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by ramblerouser 2747 days ago
Great question.

>“Displaced”? So let me get this right. If my wife buys a Coach handbag for $100, and it’s a counterfeit from China, and she enjoys the handbag, then the “cost” to America is $100? I’m guessing that no actual economists participated in the writing of this government report.

This "economist" (your words) seems to think that the value his hypothetical wife gets from the handbag she or others thinks is a real Gucci offsets the fact that Gucci spent a fortune on their brand and China gets to take a big fat bite out of Gucci's sales because the US isnt willing to stand up to China on trade.
1 comments
scarcely 2747 days ago
lmao that ain't his reasoning muh brah. His point is about target demographics. The typical person who buys a knock-off -- is s/he such that, had the knock-off been unavailable, s/he would have purchased the real thing instead. Only if you answer to that question is yes will you assess the cost to be $100.

minor: 1. Coach (US), not Gucci (Italy). 2. The author is a legit economist (expert on monetary policy), content from his blog has been posted on HN regularly. He recently posted a series of comments on China. If you're interested check them out at:

https://www.econlib.org/parmesan-cheese-and-sunbucks-coffee/

https://www.econlib.org/how-should-we-think-about-the-theft-...

http://www.themoneyillusion.com/category/china/

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dang 2747 days ago
> lmao that ain't his reasoning muh brah

Please don't, and please don't use HN primarily for political or ideological or national battle, as described elsewhere.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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ramblerouser 2747 days ago
Some percent of the time the answer will be yes, and the loss is the difference in price, probably a lot more than $100. It is not unreasonable given no other information to assess the loss at $100, as the report being criticized does. If counterfeit goods didnt hurt sales one way or another, why would brands care so much about stopping them?

I didnt like this economist's article. A lot of economists are also political commentators who like to bring toy economic arguments to bear on problems that really aren't captured by economic theory at all. He appears to be one of them.

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