I read an article on one of the online business sites which opined that tariffs might soon make some products much more expensive. At the top of their list was consumer electronics.
Mr. brown has been griping that our aged laptop has been giving signs that it wants to die. I showed him the article and told him that now might be the time to replace it, rather than waiting until post-tariff time next year. He agreed and he’s on his way to the Apple store right now to see about a new one. We’ll get a good chunk of change from them when we trade in our current laptop, so the final price won’t be too onerous.
Anyone else contemplating any imminent pre-tariff purchases?
My gf wants to get a bigger television. We have a flat-screen that I bought ~6 years ago, that we do not watch. I think if we get a bigger flat screen we won’t watch it, but it will look cool in the living room. She’s planning specifically to purchase it soon to avoid tariff related price increases.
Bought myself a gaming laptop that I couldn’t really afford, and didn’t really want, and will probably end up returning… mostly using the tariffs as an excuse, lol. But yeah, I do wonder how much worse it’ll get. Inflation had been bad enough already these last few years
I bought a new gaming laptop on a pre-black Friday sale with funds that came from a bank favor in my error. And I bought some bonus RAM to go into it.
The tariffs was a helpful excuse, but the biggest issues was that my old laptop (which, granted, is NOT my primary machine) was not eligible to upgrade to Windows 11 and therefore was having a long, hard thought about whether or not I needed it prior to going out of service.
I ended up excusing it due to a good value, the tariffs, and the increasing likelyhood of needing to do longer visits and help for my parents 600 miles away.
Our clothes dryer decided to go ahead and die with some sort of electronics issue a few weeks ago, which promped the purchase of a replacement washer/dryer set. The pair were almost 20 years old anyway, but the incoming expected tarriffs added a little extra motivation to replace rather than try to repair.
I think electroncs are high on the list of impacted products, but also kitchen and large appliances, as well as toys will be in scope as well.
I threw down some cash on additional DDR5 (memory) for my PC and, while I didn’t justify it in my mind because of the tariffs, I still recognized that it was probably better to do it now than in a month.
My wife is wondering about replacing her car though I’ve seen differing opinions on that when I look online.
I bought a hyper-heat mini-split heat pump for our place in Durango. I’m not going to be able to install it until late next Spring, but I’m betting that the price goes up 30% by then.
This is what comes from having an uneducated criminal as President.
Some of the news stories are talking about cars and auto parts getting more expensive. Wonder if that only affects domestic brands, or also imports? But I guess some of the Japanese brands also make some cars and parts here, so…
Subaru manufactures in Japan and the US (Indiana). A quick glance didn’t uncover to what degree they assemble components made in either Mexico or Canada, though.
Subaru may simply not rely materially on sourcing components from Canada or Mexico.
But …
I’d expect that domestic businesses, or – at least – those not directly impacted by the tariffs – will probably ratchet up their prices in response to other prices in their respective industries rising.
“More expensive”? There’s some question about whether there will even be an auto industry, considering how tightly Canadian and American automaking is integrated.
Cars and their parts, both aftermarket parts and those components used to assemble cars, are a critically important part of the longstanding Canada-US free trade agreement because of that integration, which agreement the Orange Felon has illegally scuttled. With so many parts going back and forth in the supply chain, it’s essentially impossible to say whether a car was “built in Canada” or “built in the USA” because it’s really both. But it’s likely to be simpler now – they won’t be built anywhere.
