality.
Wanna bet that the search trend spikes again when/if they come into affect?
In our techo utopian future, the only caffeinated beverage will be Diet Mt. Dew.
Ewwww, I will take the crab juice.
Sorry, everyone who knows how to make khlav kalash has been deported.
Because of your lack of patriotism for our national beverage, the leadership has decreed that you will now only be able to drink caffeine-free Diet Mt. Dew.
The leader has issues a new memorandum. You will only be allowed to drink flat, room-temperature, caffeine free Diet Mt. Dew.
Chocolate also. Lol I hope you fucking like corn syrup and candy corn you little shits.
I prefer buying my coffee and chocolate directly from the child slave labour. None of that free trade shit. It makes me feel connected to a past I never lived in.
I usually fly in to buy it locally. Important these days to know your farmers
I like to talk to the grain harvesting robot every once in a while, really lets me feel like I’m part of a community
I pictured this together in a bowl and it’s making me feel a hair nauseated
The syrup helps the little corns slide down better.
Also: I can’t feel my toes but I’m sure that’s unrelated.
Classic American breakfast 🤌
Who are we kidding? Trump’s going to enforce it selectively to nefarious ends and enrich himself off exemptions that he’s hand picked to be subservient. Free market my ass.
100% this. I see tariffs on foreign cars coming quick.
I’ve been saying this. I’m curious to see who wins out. In this case it’s populist bullshit vs American coffee retailers. Let’s see who comes out on top.
So nothing and it’s just a money grab
No. Everyone who doesn’t have money for him to grab is fucked.
I’m not American, but tariffs to fix import issues is pretty stupid.
This is the capitalist dream, export all the production of the goods you use daily to third world countries, who will have shit labor practices like the US used to have when slavery was a thing (and bluntly, for quite a while afterwards), so that the boots-on-the-ground laborers that produce everything are either treated like slaves or literally are slaves, then import the raw material to be manufactured into whatever you’re selling in the US, so you can slap a “made in the USA” sticker on your shit to enhance sales and charge more. Meanwhile “made in the USA” doesn’t and shouldn’t imply that there’s no imported goods going into the manufacturing process to make that thing, just that you took raw materials (from wherever) and made this thing in the USA.
Tariffs unduly harm end consumers, pretty much everything we buy and own is, or has components that are, imported shit.
Most microchips, a large amount of the food we eat, most electronics, pretty much everything you’ll find at a dollar general, etc (the list is very very long)… all imported in whole or in part.
Hell, there was a time that it was more economical to have your raw materials, even if they’re mined/harvested/produced in the USA, shipped overseas for assembly by slave labor, then shipped back for sale to the US public, than to have it assembled inside the US. Much of that is still true. The US neither has the manufacturing capacity, nor the desire to build their own shit. The only time that’s not the economical option is for large cost (and scale, either in size or money) items, like housing or vehicles. Assembly generally happens in the country/landmass where the vehicle will be sold and used. Even a company like Toyota, a Japanese brand, will have assembly plants in the USA for cars sold in the USA, because that’s cheaper than importing hundreds of vehicles. For everything else, it’s generally cheaper to assemble it outside of the country and import the final product.
You think process are high now? Wait until the tariff wars really kick off.
No company is going to accept the costs of tariffs and be okay with that eating their profits, they’re passing that cost into consumers, because we’re the saps that are still going to buy it.
When the tariffs come down, and they will eventually, prices will drop, but not to where they were from before the tariffs. Companies will continue to post record profits, justifying not giving raises because tariffs, and wages will remain stagnant. We’ll earn less, while they rob is for more than they already do.
The worst part is that when the tariffs are lifted, we’ll thank them for lowering the prices by buying more of their shit. We’ll be grateful for the opportunity to pay even more into their profit margins.
Congratulations, you’re experiencing late stage capitalism. The system is working as intended. You are poor, you remain poor, barely able to scratch out a living, while your owners profit more and more off of your hard work, and you get to thank them for that opportunity.
I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.
The worst part is that when the tariffs are lifted, we’ll thank them for lowering the prices by buying more of their shit. We’ll be grateful for the opportunity to pay even more into their profit margins.
Prices won’t go down, companies will pocket the difference
Oh, they’ll go down… But it won’t be nearly as much as it went up to cover the tariff.
What I’m thinking is, let’s say a widget is $100, tariffs go in at, say 5%. So it should cost $105, but the price increases to $110. People cry bloody murder, but ultimately they “need” the widget so they buy it. Tariffs go away, yay, the price is dropped, it’s now $107.99
that’s what I’m thinking.
Also it’s all the Democrats fault.
In practice, that’s not what happens generally. A widget is $100, the 5% tariff brings it up to $105 and company bumps the price to $110. People need the widget so they buy it at $110. Tariff goes away, but company knows that people will pay at least $110 for the widget, so they try bumping the price to $115. Maybe it doesn’t sell, so they “discount” it back to $110 and people will happily buy it thinking they’re getting a deal, while the company is pocketing that extra $10.
That’s certainly a possibility.
I would argue that we’re both right depending on what the widget is.
(Assuming the price is changed to be proportional and appropriate for the product) Something like a grocery item is more prone to my thought, and something that has generational differences, such as a laptop or something, will likely follow your theory more closely.
I think a lot of this will still be tied to price elasticity. If the price is very elastic then the former system would be more likely. Drop the price so you can push more units (and overall, profit goes up), where things that are far less elastic, say, an iPhone, would tend to simply continue to increase like the latter system you describe.
At the end of the day, both are horrid, terrible, and very very common. So I’ll finish by saying: no matter what happens, people are going to be getting massively fucked, and corporations will post record profits yet again.
Fuck corporations.
I want everyone to be angry enough to do something about this.
How do we get everyone angry.
You spew this every day for the next four years with as wide a firehose as possible. Track every tariff and price it effects, scream it into every tar pit media site out there. Literally just shove this in everyone’s faces for this entire time. Every time.
Won’t work, they yell “fake news” then bury their heads in the sand like they always do.
Idk misinformation tactics would probably work the same for information and with Republicans theres enough hidden truth to firehose. We aren’t swaying MAGAts. We’re grabbing those dumb centrists
A proper education would have done it.
Let’s be reasonable here.
How do we get everyone angry.
This is the problem — taking away my coffee makes me angry, but I’ll be too tired to do anything about it.
nor the desire to build their own shit
I would say that we’ve also largely lost the means to afford stuff built here, in large part as a consequence of our endless pursuit of cheap crap while scraping the bottom of the barrel with outsourcing. Even if you want to buy domestically-made goods, since we’ve lost so many of those good union jobs, especially in manufacturing, we no longer have the means to pay what it costs to make such a product with American workers. Especially if people intend to continue with their current consumerist trends.
I’m making $20/hour at the moment. If I want to buy American, union-made shoes, it’ll run me $400 a pair, on the lower end. I think it’s pretty reasonable to have a pair of work boots, a pair of regular shoes for wearing out and about, and a pair of dress shoes, which at that low end will run me 37.5% of my monthly gross pay. Now do the same for domestically produced clothing, and you’ve probably run up a bill of several month’s pay, just to have enough outfits to last you a single week, leaving aside coats, seasonal clothing, or formal attire. We’re either going to have to sharply curtail our purchasing and focus on buying a smaller amount of goods meant to last as long as possibly, or the sadly more likely scenario, we’ll see the establishment of domestic sweatshops to fuel the consumerist impulses of what remains of the middle class and up. Whether we’ll just go even more insane in our treatment of the poor here, or use prison labor and undocumented migrants “pending” deportation in these sweatshops remains to be seen, but Americans have demonstrated we shortsightedly value our ability to accumulate cheap trash over anything else.
I’d love to be proven wrong, and see a growth of strong unions and domestic production leading to a resurgence in American craftsmanship again, but the current environment is less than amenable to this outcome, to put it mildly.
I don’t mean to imply the US should go back to manufacturing their own goods like they had to before global trade was economical.
I hope the point I’m making is that the people like Trump, mostly aggressive capitalists, are significantly in favor of these trends, and adding tariffs to imported goods will harm the businesses that the tariff is intended to protect.
Sales will drop because most goods are simply more price elastic than that. Cost goes up, sales drop, and overall you lose profits. When costs go up, alternative products are supposed to take up the business you lost by raising prices.
Though, to be fair, that price elasticity model is broken. Most product types have been agglutinated into a couple of large companies in an oligopoly, so all brands of that kind of product raise prices to match all the other brands. With no other competition in the market, consumers have the “choice” of paying more for the same thing, or not buying it.
In any case, the entire economy has been so thoroughly fucked by corporations that is just a money printing machine for the ultra rich to get richer.
I’ve depressed myself now. I’m gonna go.
I didn’t think you were, I was more saying that the loss of many of those jobs that had been outsourced in the pursuit of cheap stuff means that, even if Trump’s proposed tariffs were effective at bringing those jobs back, it might not matter because they would still cost more than most residents of the US would be able to afford. At least, with current working conditions, many of these goods would simply cost more than people would be willing to pay, as we’ve been collectively conditioned to want as much stuff as possible, as cheap as possible. Domestic production of so many goods would require a drastic shift in consumer habits to even have a chance at being viable in the long term, but they absolutely couldn’t do the sort of volume that places like China has and be able to sell at a profit, barring the implementation of Chinese-style working conditions.
Politically-motivated tea tax, what could go wrong?
what would the boston tea party equivalent for america be? dumping an entire mcdonalds worth in the sewers?
The Boston tea party was the American equivalent of the Boston tea party.
I think they meant to say modern American, no?
Then they should’ve
Maybe they a word
The Galveston Coffee Shootout.
That’s just eating at McDonald’s with … less steps.
Nationalizing energy infrastructure
They wouldn’t handle it.
Tbh thats just one step less than how it normally works.
“No tariffs without Harris”
So then what companies should be formed in the US to give its citizens a chance at affordability of breathing in this life ?
It sure would help if Americans weren’t generally ignorant about uh… tons of stuff and especially anything that involves other countries. All sorts of fruits and vegetables are imported - green beans, cucumbers, squash, tomatoes, lettuce, berries, bananas, onions, cauliflower, broccoli, eggplant. And then at the same time, the Trump bros want to crack down on groups of people who make up a large portion of the domestic agricultural workforce? It’s difficult to see some conservative policies as intended to do anything other than just fuck people over and cause chaos.
They are going to blame the deep state or some marginalized group other than the one they just deported
It’s those darn liberal environmental and labor regulations
They would blame Biden, Harris, Obama and Hillary Clinton for these things and more.
Jokes aside, people will only start being outraged when Starbucks and Dunkin’ start selling their favorite drinks for $15+. I only hope that when things get to that point people start taking the streets in protest.
and I’ll probably just pay the tariffs and move on because half the time stuff made in the US falls apart or is laced with pesticides banned elsewhere
Yep. If you’re rich enough to can profit off the economy tanking
I think thats what the crypto people are banking on. Rapid inflation. You’re better off just buying imported goods now though, you can always sell them the crypto people at a markup later. Real goods have far more intrinsic value.
There is also seasonal trade to US even when it grows in US.
New FDA head will just change the food pyramid to Coca Cola is a vegetable.
Right, if all you eat is meat, wheat, corn syrup and potatoes, no problem!
I just remembered that Coca-Cola requires denatured coca leaves from South America.
So enjoy that $8 Coke can, America
Finally a real cure for American obesity.
We’ll just drink mountain dew, instead. It has bonus brominated vegetable oil.
Ah, well, if the vegetable oil has been brominated by the council of bros, it should be all good, bro.
People listing Hawaii like they could meet the total US demand, even if they could scale to maximum production overnight.
Most of the corn we eat is Brazilian. Most of the corn we grow is feed corn for cows and process corn for HFCS and other processed food ingredients.
As an American born and raised in Illinois I can also inform the rest of the populace our corn also gets used to make ethanol, an alternative fuel source.
Ethanol is incredibly inefficient as a fuel source.
If not for the massive subsidies it would not exist.
Still, ethanol is a better fuel additive than lead. (Both reduce knocking)
Still, the far better use is to grow food.
Hawaii does have the largest coffee growing industry in the entire US but they are severely limited by the amount of available land. Compared to other coffee-producing nations, the Big Island is microscopically tiny, so they mainly focus on high quality, artisanal product sold at extremely high prices. Not that I would mind if all the coffee sold everywhere would be replaced by Kona coffee overnight, but it just isn’t feasible.
Im guessing they also never seen how much the coffee from there cost. Plus supply and demand you dumb fucks. The cost will skyrocket. Kona coffee ranges from $30 to $100 a bag. Think of a massive increase of demand. Are we going to pay $100 a bag for low end stuff?
Chocolate, cinnamon, vanilla, pepper, tea, bananas, and a fuckload of other things that are completely integrated into our regular diets are almost exclusively imported.
Sugar too. That ain’t healthy and is kinda fancy but… Can you see them losing their shit over sugar prices? I do.
Tomatoes imports were 2.5B in 2023.
Apparently the us imports 15% of it’s food supply.
That can’t be right. Corn can’t be only 85% of our food.
But seriously, there’s so much goddamn corn. Our meat is fed corn. Our processed foods and drinks are pumped full of corn. Even our fucking cars eat corn. We’re up to our fucking ears in ears of corn.
W-we gotta get out of here Morty! Everything here is on a fucking cob!
Based on what I find online, the us import about $2B in raw-sugar, while some (about 100M) is exported again.
Source: https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/raw-sugar/reporter/usa
How much “processed” sugar leaves the us again? I am not sure. Maybe all of it.
We already use HFCS in everything, it will just get even more extreme.
Gonna have to put a spoonful of HFCS into your ersatz coffee.
The government subsidizes corn, so there’s an incentive to use that corn. There are tariffs on imported sugar so it’s cheaper to use HFCS
Sugar is fancy now? Man my grandpa would be thrilled were he alive. There’s a colloquial term for the farm-houses of sugar beat farmers in Northern Germany, “beat castles”, as they quickly made a lot of money growing the beats in the late 19th century. When sugar became more accessible due to the processing of the beats to refined sugar. The wealth is long gone now, similarly to how salt used to be a luxury good.
No. That is the point.
Sugar is “fancy” as in “you don’t need sugar for your diet”.
Technically, we don’t need raw sugar for our diet at all. So technically correct?
We also don’t need any sugar substitutes, like HFCS, but you can find that or sugar, in the ingredients list of pretty much all processed foods.
Yay capitalism!
Yeah, we do high fructose corn syrup over here. It’s even more addictive, even less healthy, and it tastes bad. So obviously, we put it in everything, even premade salads
There’s plenty of corn syrup to replace it with unfortunately.
I understand your perspective but I want to ask a question, not to you, but for you to think about it. What motivation causes the imports?
If corn syrup is a replacement for whatever they are doing, why are they importing raw sugar? If raw sugar is cheaper than you would expect them to already use sugar for everything and not corn syrup, and switching to corn syrup would be an increase in cost . If raw sugar costs the same, import is additional paperwork, why import? Raw sugar is more expensive, why would they pay more?
Raw sugar can’t be replaced easily in their use case? Now that makes sense.
Sugar tastes better than HFCS. Ask anyone who drinks Mexican Coke. “Tastes better” doesn’t matter when there’s no other option.
Fact is, HFCS is cheaper. I haven’t checked the entirety of it’s supply chain to figure out why, but it is cheaper.
If sugar was the same cost, they wouldn’t have switched to HFCS in the first place (why mess with your successful product for no gain?). Fact of the matter is that HFCS is saving them money. It might be pennies per bottle, but when you’re moving 10M bottles of soda, those pennies turn into dividends, literally.
Which is why I am almost certain that there is a reason why they import raw sugar
And the rest is farmed here by undocumented workers.
Avocados for your avocado toast. Smh.
not if you live in cali
That’s it, the other states have crossed the line, time for CalExit.
honestly this is more feasible than brexit imo (not advocating for it)
Such a nice opportunity lost. “I’m not avocading for it.”
id rather advocate for is the demolishing of all borders and the guarantee of helping every person on the planet no matter what.
It was just a little pun. Advocating / Avocading.
A lot of fruit/veg is grown in places they can get away with slave wages and then shipped here because that’s how little labor costs. Less than our already super low paid fruit/veg pickers that are primarily the people who escaped the countries and situations that put them in those even lower slave wage places.
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Some people have never even looked at a dang banana
It’s one banana Michael. What could it cost, $10?
In trump’s economy, maybe?
The joke will take on a new meaning when $10 is the good old days.
That’s the thing I find most depressing about a trump presidency, there will be a time when the rational Left looks back on it as “when things weren’t so bad.”
Like, when I was a kid I, and many others, never imagined there could be a president dumber than Bush…
Don’t they grow bananas in Hawaii? I know they have coffee out on Kona.
Coffee grows on Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and recently in a little bit in CA (to add to water problems)
But Labor + limited amounts means it won’t be cheaper
You can grow a banana at home. Dwarf banana plants can grow inside. The normal size banana plant is not living room sized, no wonder people think they grow on trees
But how many people drink coffee? And how many bananas can you grow for your self?
Coffee, tea, and everything you’re wearing right now.
A ton of parts of what you are driving, all your maga hats, a ton of stuff that’s in your house
Your mom wears maga hats.
Oh no, but I need to buy a new buttplug every day!
Wait, I’m not American, nvm.
Most buttplugs can be washed. Just a money-saving tip for you there.
Nah, it’s not about single-use, it’s about the collection. You can’t take some og the rare ones out of their original packaging or they lose value!
I hear it’s all about the blind box butt plugs today. That way you have to keep buying them and getting duplicates until you get a rare one.
A shiny!!
I wanted some foreign goods to get more expensive. To end slavery, not to escalate a trade war!
I should have checked my vicinity for any stray monkey’s paws when I made that wish.
“Fair Trade” is what you’re looking for. I don’t know how legit all instances are or whether they make a real difference, but its an attempt
This may sound pedantic, but you’re looking for Fairtrade (one word) for the organization with the strictest vetting standards. Fair Trade (two words) isn’t regulated and just means they follow some sort of ethical code. It’s not necessarily bad, but it warrants more product specific research.
Huh I wonder how many Fair Trade items I bought thinking they were Fairtrade. Thanks.
everything you’re wearing right now
Much of that is cotton. I believe that in the “good” ol’ days the US grew that themselves. Start that industry up again, and you don’t need mass deportations across the border.
You could even run the farms the same way as in the olden days, if you criminalize and incarcarate enough black people.
I thought you were already doing that…
I mean, that’s how cotton is produced nowadays too, except Uyghurs are the ones doing it.
Well boy howdy, it turns out we already been done doin that there part about criminalizing and incarcerating them black people just out of sheer racism. You’re telling me that there could’ve been a profit motive to it this whole time too?
jk, private contracted prisons were already profiting deeply off of that.
Ah, yes…
All we need to keep that industry running like the good ol’ days is a massive industry of government subsidized illegal immigration of easily identified persons
The US still makes massive amounts of cotton. That all gets exported to other countries before getting turned into garments and things.
Cotton takes a LOT of water to grow. And takes up farmland that could grow food.
Most of your clothes are artificial fabrics these days. Or blended
Yea, and I hear children’s tiny hands are perfect for picking it.
