Another niece is pregnant. She is only 21, unmarried and living with her BF of about a year or so. Kind of surprised at this one. She's a go-getter. Did the first 2 years of college while in high school. Got her Bachelors degree at 20. Is now doing her master's (and she moved states to do this program). How hard is it to not get pregnant? It will be interesting to see if she finishes her masters, plus she was supposed to commit teaching where she is at for 5 years.
Economics was never my strong subject. Can someone explain to me how the 25% tariff is hurting China? From what I understand, all they are doing is passing the cost back to the American manufacturer and then on to the consumer. I'm seeing email after email from our manufacturer's where I work, of price increases due to the tariff. What am I missing in the big picture of all of this?
We finished sealing the the last part of concrete yesterday evening. This was a second coat of our back patio, which we had done last summer, the first time. I think it needs to be done every year or so. DH bought a longer sized roller while he was in town yesterday and that made the job much quicker. And much easier than re-staining a wood deck patio, I think.
I recently just finished reading A Discovery of Witches. And then yesterday I found out it's a tv series, too. So, I got hooked on watching that last night. I've only read the first of the 3 books. I'm on wait list with library for the second ebook. The library has the first and 3 book individually to borrow, but to read the 2nd ebook they have all 3 books in one. That works too. When it's eventually my turn, then I can read the 3rd book right away. The only problem with watching a tv version, right after reading the book, is the characters are so fresh in my mind, that when they don't quite match up to how they are written, or I imagined them, it's annoying. LOL. It's still a good show, though.
As far as I know (I haven't heard otherwise) we are still on schedule for carpeting getting installed tomorrow and Thursday. That's about the last of the inside work, other than closets finished and things like towel rods and toilet paper holders. The mason is still working outside on the stonework. Hopefully DH will just want to send the sanican back after carpet guys are done working and just let the mason use our shop bathroom. That will save $95 for June and going forward. I'm so tired of paying for it.
I'm looking forward to weekend and not looking forward to weekend. DH can never just sit and relax very often, which means I don't get much sitting and relaxing. I can't wait until he can have his shop to himself, go out and putter with whatever he wants to do to keep busy and I don't have to help him. Most of his stuff he does, is just because he needs to be busy or he sits there and the pain catches up to his brain. I've worked all week and would just like to relax. I don't mind doing stuff part of the day, but when he starts in on something it ends up being an all day thing. One thing leads to another thing.
The theory on tariffs is that if the cost of them gets passed to the consumer (some or all of it) the consumer will switch to a different - cheaper - product made elsewhere and the country loses sales. So the country being assessed the tariffs (Chine) will give in to whatever demands were made in order to avoid the tariffs. But the reality is there is often not another option or cheaper option available and so purchaser/consumer is hurt instead. Even if you could easily buy the same product from elsewhere - that other seller will take the opportunity to raise their price since as long as they are still cheaper that the country with tariffs - you would buy from them. Again - we lose.
ReplyDeletethanks for the explanation! Plus, I'm assuming even if there are cheaper alternatives, it's not going to happen overnight. I know a lot of the mfg's we deal with would need time to make a switch like that, as far as quality control, distribution time, etc.
DeleteExactly. Which is why tariffs don’t really work for “punishing” other countries. BTW - your house looks amazing and I would have run screaming from the hassles you have had to deal with!
Deletethanks! I'd have run too, but no where to run to HAHA!
DeleteOh and that 25% tariff is in addition to any tariffs that were originally imposed on the goods. So if you started with a 5% tariff you can end up with a 30% imposition! And the Chinese have announced that they intend to retaliate as from 1 July. In the end the price hikes will all get passed on to the consumers. What a bloody mess!
ReplyDeleteI get that there should be more trade equality, but it sure hurts the consumer in the short run. But, also not sure what other way to bring the trade more in balance.
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