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Comment by aurareturn | Hacker News Reader

White House should be furious. This definitely makes the Trump Administration look bad since it's a separate price added onto the final price. There are 180.1 million Amazon Prime US subscribers. This means potentially 180 million Americans will see the tariff effects directly. Not counting total US Amazon shoppers due to lack of numbers.

Edit: people are downvoting me because of the first sentence. All I’m saying is that if I’m the Whitehouse, I’d be furious too. I never said I think the tariffs are a good idea.

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> White House should be furious.

Furious that Amazon is highlighting the WH's bullshit line that consumers won't pay for the tariffs?

Furious at themselves maybe, this is entirely their own fault.

You know that in most countries the taxes must be shown explicitly and be added in the final price? USA is the only exception.

Did you phrase this wrong? Taxes are always called out in every receipt in the U.S..

I think he means the display price. When you buy something for $100 and it ends up being $110 on checkout, the taxes are obfuscated on the display price.

You may be missing the "and be added to the final price" bit, or interpreting it differently than it may have been intended.

In European countries with VAT, the price on the item / shelf tag / whatever includes the VAT. You don't need to remember what jurisdiction you're in and thus what percentage of sales tax you need to add on to the displayed price to know how much you'll be asked to pay when you check out. If the tag says 12 euro, 12 euro is exactly what you're paying at the register.

Sure, in the US, your receipt will tell you how much sales tax you paid. But that is information you're not given until the point of checkout. Additionally you may not have the explicit tax amount presented to you til you receive that post-sale receipt, you may have to do your own subtraction of the listed price(s) from the total price to determine how much tax you're paying before you commit to the purchase.

I understand your point, but they should not be furious, just like a spoiled kid should not be furious because it got the wrong toy for birthday. People should be reasonable, and not furious that it's not going their way. If these people should be furious, they should be furious at themselves.

Are you saying that 50% of American households subscribe to Amazon prime?

This claims 180m subscribers 2024

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1223385/amazon-prime-sub...

That's astonishing. And Amazon's stuff generally is often shitty and counterfeit, amazing to see it so popular. That doesn't bode well for local business. No wonder there is such wealth inequality in the country when one company is supplying everyone with stuff.

What is wrong with displaying this? It is an additional tax added to products, very much like sales tax. It is entirely appropriate to display taxes and similar fees on an invoice. It would be disingenuous to hide it.

He's not saying it's wrong, just that it's expected for the white house to be mad for being called out. (Not that it's reasonable, but just expected.)

I think people are reading an implication of "would be justified and righteous" into the use of the word "should" in the phrase "the White House should be furious" in the GP comment.

Yes, this is correct. Amazon showing tariff surcharge is a huge deal to Trump's approval rating due to the fact that 180m Americans subscribe to Prime, which means many people will directly see the effect of the tariffs.

But I think people got too angry too fast to understand my point.

Not to get into pedantics, but just to offer a helpful explanation, I think it's because you used "should" instead of "would". It's no big deal, but in your sentence, should implies reasonable, while would implies expected. (Even though should also has a usage where it means expected, that's only when you're unsure of something happening in the future, whereas this event has already happened.)

I thought the White House response was reasonable. That’s why I used should.

> I thought the White House response was reasonable.

Reasonable in what sense?

Reasonable in the sense that a con-man doesn't want his con revealed?

Or reasonable in the sense that they have a principled position against the proposed action by AMZN?

I get the feeling that you're being too clever by half with your phrasing.

I hate being right. I remember years ago predicting that if MAGA got back in they’d levy a huge tax increase they’d call a tax cut and a huge spending increase they’d call a spending cut.

My other big prediction for years has been that it’ll be MAGA that will do mass gun confiscation in defiance of the second amendment. Let’s see how that one does. Of course all the MAGA folks would be fine with it because it's not mass gun confiscation by the "new world order" if Trump does it.

people are downvoting me because of the first sentence. All I’m saying is that if I’m the Whitehouse, I’d be furious too.

Then why didn't you write that? 'Should be' reads to most people as conforming with some objective legal or moral standard.

From the perspective of the White House, they should be furious.

Please consult someone on the difference between 'would' and 'should', since my explanation is clearly insufficient.

Legal/moral standard depends on which side you are on. Right?

Again, I'm against the tariffs.

Surely, they should be happy to see their bigly beautiful tariffs, of which they are apparently so proud, prominently displayed to a grateful public?

Like, one can't have it both ways. "These tariffs are a brilliant idea and will make everything wonderful... HOW DARE YOU TALK ABOUT THE TARIFFS" is an utterly incoherent position.

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