Friday, January 20, 2012

Noticed the price of tires increasing lately? Wonder why? Prepare to burn some mental rubber after you read this...

Tariffs are taxes too!  It is probably THE most regressive tax as well (disproportionately hurt lower income people).  Because they are embedded in the price of a good we don't see them.

 Tariffs are generally imposed to keep the price of a good higher than it normally would be in order to "protect" a domestic producer from lower priced foreign goods. But what if there is no, or very little, domestic production of the good in the first place? Why tax something that is purchased by a wide majority of lower income people to benefit a relatively small number of producers? 

In 2009 a hefty 35% tariff was levied on low-priced tires imported from China, at the request of the US Steel Workers Union. At that time I blogged the possible effects this would have on the industry and consumers (HERE).  Looky here at what has happened to imports of tires from various location.

Source : Wall Street Journal
Since the imposition of the tariff, imports of tires from China have decreased significantly (SUCCESS!!), but other countries not subject to the tariff have picked up the slack (OPPS!).  Net effect: No change in imports BUT higher prices.  Nice---Predictable--Econ 101.  From the excerpts below you will see the tariff has had the effect of raising the price of tires and no appreciable effect on domestic production, hence jobs.

As I have noted with low-priced shoes, tariffs imposed on goods that have little domestic production and support relatively few jobs, are bad for the poor.  Want to help the poor? Review and repeal unnecessary tariffs. 

Get-Tough Policy on Chinese Tires Falls Flat
"The tariffs didn't have any material impact on our North American business," says Keith Price, a spokesman for Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., echoing a sentiment expressed by some other manufacturers. "The stuff coming in from China is primarily low end. We got out of that market years go."
After the tariff was enacted in 2009—35% in the first year—imports from China did in fact drop sharply. But that business quickly shifted to Thailand, Indonesia, Mexico and elsewhere. Tire imports to the U.S. from these countries rocketed, proving once again that the world has become one big fungible production platform: If it doesn't get built in China and it's too expensive to make in the U.S., it will get made in a cheap locale somewhere else. 
"So far as saving American jobs, it just isn't working," says Roy Littlefield of the Tire Industry Association, which has 6,000 members. "And it really hurt a lot of people in the industry—smaller businesses that geared up to bring these tires in from China."
"This is a China tire, it costs me $69 today," says the owner of Cybert Tire & Car Care in New York City. "Before it cost $39." A big part of that increase: The fat tariff the U.S. has placed on Chinese tires.

"It all gets passed to the customer," says Mr. Everett.

Mr. Everett, the tire shop owner, says prices jumped not just for China-made tires but for tires made in the U.S., too. Wholesalers, he said, used the cover of the tariff to raise prices across the board. Bob Ulrich, editor of Modern Tire Dealer, a trade publication, says prices are up 29% in the replacement market since 2009...

8 comments:

  1. There is a silver lining to this tire issue. We can help bring other countries up to par in manufacturing goods for us. It has been in US interest that we get our products from other places then china. It is just that they need to be brought up to gear and this prevents the chinese from becoming more powerful. In the long run, if the other countries are brought up to par, they maybe able to compete with China and bring the prices back down. The benefit maybe that we get our goods from a variety of places. Thats a big plus (not economically but in terms of political dominance).

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  2. You make an interesting point. The other countries mentioned in the article certainly did profit from the tariff. What was not mentioned in this article was that China retaliated and put a tariff on a US good (I forget which) that we exported in large quantities to China. So some US manufacturers that produced and exported that good were hurt too. Poorly targeted tariffs help a small number of producers and hurt a large number of consumers (usually poor/low income). Thank you for commenting. Hope you will continue to do so.

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    1. The Tire issue definitely does not help consumers and especially low income consumers but it is a bitter pill that they have to swallow in order to reduce china's dominance. Price for many goods that come from china are artificially low and we are getting used to paying low china prices and it will hurt us in the long run. If china become the sole maker of tires because they have driven everyone else out because of their subsidized prices.. They not just become more powerful but us consumers then will solely rely on china for their goods because they will be the only ones making them. An example that comes to mind is china's subsidies in solar panels..they have practically driven out almost all US solar panel manufacturers because china's subsidized solar panels are sold below cost. This has been a boom for US installers because people love these low cost panels but it's going to come and bite us after china being the only manufacturers left. China is not playing by the rules and at the least other countries need to catch up in order to keep china in check...and in the short run (as much as I love bargains) we should get used to paying a little more.

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  3. A China tire which used to cost $39 now costs $69. This is a 77% increase, attributed to the "fat" tariff.

    The tariff was 35%. So I want to say that 35 of the 77 increase was due to the tariff. This leaves 42 unaccounted for.

    42% of the tire price increase is not [directly] due to the tariff...
    ?

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  4. Art-- It is noted in the article (not pasted above) that some other input costs increased as well, but opportunisim in the suppply chain to dog-pile (noted in the last pasted paragraph above) "a little extra" onto the wholesale price is most likely explanation.

    I suppose it helps supports the narrative at the retail counter when people ask "Why are prices so HIGH?!>!"---the guy behind the counter can just say--"Dang Gumment' Tariff on Chinese Tires". That shuts down the customers complaint and we all vote for Ron Paul...

    What gets under my skin are the tariffs on goods that are no longer affecting a domestic industry and employment in that industry (I use cheap shoes as another example). I can see the politics of levying them in the first place. But most tariffs are highly regressive (note tariffs on High end tires AND shoes are very small percentage-wise, if any at all). Good as a revenue source but bad as a policy if one wanted to help low income earners...

    Thanks as always for keeping me honest. I think I am going to use a differnt tagline I made up the other day to keep myself humble as I continue my economics education "I am just a squirrel trying to understand the nuts"... :)

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  5. If I may drift off topic a bit...

    ...opportunism in the supply chain to dog-pile "a little extra" onto the wholesale price is the most likely explanation...

    I think this is important. As a cause of inflation, I mean. Somewhere I read of three causes of inflation. Usually I reject "demand-pull" because capacity utilization has been in decline for decades. Usually I accept "cost-push" because, well, because of the cost of interest embedded in everything, in an economy heavily reliant on credit. Usually I ignore the third cause which (if I recall) was "expectations". That's a mistake.

    If people expect inflation, then suppliers can jack up prices and get away with it. If one guy's raising prices he may drive himself out of business, but when everyone's doing it, it works as well as collusion. In other words, it works. Prices go up.

    And what with quantitative easing since 2008, and the Austrians and half the free world talking up inflation like they were trying to make it happen, well, I think it "took" and prices are on the way up now.

    It's still not demand-pull, because the demand isn't there. It could be cost-push, because (outside of finance) the return on investment has been low for a long time (I think)... But up to now there was no inflation mentality.

    And now there is an inflation mentality.

    So I think your explanation of tire prices is most interesting.

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  6. "I am just a squirrel trying to understand the nuts"

    Here ya go:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5ubQVsSiEg&list=UUuJLdWfiKUFFSNkStxfftKA&index=1&feature=plcp

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  7. Great! This was a very informative blog.
    Car owners should read this.

    ReplyDelete

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