Tracking toy tariffs

hmmberto said:
I'm definitely not the most qualified person to answer this but I'll take a crack at it. Everything I say here is my best understanding, and I'm sure some things are wrong, so - grain of salt.

The US debt China owns is in the form of treasury bonds issued by the US Treasury Department so the federal government can borrow money. Essentially, you buy a bond for $x, the US government agrees to repay you $x+interest over some period of time (10 years or so). The bondholder can sell the bond to somebody else, but they can't really "cash it in" early - it just gets paid back on a regular schedule.

What China can do (and in fact I saw a headline they did this today) is stop buying US treasury bonds altogether. Traditionally they've been one of the absolute safest and stablest places for investors to park money. Lower returns than stocks, etc, but with basically no risk. That stability is being threatened with all of this nonsense, as "the full faith and credit of the United States" isn't looking so hot anymore. Bonds are one mechanism that let us get by with all of the deficit spending we do, and in turn we can continue to issue debt and not have to reckon with our imbalanced budget. Not being able to continue to accrue debt probably doesn't sound like a bad thing, and I'm certainly not opposed to trying to lower our debt and reduce the annual deficit (though I'm not sure it needs to get to net zero). But what is bad is if the ability to borrow is suddenly yanked away or severely reduced, which would throw the whole system into (even more) chaos.

Looking it up now and China only owns ~2.6% of US debt, so maybe the effect of them pulling out of buying treasury bonds isn't a big deal. That's definitely not something I'm qualified to guess on.
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That sounds about right.

Japan actually holds the most US debt. However China not buying anymore debt could be an issue in the long term. The question is more about how long could the US go without countries buying treasury bonds? Right now it is not an issue, but it could be if Trump keeps up the nonsense.

I wonder if the king of debt and bankruptcies isn't trying to get the US to default. I wouldn't put it past his simplistic logic to think that "hey let's get rid of the debt by defaulting, what could be the harm?"
 
Just got an email from BBTS about tariffs.

That is just... I've never seen something like that before. I knew it would change their prices, of course, but there's something to the newness of it that still shocks me.
 
For those that didn't.

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A 125% tariff increase on Chinese imports.

I hate math because .... well, I just hate it. But if I'm doing it correctly, a $25.00 action figure will now retail for $56.25.

Shoot me now.
 
R.I.P. Super 7 if this doesn't get back to normal. Nobody is paying $120 for an Ultimate.

Yes I know it probably won't be that much, based on what Misfit said about the tariff is charged based on declared value or cost or whatever but still, they are going to have to go up well past what I think anyone will feel comfortable with.
 
It shouldn't surprise me, but I'm already seeing some pretty braindead reactions to this in the social media hellscape. Too many people either don't understand any of this, or don't want to. It's also hilarious how many seem to think BBTS is gonna be the only one taking this type of action.
 
Justice said:
R.I.P. Super 7 if this doesn't get back to normal. Nobody is paying $120 for an Ultimate.

Yes I know it probably won't be that much, based on what Misfit said about the tariff is charged based on declared value or cost or whatever but still, they are going to have to go up well past what I think anyone will feel comfortable with.
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S7 figures already aren't worth what they're asking. Let alone dumping ANY percentage on top of it. Super7 deserves to go out of business - but I want them to do it because the customers tell them to fuck off with their lazy, cheap bullshit. I don't want them to be able to walk away with the excuse that 'Trump did it.'
 
cmoney said:
It shouldn't surprise me, but I'm already seeing some pretty braindead reactions to this in the social media hellscape. Too many people either don't understand any of this, or don't want to. It's also hilarious how many seem to think BBTS is gonna be the only one taking this type of action.
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I happened to check out a Facebook TMNT group post about the tariffs and I barely escaped there with my brain cells intact. It was something....
 
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