• Maple Engineer@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    Everyone needs a lesson in how tarrifs work. Tarrifs are a tax on thing that us companies buy. They are intended to make foreign products more expensive to protect domestic producers. So, the abeyance company pays the tariff. They them passed that tariff on to their customer, either another company or an American consumer. Then, the country that the tariff had been applied to applies offsetting tarrifs on American good.

    When the product that the tariff is applied to can’t be produced in the US think advanced microchips or Canadian softwood lumber, Americans pay more but still have to buy the foreign product. With the softwood lumber tarrifs the cost of building a home with candidness softwood lumber went up by tens of thousands of dollars and Canadian companies laughed all the way to the bank.

    So, the price to American companies and consumers goes up and the cost of American goods overseas goes up. Americans pay the tarrifs and American companies sell less goods overseas.

    America loses.

      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        5 days ago

        Hadn’t heard of this one, thanks. Americans are pros at not learning from history.

        I thought this part was particularly funny/familiar:

        It was a bill designed to fail in Congress because it was seen by free trade supporters as hurting both industry and farming, but it passed anyway.

    • Oaksey@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      So in your example, I guess the tariffs don’t apply to Canada? Because the proceeds of tariffs go to the government of the country charging them.

      • Maple Engineer@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        I’m not sure what you’re asking. If you’re referring to softwood lumber the profits of Canadian lumber companies were at record levels because the US needs Canadian softwood lumber with or without tarrifs. The tarrifs didn’t affect sales at all so with the increased demand despite the tarrifs Canadian companies didn’t suffer at all. US consumers spent more and the money went to the US government which presumably gave some of the money to uncompetitive US softwood lumber companies to subsides their unprofitable operations. It’s a tax on US consumers.

        Canadian softwood lumber companies pay a stumpage fee to shiatsu/sustainably harvest softwood on public land. US softwood lumber companies pay much higher prices to harvest lumber mostly on private land is all about extracting the highest profit for the most wealthy people. Canada has a better system and the US is salty about it. The US had lost at the WTO energy time but refused to accept the result so it ignored its treaty obligations and just forges ahead with the illegal tarrifs which hurt US consumers.

      • RangerJosie@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        Oh I have no doubt that the Blackrocks and Birkshire Hathaway’s of the nation are absolutely throbbing at the prospect. Literally diamonds. Those dusty old corpses won’t need their hourly viagra until 2030.

        • GiveMemes@jlai.lu
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          5 days ago

          Lol the stock market went up by like 15% since he won or something like that. The big banks and holdings groups are wayyy up, same for tesla which just broke 1 trillion.

          • RangerJosie@lemmy.world
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            4 days ago

            As it always does. In case you missed it all those things were hitting records all the way through Biden’s 4 years.

            It’s a giant casino. And the only time real people feel it is when it crashes and suddenly shit costs way more than it did last week. It doesn’t matter to anyone worth less than 8 or 9 figures.