NAMM

[bisontuba]

NAMM's Statements on Proposed Brass-wind Instrument 232 Tariffs

https://www.namm.org/news/press-release ... nstruments

We will be filing comments and urge everyone affected to prepare comments as well.

[tofu]

While I’m not in theory a fan of tariffs period - the whole NAMM argument is spurious at best and pretty much just self serving rhetoric. I always enjoy the made up economic benefits these outfits come up with which completely ignore the costs of throwing American Manufacturers under the bus and ignores all the lost job societal impact costs.

American Manufacturers were undercut by Chinese manufacturers operating with impunity from environmental regulations / costs, paid starvation wages, rip off western intellectual property by ignoring patents and in many cases outright intellectual theft, forcing foreign companies to hand over 51% ownership stakes in Chinese factories if they wanted to do business there and handing over their technology, state subsidies to drive prices down to undercut and drive out the existing legacy foreign producers etc.

To try to compete American Manufacturers cut costs and corners but they were up against state supported manufacturing terroism if you will. It’s hard to compete when your foreign competitors pays wages of 66 cents an hour, has no environmental regulations to comply with and has little to no cost in R&D because it stole your own designs.

And we are supposed to support this because why? The numbers of kids taking up instruments to play in band? Those numbers may indeed be down - but that has way more to do with school districts cutting music programs due to costs they can no long afford - which in turn can be tied to their parents being out of work or working at significantly less well paying jobs now because their good wage factory jobs all went to…China. Oh and lets not forget the tariffs the Chinese have had in place for decades such as the ones in place which make a Buick 3X more expensive than what it sells for in the states. And the Chinese still love Buicks - ever since the magnificent straight 8’s made their way off the GM assembly lines in China in pre war pre Chairman Mao Zedong -who after WWII nationalized the foreign car plants much like Stalin did to the 1930 Ford Motor Plants & Packard plants in Russia. Russia was still cranking out poorly made Model A Fords in the late 1950’s and Packards into the early 1960’s.

[gocsick]

Not really related to the post but I couldn't find what NAMM actually stood for anywhere on the website.. Google me it's "North American Association of Music Merchants". you think that would be front and center on their website somewhere.