alt Hacker NewsI keep seeing basically this comment over and over, which on reddit would be expected but I'm surprised how much it pops up here. I would expect the HN crowd to be a bit more cognizant of the fact that the consumer is at the end of a potentially long chain and that direct-to-consumer refunds through that chain are at best impractical and at worst literally impossible.
This study actually follows that chain:
https://www.nber.org/202603/digest/pass-through-tariffs-evid...
In this case the importer was losing money post tariff so was the exporter. the consumer was actually paying more than the tariff (due to margin).
making each actor "whole" in even this short, cut-and-dry chain would be extremely difficult not even counting the overhead of each entity issuing refunds. A product with multiple importer inputs and more hands in the pot would be nearly impossible to even trace and you'd have to be able to definitively construe that each change in price at each step was directly related to tariffs, maybe someone in the chain was already going to raise prices some and then didn't raise any more on top of the tariff thus the tariff increase was absorbed by a pre-planned price hike.
Did people get charged more? yes. Are you getting your money back, no. does it suck? yes. Is it some conspiracy to make importers more wealthy? no. Were more than just end consumers harmed? yes! Is this fair? fuck no, but truly fair is impossible so might as well do something rather than let the corrupt government keep their ill gotten gains.
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The government acted illegally, and those illegal actions caused harm to consumers. It is reasonable for consumers to expect to be made whole in some manner. It would also be nice for the government administrators and agents that flagrantly broke the law to end up facing repercussions as well. But of course both of these are essentially pipe dreams in our broken down society.
It’s not really impossible to do refunds to consumers. Businesses wouldn’t have to be compelled to cooperate either. If they are suitably enticed, they will go through their own records, find rationale for higher prices because of tarries and submit individual records to the government.
Businesses are already basically forced to do KYC on direct to consumer imports so they have the information on file.
It’s only for the wider market, where items aren’t imported to be sold direct, that it’s harder to tell because as you said there is a chain of actors.