I’ll credit Trump for one thing - he successfully broke me of my Scotch habit with his stupid tariffs
Now let’s scale that up to, well, everything?
I think he might be trying to destroy America
That’s not how anything works. The country exporting to the USA don’t field the tariffs expense. The importers do.
He would just be removing taxes for people himself to a massive deficit and decreased trade.
I hate Trump, and maybe that’s what he’s thinking.
But I’m not sure replacing taxes with tariffs won’t help; replacing sales taxes with teriffs will mean that domestic products are effectively being subsidized by people buying imported products. This increases demand for domestic products, hopefully stimulation domestic production.
I think the tell isn’t that he is using teriffs, it’s that he wants to cut income taxes at the expense of people buying foreign products.
The USA mainly sells Financial Services and Machinery. Making our own rubber ducks and flatpack furniture would be analogous to a lawyer painting his house when he could have made enough money to pay somebody else to paint it 5x over.
Unfortunately, much of our raw materials are imports so by disincentivizing other countries to trade with us we are killing our own manufacturing capabilities. That is exactly what happened when Trump era steel tariffs killed a large sector of American manufacturing. And he explicitly excluded Russian Steel where his good friend Aaron Abromovich was offering to supply steel for his stupid wall, until congress twisted his arm into signing the additional tariffs against Russia, just another example of how his actions are purely selfish.
At the end of the day, trade is both good and conditional. Other nations might see these actions as hostile and reduce the number of goods they’re willing to sell, as they can’t be the ones left holding the bag if trade suddenly stops one day and they’ve overproduced specialty goods with no use so reducing production is the clear choice, and there is less incentive to offer other less profitable goods as per trade agreements and less incentive to even make new trade agreements in the first place.
You cannot force American CEOs to want to produce goods in the states anymore than you can convince Chinese people to live in the districts where excess homes were built: governments do not have enough control to dictate the markets via anything but positive reinforcement.
It feels like this (common) argument it’s trying to have is cake and eat it too, so maybe you can help me understand.
As you, and everyone, say: the financial burden of the teriffs are paid by the importer and passed to the consumer, rather than being paid by the exporting country or exporter - so what is the disincentive for those countries to continue trade with us? They’ll see a decrease in demand, but is that really a disincentive? I don’t understand how both of these things can be true and have the same cause, at the same time.
The problem is outsourcing, and teriffs are an attempt to make outsourcing less appealing. I understand your analogy, but that’s the problem: we’re encountering Goodhart’s Law. We’re optimizing for GDP, and you’re right that’s teriffs will result in lower optimization, but in chasing GDP numbers we’ve failed to consider where the money is getting allocated. The lawyer could save money by hiring foreigners, but hiring locals helps people in their community. (Not saying foreign workers are bad, just trying to reuse your analogy). I don’t think we should get too preoccupied with economic efficiency, as long as we can ensure the waste stays domestic.
I’m not confident teriffs are actually a good idea, and even if they were I don’t trust Trump to implement them. What I’m trying to do is push back and get clarification about why people are acting like teriffs are inherently bad.
I’m not trying to have the cake and eat it, I’m trying to convince people like you not to shit on the cake just because you think you might be able to eat around it.
What?
Why am I getting down votes?
How am I shitting on anything? What am I even shitting on? \All I’m doing is asking “why do we shit on teriffs and treat them as inherently bad?”
Im trying to have a discussion in good faith, and rather than having any of my questions explained or answered I’m just down voted and vaguely demeaned.I’m being very clear I do not support whatever shit trump is doing, I’m trying to understand why people just hate tariffs.
I don’t understand how, if the importer bares all tariff costs, what would disincentivize a foreign nation from exporting to us since they bear no increased costs. Why would this not just appear as a decrease in demand, from their perspective?I literally explained it to you in simple terms and you still argued against the facts.
Tariffs
Shit on
USA Commerce and Industry
They cannot ever be a replacement for taxation. Their uses are purely as a defence from foreign fuckery in the markets.
You didn’t provide facts, you provided arguments and assertions.
Then I refuted one of your arguments showing how it is seemingly contradicted one of your assertions and asked for elaboration.I don’t understand where your hostility is coming from. I’m not even saying you’re wrong, I’m pointing out arguments that don’t appear (to me) to lead to your conclusion.
I absolutely don’t refute that Trump’s idea is a bad one. My question is more general than that.
I am sick of free trade being stifled… Whoever makes the best product should get the money having the products I buy dictated to me is unamerican
How about we eliminate income taxes and replace it with corporate carbon emissions tax, AND cut fuel subsidies.
And he will do it.
He has to figure out this thing with a boat, a shark, and a battery…
But once he works that one out, China will be paying our taxes.
Trump floats more shit than a sewage treatment plant.
People are so fucking stupid. This man will further ruin the United States. Not even attempting to maintain it.
He’d just do it temporarily for us poors but make it permanent for his
best friendsrich donors and make it very hard to ever tax them again.This is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard.
I’m sure he’ll come up with something dumber tomorrow.
Well, worked everytime someone did this in the past … not!
So he’s planning to make the poor pay the taxes for the rich.
Always has been
No, poor people already pay for the rich. The rich can afford an accountant to find as many loopholes and deductions as possible. The really rich don’t have an “income” and live of capital gains which is already under taxed.
This is just a hope people remember the “no income tax” part and forget about the “raise import tariffs” part when they’re at the ballot.
Tarifs on imports?
So basically jacking up prices on all the things made overseas that are cheapest to buy in the US. That affects everyone, especially the poorer people that tend to shop places where that cheap imported stuff is sold. It’s gonna affect the middle class the most because they’re probably the biggest consumers. The rich DGAF because well, they’re rich.
Quickest way to put even more people below the poverty line.
Plus rich people can better afford quality stuff made in the USA.
Rich people have enough money that a small percent in price increase doesn’t affect them the way it affects a “normal” person. If you make millions vs 100k/yr combined income it does that the same.
It’s not about quality, it’s about what you’re being sold.
But right now the cheap stuff is made overseas like in Asia. The expanse stuff is built in Europe or the US. Tariffs would likely be harsher on Asia products. So expensive stuff might not get much more expensive at all. The cheap stuff would get much more expensive.
Meaning there’d be a bigger cost percentage increase for the people who already can’t afford it. A double whammy.
Tariffs would likely be harsher on Asia products. So expensive stuff might not get much more expensive at all. The cheap stuff would get much more expensive.
Meaning there’d be a bigger cost percentage increase for the people who already can’t afford it. A double whammy.
That’s pretty much what I said.
Not what I understood from it but okay. I thought you were saying rich people are better able to absorb the cost increase. I was saying the cost increase would also be less for rich people.
That is what I said.
If you say so
Nailed it.
things made overseas that are cheapest to buy in the US
Things that are made overseas because American business owners outsourced the manufacturing jobs to the countries with the cheapest labour (and also the least worker protections)?
Yeah, that’s a whole 'nuther discussion besides the tariffs…
What? No, this is the same exact discussion… that is literally one of the primary purposes of tariffs: to give an advantage to local producers.
I think you misunderstand, friend. The ship has already sailed overseas and there aren’t enough “local” producers to make up for the rise in costs faced by the people who shop where the cheap imported goods are and the middle class that consumes the most.
The only advantage is to the government collecting the tariffs on the poor and middle class. Like I said, the rich won’t care.
It’s becoming a problem for Americans because labor leverage abroad (particularly in China and India) have been improving as labor demand eclipses supply.
African and Latin American states (particularly Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria, and South Africa) were supposed to be the next places to extract labor, but they keep going Woke, with socialist state governments making demands on exports that Western states don’t want to surrender.
Imperials are running out of countries to exploit.
You’re kinda making the imperials sound good there, if every time they move into a country they start running out of poor people a generation later
If you neglect what they destroy on their way in, perhaps.
That affects everyone, especially the poorer people
That’s a consequence of outsourcing as much as anything. Tariffs don’t have to mean making retail goods unaffordable for the bulk of the population. When you have domestic industry with room to grow, insourcing your demand can simply mean building out more capital and consuming more labor at home.
But insourcing also means boosting wages and incentivizing immigration, things conservatives hate.
So Trump’s pitch ultimately amounts to giving domestic producers with no intention of boosting production an opportunity to price gouge their clients with the blessing of the state.
Your assumption that things become unaffordable is incorrect, they just cost more.
Prove that wages get boosted. That flies in the face of corporate methodology to cheapen wages and benefits along with product quality in the service of quarterly reports and profits.
Price gouging is already happening. It doesn’t require trump’s ok to allow it.
Prove that wages get boosted.
Wages rise when demand for labor exceeds supply. That’s Econ 101.
That flies in the face of corporate methodology to cheapen wages and benefits along with product quality in the service of quarterly reports and profits.
Wages are kept low by artificially stunting labor demand. That happens either by under-investing in new capital or cartelizing the hiring process.
Price gouging is already happening.
Gouging involves monopolizing supply of commodities. If we increase the supply of capital and the number of hiring firms, that monopolization becomes more difficult.
But if we simply freeze out imports with trade laws, the existing firms can monopolize domestic supply more easily.
“The invisible hand of the free market will save us all!”
It’s very real hands of very real people
While I mostly agree with you, econ101 is a pretty poor argument; early econ courses (like intro to micro and macro) are notoriously not grounded in reality.
econ101 is a pretty poor argument;
You can argue about the goals of economic policy, but that’s very different from arguing the effects.
What is the response to rising labor demand? Do you
- Independently raise wages to the bid price?
Or
- Form a cartel to fix wages below the clearing floor?
The former is the “natural” response you learn about in 101, assuming a naive approach to the problem. The latter is what you learn works best in 201, when your goal is profit maximization.
None of your replies have any basis other than broad opinion. It’s devoid of manufacturing ability, profiteering, or the corporate price gouging we already experience.
You just wave a magic wand and suddenly the US can defray the manufacturing deficit and will suddenly throw money at the workforce. Must be a nice imaginary world you live in.
broad opinion
K
Lookit you…solved everything with a ‘k’. Pity it isn’t as easy as you handwave away.
Tax the rich, give the middle and lower class tax breaks. It would fix so much.
Someone explain to me how this would benefit the rich. The rich don’t pay income tax.
If the rich didn’t pay taxes than tax cuts for the rich would not be their 1st, 2nd, and 3rd top priorities.
Tax cuts for the rich are capital gains tax cuts and corporate tax cuts.
Income tax cuts don’t impact them, broadly.
Income tax cuts don’t impact them, broadly.
Then they should not be objecting at all if we raise the top income tax rate back to 91% like it was in the 1950’s when we had a great economy.
The truly rich would be fine. They don’t pay income tax, they live off of capital gains.
That’s just punishing people at the top of the working class. Doctors, lawyers, etc.
