#IN THIS ECONOMY

[oatflatwhite]

greens losing seats to labor is a really bitter pill.

[zackstriker]

i’m done being silent the phouse was the hard launch

[lordadmiralfarsight]

Boat touching : shipping edition

"Rule for thee, but not for me ! Grab ‘em by the boaty !" - Trump, apparently

As you may or may not have heard, President Trump, the world’s most economically illiterate dorito (no, he is not a tangerine, he is far too salty for that) has decided that China is being bad on the waters of the 7 seas too, and has decided that the perfect retaliation to such dishonor would be a tax on Chinese ships. Yes, yes, not products, ships. That come into US ports. With stuff on board. Those ships. One might expect a nation that so passionately tells the world ‘don’t touch our boats’ to understand that molesting other peoples’ fleet may not be conductive to a better situation, but alas, here we apparently are going. So, since this is a rather niche topic, but with wide reaching consequences, I have decided to continue in my glorious efforts to become the Economy Side of Tumblr (what has my life come to) and explain just how deeply and passionately boned we are if this goes from proposal to law.

The facts

First off, let us set this stage with the letter of the (proposed) law.

The text (called USTR) has 3 tax triggers :

- The ship is operated by a Chinese company, 500K to 1 million dollars of entry fee

- The ship is chinese-made or its owner company has chinese-made ships, 500K to 1,5 million dollars of entry fee

- The company ordered a ship in China, 500K to 1 million dollars of entry fee

It is currently unclear to me if those fees are cumulative, despite looking it up, I could not find an answer at this time, the only thing clear is that the fee, whatever it ends up being, will be paid at each entry into a US port. I suspect the cumulativity of the fees will be left to interpretation and later deliberation, which creates deep economic uncertainty, easily one of the most hateful kinds of uncertainty.

I mean, not knowing if you’re ordering oatmeal or chocolate cookies is already bad enough, but not knowing if the ship carrying them to your shores is going to pay 500k to 1,5 million dollars or 500K to 3,5 million dollars PER STOP is just … that ruins the cookies regardless of what you get. No amount of milk can salvage that. In large parts because, at this point, each cookie may end up costing as much as the entire bottle of milk.

“Oh hoho, oh Admiral, you jokester, you jester, you funny person you”, you say desperately hoping that I am joking. But you are desperate for a reason. There is no humor here, there is no mirth or hope or joy, only suffering and taxes. And barnacles. Those get everywhere on topics related to the sea. But mostly taxes.

Second, container ships tend to make 3 to 4 stops in US ports for a single trip (as explained in this lovely article from the Cato Institute), which results in a total potential sum of 1,5 to 14 million dollars. Per ship. For a single trip. You can scream now.

Third, how many companies could be affected by this issue ? I do not have a precise number, in large parts because “who has Chinese ships” wasn’t exactly a metric that got tracked before, but the answer to that question is in an order of magnitude scientifically called “a metric fuckton”. You see, the chinese fleet of cargo ships represents 19% of the global total of cargo ships. And I mean ocean-going cargo ships. So that’s a good 5th of worldwide maritime trade having to scrape off even their barnacles to try and make payments. But that’s just Chinese companies. You also have to take into account that China has 50% of all shipbuilding market shares, meaning it builds half the commercial ships in the world. Among which are 95% of container ships. The big chunky bois, those that can get to lengths greater than the Nimitz class super-carriers operated by the US Navy and do a respectable 2/3rd of their width. Oh, and China also does 86% of intermediate sized cargo ships.

Fourth, fun fact : big container ship dockyards stopped operating in the US in 1980. You know, just in case you thought you could revive that industry quickly, or on the cheap, or on the costly. Or at all, really. Building those big ships is VERY costly, and takes very long, and also there’s no adapted infrastructure in the US for ships of that size outside of military dockyards (which are already being used, thank you). So between the cost to build the new dockyards, train employees, build the ship itself and recruit and train a crew … Oh, and the end result would likely not even be competitive price-wise. You know, just in case you had any hope left for that.

Five, SALVATION ! One can have their entry fees waved, if only they have a USA made ship enter into a US port with stuff on board, huzzah, Trump 5D chess confirmed !!!! All you have to do is have a US-made ship enter a US port for each Chinese-made ship that does the same ! Surely, the overbooked, chronically late, undersized ship-building industry of the US will be up to the challenge !!!! Yeah, no, I can’t keep this up any longer. That’s not going to work. It’s not even being spoken about in most of the articles I’ve seen, that’s how insignificant in reality that measure is.

Boat touching, and why it is a bad idea

Now, let’s talk about the funny part : the consequences ! Aaaah, FO, what a wonderful acronym. Am I telling people to fuck off or to find out ? What suspense !

First off, the obvious : if the fee is on entry into US ports, why not go elsewhere ? Good question ! And honestly, it’s likely that it will happen, to some degree. The obvious answer would be Mexico or Canada, but it’s unlikely they could absorb all that transit, which would results in slow-downs (and thus, lost money) in a lot of logistic chains. As you may have guessed, disrupted logistic chains aren’t exactly economically tasty.

Mexico in particular doesn’t have that many ports adapted to such large ships and large numbers of containers, meaning there’d be even more slow-downs. And then there’s the issue of getting the goods across the border, and Trump can definitely decide to slap on even more tariffs, he’s like that. So more slow-downs for even more costs ! Yay ! But meanwhile, US ports would still see lower numbers of ships coming through, meaning less activity and less cash-flow, meaning job losses.

Second, you have to consider the impact on US exports. Because you see, Chinese-made or owned ships don’t just come in, drop stuff off and disappear over the horizon with a vaguely oriental soundtrack, we’re in reality, with serious people, they drop containers off in 3 or 4 ports, all while picking up containers of US exports at each stop. So the fees to sail into port will be spread on both the foreign imports and on US exports. Meaning US exports will cost more, compounded by retaliatory tariffs. Meaning competitors will be cheaper, or even than US products will leave reasonable price ranges. Either way, loss of sales and income for US companies, and thus loss of jobs.

Third, this will increase prices inside the US, once again compounded by tariffs, but this time Trump’s tariffs. Either way, this will increase prices of products, likely pricing out entire communities, or making entire companies economically non-viable. As you guesses, that means job losses, but also loss of comfort.

Fourth, some degree of economic chaos as worldwide shipping reorganizes to face this new and unpleasant situation. And that will likely hit everyone to some degree, so expect some grudges to spawn from that, too.

In conclusion, while there is reasonable concern to be had about China’s dominance of shipbuilding, Trump’s measures will do a grand total of fuck all to solve that issue. All they will really do is make the situation worse and costlier for the US. The measure aims for an impossibility (speedy resurrection of a US shipbuilding sector for large scale cargo ships) without doing anything to support that or to make such an activity economically viable in the US. It is, in effect, an economic scarification ritual, based entirely on the idea that by hurting others and themselves and incantating enough, the US will be able to magic viable dockyards into existence and produce ships quickly.

I hope I don’t have to explain why that’s not realistic. And honestly, I am almost impressed, it’s incredible to come up with a policy that harms that many different economic agents in your own country. Honestly, at this point, I don’t know if Trump’s economic policies are dictated by The Most Incompetent failed student, or by a squad of drunk chimps going ham on a typewriter and somehow randoming their way into only the worst possible economic policies. If Trump suddenly subsidizes banana plantations, we’ll know, and likely be in better hands, even with how psychotic chimps are.

[yangscowlick]

The people have spoken: no more male leads.

[lauronk]

if you only knew the absolute FRENZY 20-someodd fic writers just went into

[new-vegas-radio]

No no but on the very thin chance they have a Joshua Graham cameo in Fallout Prime season 2 I would lose my ever living MIND. I would be frothing at the MOUTH. I would die RIGHT THEN AND THERE.

Even if they just casually mention that Some Guy is making trouble for some leftover legionaries while the gang is in New Vegas I will pause the show and proceed to make dying creature noises, ya’ll don’t even KNOW

[pixelnrd]

The Australian exchange rate sucks.

How are we all justifying the cost for the re-releases if we paid full-price for every content pack when they were originally released?

👉👈

[greypetrel]

Well, new DadWolf chapter out!

Featuring short bob Aisling, here in a moment of happiness (feat @daggerbean's -hi! hope you're fine! :D- Gareth). More miserable in the fic, but the great peopleing ability is the same.

[dr-archeville]

Blue hair and pronouns? In this economy?!

[winter-seance]

I turned in my last ever assignment for my master's degree yesterday

I'm DONE

[ghost-of-you]

I'm not screaming or anything.

[allo-frouto]

Throatpie or creampie

I may come off as greedy, but I want both.

[altarfates]

everytime riot releases a new 250 dollar skin it’s like theyre going woah guys it’s only three hundred ish dollars it’s not that much 🥺🫶🫶

[ghostcreaturetypething]

If I had a pound for the amount of times Sam’s been strangled

[lovely-bellflower]

Miguel Mendonça's Jason and Tim for NYCC 2023 commissions