Tariffs: paid by the citizens
Refunds: paid by the government (with the citizens’ money)
Make it make sense
Socialism for the cooperate class
It was and always has been about transferring wealth up the chain.
Rich and powerful people used their power to make themselves richer. What, you thought they would use their power to benefit us? How do you think they got it in the first place? The only reason powerful people ever did anything for our benefit is because we used to burn down the houses and other possessions of the powerful people that didn’t.
Sometimes they give some people a few crumbs so they’ll fight other poor people instead of the rich.
Since they passed that cost to the consumer, they should be legally required to pay it back to the consumer. A refund on a tariff that the consumer had to pay should not be legally pocketable by the business, that should be legally considered theft or robbery.
It is not the fault of the business, but if they incur more operating costs refunding the money they overcharged on the consumer, then they need to sue the government to be reimbursed for that.
They’ll just follow suit with Nintendo, who are already being sued for this, with their defense being, “the customers got what they paid for.”
Let me play the devil’s advocate.
The question is, how do you legally know that they passed all that cost on to the customers? After all, customers did not pay the import fees directly. It will be a hard case to make.
Also, a majority of Americans voted to introduce tariffs. It was a big part of Trump’s campaign from the start. The reason Sony received this money in the first place was because of errors made by the American government, making the tariffs illegal. It was the US government that is responsible for this money, not Sony.
The question is, how do you legally know that they passed all that cost on to the customers? After all, customers did not pay the import fees directly. It will be a hard case to make.
Tariffs were announced which applied to PlayStation products. The prices consumers had to pay for these products increased at the same time. It is not hard to know that the price increase is related to the tariff. Also, I cannot find it right now but I think Sony even publicly blamed price increases on tariffs.
Now personally, I strongly believe businesses abused the announcement of tariffs and the general person being a total idiot when it comes to knowing what tariffs do in order to increase the and consumer price by MORE than what the tariff added at point of entry. I believe this ALSO should be illegal as price gouging.
Also, a majority of Americans voted to introduce tariffs. It was a big part of Trump’s campaign from the start. The reason Sony received this money in the first place was because of errors made by the American government, making the tariffs illegal. It was the US government that is responsible for this money, not Sony.
Voting habits or trends are entirely irrelevant to the conversation. I dont care about politics, nor is it part of the issue. The government added a tariff on an imported good. The business passed the cost to the consumer instead of paying it themselves. If the business consumed the cost themselves, they would legally be entitled to the refunded money; they were the ones that paid it. But since they passed the price off to the consumer (or distributor, depending on the sale endpoint if they weren’t making a direct to consumer sale), they are not legally entitled to any of it. Therefore if they keep the money instead of refunding it, that should be legally considered theft. Like when an employer makes a payroll mistake and accidentally underpair an employee, they cannot keep that money they have to pay it to the employee it belongs to.
It should be the responsibility of the government to enforce that the money gets to its legal owner. However, because Sony has all the sales records related to the refunded money, it is Sony’s responsibility to process the refunds to the effected sales. In the case of a distributor (like Target or Amazon), once they receieve the refunds for the tariffs those distributors now have the responsibility to use their own sales records to issue refunds to the consumers that paid it, unless the distributor consumed the tariff cost themselves.
Should these efforts incur extra cost (IE, the financial employees have to work more hours than they are already on payroll for), then those additional costs should be the government’s responsibility to pay to the business. If there is no extra cost, the business isnt entitled to extra money. They already pay employees to handle financial records for the business, so unless they need to be staying overtime and working very long hours, this would already be part of their regular job responsibilities.
Perhaps this explains what I said SHOULD happen a bit better. I am sure that isnt what actually will happen and the business is just going to fight to keep the money. Greed always wins in this world.
Also, a majority of Americans voted to introduce tariffs.
There was not a vote on tariffs, there was a vote on the president. Trump got more votes than Kamala Harris, but that does not mean most people wanted tariffs. Trump also ran on a campaign of “No new wars” and yet here we are.
The reason Sony received this money in the first place was because of errors made by the American government, making the tariffs illegal.
What errors? Trump making an executive order to put tariffs in place? That wasn’t an error, it was completely intentional. It was just illegal.
All the prices went up.
Also, 77m voted for Trump which is 32% of the voting age population.
As a percentage of the overall population it is ~23%.
That’s not a majority.
The prices went up, and customers accepted that price. Bargaining after the deal is made generally doesn’t give you a strong position.
The American definition of a voting majority is not relevant here. What matters is that Americans put Trump in place, knowing he would impose tariffs, making foreign products more expensive. Just because millions didn’t vote for him, doesn’t exclude them from the consequences.
The prices went up, and customers accepted that price.
No, we really didn’t. It was forced on us, credit card and car debt is at record highs, homelessness increased, spending power at the average household is down. And part of the reason companies are getting refunds is over potential lost sales. I. E. Because some customers did in fact refuse to accept the price.
Americans put Trump in place
Yup. Once again, no regrer there, huh?
“It was forced on us so we optionally decided to pay for luxury items using other people’s money via a credit card.”
I understand that Americans suffer under this and that many people are actually against tariffs. We don’t have to disagree there.
However this article is just about the Sony PlayStation. No one forces people to buy a PlayStation. And Sony, a Japanese company, is also not affiliated with the US government.
We don’t have to disagree there.
Tariffs are fine. We do them all the time. Blanket tariffs is profoundly stupid in a world with decades of free trade agreements.
Sony, a Japanese company, is also not affiliated with the US government.
Sony interactive Entertainment is an American company, moving its HQ to the US in 2016. It organizes the playstation brand and this story focuses on the Playstation division.
People who can vote and do not could just as easily have been lazy Trump voters as anything else. They’re political dark matter. They don’t absolve a populace.
“Of the people who didn’t bother to make a choice at all, maybe most of those didn’t want this” is not a compelling argument.
The person above me said a majority voted for it and I corrected them. I’m not sure what relevance your comment has to our exchange.
“Of the people who didn’t bother to make a choice at all, maybe most of those didn’t want this” is not a compelling argument.
It’s just as well I didn’t make that argument then. I don’t appreciate being strawmanned.
Tariffs that WE PAID. Fuck you corporations for double dipping like greedy fucks.
We are paying for this shit twice.
PS5 lifetime shipments reached approximately 95.3 million units on a sell-in basis — meaning shipped to retailers, not necessarily activated in consumers’ living rooms. That’s genuinely impressive territory, approaching Nintendo Switch numbers.
If by approaching Nintendo switch numbers you mean 60 million units behind the switch lol
This is a tricky one, though, isn’t it?
The end price of the console is ultimately set by the retailer. The retailer will typically make that price higher than they got it from the manufacturer. Some of that cost was paid by the retailer as tariffs, maybe some extra manufacturing costs were higher because of tariffs.
Who is getting the refund? A Japanese company? Or the Americans who had to pay tariffs? Either way, Sony don’t sell directly to the consumer, so the retailers would have to be gifted a refund by Sony, and then choose to trace and refund their customers.
I’m I completely wrong about this? How should this work?
Sony can’t get a cut if it’s a used physical disc., which is why they’re moving to digital only.
What does that have to do with this article
