Why Your Flat-Screen TV Would Cost More If Nafta Ends

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

TIJUANA, Mexico — One of the biggest potential casualties of the trade scuffle underway between Mexico and the U.S. is also one of America’s favorite consumer products: cheap, high-definition, flat-panel televisions.

Every year, U.S. consumers buy more than 40 million flat-screen TVs, as many as three-quarters of them assembled in factories here in Mexico’s electronics-producing hub on the border with California.

On Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, many of these shoppers will line up outside of Wal-Mart and Best Buy stores to buy their televisions. And every year, prices for flat-screens decline, as new models enter the market and retailers outdo one another to offer deeper discounts.

But behind this annual holiday tradition is a fragile business model that relies on razor-thin profit margins, nimble production networks and tariff-free trade between Mexico—the world’s top producer of televisions—and the U.S., the top buyer.

Ending the North American Free Trade Agreement would shift more production of TV components to Asia, prompt higher prices for U.S. consumers and not result in new American jobs, according to manufacturing executives and analysts.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/why-your-flat-screen-tv-would-cost-more-if-nafta-ends/ar-BBFtLa3?li=BBnbfcN&ocid=edgsp

[Roland99]

1. 5% cost increase? Even if passed on doesnt seem that big a deal

$50 more on a $1000 set?

[EL34x4]

2. Yeah, I'm not necessarily sure this is all that bad.

These TVs have become embarrassingly cheap. They're practically throw-away items.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

3. 5% is the tariff Mexico doesn't pay

You'd have additional shipping costs as well if production was moved to Asia.

The thing that stands out to me however is we wouldn't gain additional jobs in the U.S. if we pulled out of NAFTA. Trump tries to use jobs as a selling point for NAFTA repeal while the proposed Republican tax plan would grant further incentives for companies to offshore work.

[Roland99]

5. Not sure why central and South America arent used more

No trans-pacific shipping costs and delays. Labor most likely just as cheap.

Didn’t CAFTA ever go thru? Have to plead ignorance.

[Calculating]

4. Honestly televisions SHOULD cost more

It's a joke just how cheap the lower end versions have gotten recently. People buy them almost as disposable items to be tossed within a few years, which is TERRIBLE for the environment. A lot of precious metals and toxic chemicals go into them. Televisions used to be somewhat of an 'investment'. You would spend a large sum on money on a high quality set with the intention of it lasting you at least a decade.

[HeartachesNhangovers]

6. You are correct. The price Americans pay

for electronics largely excludes the "externalities" of raw material production and waste generation that the environment has to bear.

Price of TVs going up is a pretty lame and irresponsible argument for NAFTA.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

7. Also, very low overall environmental efficiency.

I go all the way back to the 60s and worked in a Radio/TV shop during the tube days. We had books on all TVs and every component could be diagnosed and replaced. A decent TV then could last 10 to 15 years and some as long as 20 years.

Nowadays, a single 1-cent part in a $500 set can doom it to the trash because so much is integrated to save labor and materials costs, and because many parts become obsolete very quickly.

The day is coming where all this waste will catch up with us. Unfortunately, Main Street, Wall Street and Wal-Mart do not care.

[Calculating]

8. Surface mount electronics were the doom of the repair industry IMO

It's easier to just replace an entire module within the unit than to try and track down/fix the problem on a board which has hundreds of little components ranging in size from a pencil eraser to a grain of sand. In a way it had to happen though, because there's no way a modern television could be built with discrete components and point-to-point wiring. There's simply too much going on, and that means shrinking everything down to make it fit within the set. Still, I see an alarming amount of perfectly good tv's getting thrown out or simply put into storage within 3-5 years because a more advanced model came out. That's where I have little sympathy for those complaining about tv costs.

It was particularly bad during the analog to digital broadcasting conversion. Hundreds of Millions of old CRT televisions were disposed of despite the availability of converter boxes. Perhaps if flat panel sets included more of the externalized costs there would have been more incentive to keep the older sets running for a while. Now everybody is ditching their old 720 and 1080 flat panels for new 4k sets despite there not even being much 4k content available. I recently bought a new OLED set myself, but I at least got a solid 7-8 years out of the old panasonic plasma before retiring it be the basement tv.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

9. Yes, and it's mentally hard on us old-timers.

Nice to hear from someone that understands. I've been a "Mr. Fix it" type all my life and now hardly anything can be repaired at component level. No way in hell I could repair at board level now, even if I had the schematic and parts.

I switched to industrial controls for the last years of my career and things were better there for a while, but now it's the same way but far more expensive. Not unusual to trash a $2K circuit board or $600 controller without a second thought. I'm glad I'm retired now and can just worry about fixing simple things like kitchen sinks - but still enjoy tinkering in my electronics shop, LOL.

The overnight fad nature of consumer products and our throwaway culture may come to an end sooner than one might think, as scarce resources could result in real wars to capture them. The rest of the world is slowly learning to not let the West take anything they want for little or nothing and leaving behind an environmental mess.

The next 100 years will be interesting for the next generations. They may need to learn a more simple way of life.

[dembotoz]

10. oh i suspect its not just tvs

the quality will not return it will just cost more

my guess is the quality will go down further as the sellers try to maintain price points that consumers expect to pay

so when netflix sucks will it be my new crap tv or my new no longer net neutral internet