It's Time for the Chicken Tax to Die | Hacker News Reader

It's Time for the Chicken Tax to Die

jalopnik.com

24 pointsrntn12 comments

I would love to buy a little Suzuki flatbed truck. I have bad legs, so crawling into the back of a standard American (read: TALL) pickup is impossible, and even getting into one as a passenger is a challenge.

I have no problem with a tax on imported trucks. It encourages the buying of trucks from US automakers which is better for US companies, US workers, and the environment.

The article claims that "Without competition from overseas, American manufacturers just stopped trying to build interesting trucks." but trucks are hugely popular in the US so it seems that US automakers are doing a great job of meeting our demand. The very next sentence undermines their point by acknowledging that "Ford’s smaller Maverick pickup" is a success.

They argue that "Ford is building fewer than the world demands because it would rather push consumers up into a larger and more profitable F-series." but Ford doesn't need to provide the entire planet with little trucks. Let the rest of the world build their own little trucks if they want them. Americans are currently able to get both large trucks and small trucks so I don't really see a problem here.

Maybe they make a compelling argument after their "click to continue reading" bullshit but since that button doesn't work without JS enabled I'll never know. I wasn't impressed with what I was able to see of their argument.

Many vehicles are made in Mexico to bypass these taxes. I don’t really care if we support Mexico or China.

I'd agree that the made/assembled in Mexico schemes companies use to exploit cheap labor and/or to avoid environmental regulations or taxes are a problem. I'd be very happy if we closed those loopholes and more cars were made entirely within the US by US workers who were paid enough money to make a good living.

We can always continue to support Mexico and China in ways that aren't exploitative or tax dodges for wealthy corporations.

No offense intended, but did you perchance use AI to generate this post?

Second paragraph gave it away the first one was passable

> It encourages the buying of trucks from US automakers which is better for US companies, US workers, and the environment.

You've identified the winners, but you have ignored the losers!

That's because I'm very much less concerned with non-US automakers who still manage to do very well for themselves outside of the US and even inside of it too. It doesn't bother me at all if automakers in other countries have to focus more on their own local markets or that when they want to sell trucks in the US they have to compete on something other than offering the lowest possible price.

I'm also naturally more concerned about US workers than workers overseas since I want the people near me to have good paying jobs and to be able to contribute to and participate in my local economy. When people in the USA are encouraged to buy goods made in the USA, the USA is the winner. Since I live in the USA I'll happily take that win.

I really couldn't care less about US or non-US companies that want to increase their profits by polluting the environment more. Building trucks outside of the USA's more stringent environmental protections and then shipping large heavy trucks across entire oceans when they could have been made closer to their buyers wouldn't be a win for anyone but an already very wealthy few. I'm not shedding any tears for them.

We can still buy trucks made outside of the US, and plenty of Americans do. There are many Tacomas, Tundras, and Frontiers on American streets. You can even find a Honda Ridgeline or Hyundai Santa Cruz. We're not at all hurting for non-US truck options, but considering the list of winners, I'd say we do have a lot to lose.

You've re-identified the winners, but you are still ignoring the losers!

If the losers aren't non-US automakers, overseas workers, and corporations who want to pollute the planet who are they?

US consumers who aren't auto workers paying higher prices due to a much less competitive marketplace.

after weighing them, I'm fine with those losers being losers. It'd be different if there were no way for US consumers to get a Toyota truck, or if they were outside the reach of anyone but the extremely wealthy, but that isn't the case. While the costs to US consumers might be higher, we're still buying them.

Non-US automakers have no problem making money selling their trucks in the US market, even if they don't dominate here. If too many people in the US were being priced out of them, it wouldn't be worth it to the companies to sell their trucks here, and they wouldn't still be doing it. I don't deny that they could be making more money, and that some US consumers could be spending less.

There's certainly a philosophical argument to be made that idealistically there should be an even playing field for every automaker with no preference given to US companies, but I feel that realistically we'd be losing more than we'd gain by making that happen.

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