No tariffs have been set but we’re going to just assume they’ll be put on items we can’t even make. 100% tariffs on everything, trade isn’t something you strategically do.
The incumbent has claimed repeatedly that there will be 10% tariff on all foreign goods. We can certainly bury our heads in the sand and pretend it’s not happening, but that doesn’t really do us much good.
Either he lies all the time or he tells the truth, can’t have both. I’d love to try elimination of the income tax in exchange for tariffs but there’s no way it’s going to happen despite whatever campaign promises were made.
Why try that? It’s terribly regressive economic and taxation policy. It’s essentially a huge sales tax.
Alternative reality peeps be like:
That is a laughably stupid tax policy.
A comment so good I upvoted it twice
That is a laughably stupid tax policy.
To expand on this, it’s laughably stupid because it disproportionately affects the poor. When everybody pays the same tax, poor people have to be taxed significantly more. Same rate of taxation on 35k and 200k, the person earning 200k can easily afford things like food and housing and a luxury car whereas the person making 35k would be pressed just to afford the increased prices on things like groceries and other necessities that tariffs bring. Not to mention that a 10% tariff would not support our budget, and that tariffs are intended to boost domestic manufacturing. When that does occur, the budget starts getting less and less because the US is no longer raking in the tariff cash.
Basically, 20 seconds of thought could tell anybody that this is a terrible idea.
Basically, 20 seconds of thought could tell anybody that this is a terrible idea.
IF the thinker is looking for a good overall policy and not just trying to stick more money in their pockets in the short term.
You expect them to cry about the working class affording food when they only have a house for three out of the four seasons of the year?
I want to expand on your expansion of my glib comment. While taxing the poor and working class at a higher proportional rate is obviously immoral, it’s also bad economic policy. The working class are essentially the “engine” of the economy. Their income circles back into the greater economy at a much higher rate than a rich person’s. The harder you tax them, more more you slow down the economy. While is technically true for any tax bracket, you can tax the rich much more aggressively with very little impact on the overall economy, because so much of their money is for toys.
We’re actually seeing a big problem right now, with so many billionaires they are running out of decent places to put their money that’s worth their time. We have way too many billionaires and not enough millionaires and small business owners. A billionaire will never invest in your taco truck, but the local “fairly rich” guy might. The billionaires are betting big on AI, in part, because they have no other bets they can make. We need to tax their asses way more aggressively and pump that money into micro businesses to make our economies robust.
(While I’m speaking about the US in particular, this is somewhat of a global trend.)
That’s the problem. Trump is a complete fucking idiot, so just because something is a terrible strategy doesn’t mean he won’t do it. Look what happened last time with the tariffs on Chinese goods and the small trade war he sparked that screwed over soy exports. Did Trump learn anything from that? Or his voters? Evidently not.
Some folks were a little late to figuring out what tariffs were okay!
I feel like most people I have heard talking about them while supporting Trump seem to know that tariffs are taxes, but have no concept of how they play out in a real economic situation. Most fall into one or both of two camps:
A) Tariffs are taxes, but they’re taxes for companies not individuals, and they’re only applied to importing, so they won’t affect me.
B) Tariffs are taxes for foreign companies, to level the playing field and keep American business competitive. Since the companies that have to pay it are foreign, it won’t affect me.
Spoiler alert, guys: no matter where the tax is levied in the system, the consumer is the only person who ever pays for it, since they’re the only ones that can’t pass that cost on to anyone else.
Also, while this can make domestic competitors more competitive, it’s important to remember two things: first, if it works, it’s only working by making things more expensive for consumers, and second, this assumes that the domestic competitors want more business, have the ability and posture to increase their production to meet the new greater demand, and will operate in good faith. Much more likely is that they simply also increase their prices in reaction to the tariffs, so they’re not producing or selling any more volume and aren’t creating any jobs… they’re just padding their profit margins at the corporate/shareholder level while doing nothing for their employees, all while having the average consumer foot the bill.
That’s exactly what happened with the steel tariffs in the first Trump term and that’s exactly what will happen now…the only difference is that this time it seems like there will be significantly fewer economic buffers between the tariff and the consumer, so more people will more directly feel the sting here…and presumably the mental gymnastics from the MAGAts will be even sadder in their attempts to somehow make it not a criticism of their orange leader’s incompetence.
“Surely the company that sells a product for $100 will keep selling the product for that price once tariffs mean that it costs a $125 to produce and import!” - crazy people.
Tariffs are taxes, but they’re taxes for companies not individuals, and they’re only applied to importing, so they won’t affect me.
Typical Magoo (literally my dad in 2016): “you can’t tax business owners, they’re going to just make everything more expensive for us! They pass on the burden to us!”
Also Magoo: “Yay tarrifs! They are a tax on business but that won’t get passed on to me!”
The Magoo motto: Whatever words I need to use to suit my purpose I will use, to hell with reality.
Get yourself a few bottles of caffeine pills. They’re really cheap and might get you through some tough times
People listing Hawaii like they could meet the total US demand, even if they could scale to maximum production overnight.
Most of the corn we eat is Brazilian. Most of the corn we grow is feed corn for cows and process corn for HFCS and other processed food ingredients.
As an American born and raised in Illinois I can also inform the rest of the populace our corn also gets used to make ethanol, an alternative fuel source.
Ethanol is incredibly inefficient as a fuel source.
If not for the massive subsidies it would not exist.
Still, ethanol is a better fuel additive than lead. (Both reduce knocking)
Still, the far better use is to grow food.
Im guessing they also never seen how much the coffee from there cost. Plus supply and demand you dumb fucks. The cost will skyrocket. Kona coffee ranges from $30 to $100 a bag. Think of a massive increase of demand. Are we going to pay $100 a bag for low end stuff?
Hawaii does have the largest coffee growing industry in the entire US but they are severely limited by the amount of available land. Compared to other coffee-producing nations, the Big Island is microscopically tiny, so they mainly focus on high quality, artisanal product sold at extremely high prices. Not that I would mind if all the coffee sold everywhere would be replaced by Kona coffee overnight, but it just isn’t feasible.
It would be interesting to see the first bipartisan riot.
The first bipartisan riot in the US was kinda the whiskey rebellion.
Who are we kidding? Trump’s going to enforce it selectively to nefarious ends and enrich himself off exemptions that he’s hand picked to be subservient. Free market my ass.
100% this. I see tariffs on foreign cars coming quick.
So nothing and it’s just a money grab
No. Everyone who doesn’t have money for him to grab is fucked.
I’ve been saying this. I’m curious to see who wins out. In this case it’s populist bullshit vs American coffee retailers. Let’s see who comes out on top.
Wonder if we will see an uptick in American made “koffee”?
Something like the Ersatzkaffee from yesteryear. I mean they have the means of making caffeine so maybe it will be better?
Black Rifle Koffee
But (assuming a tarrif is something that can even pass) I imagine you’re going to see a swiss cheese of exemptions for favored countries. And these countries will become a back door for imports.
Expect all of your coffee to be mysteriously harvested from Canada.
Why do you think Canada would be spared tariffs?
The intent is clearly to “fix” the USs trade deficit, so Canada being the biggest trade partner would be prime for these.
I think any tariff that passes will have a swiss cheese of exemptions, because that’s just how the game is played in Congress.
Lobby hard enough and you’ll get your country excused one way or another.
Canada being the biggest trade partner would be prime for these.
It would be prime for Canadian ports, and for a host of middle men who get to launder trade goods through a legal loophole.
But that’s the real end game. Not domesticating manufacturing, but monopolizing channels for import/export.
No don’t. Last mandate, Trump out tarrifs on Canadian steel, labeled it a strategic risk. Read somewhere that it boosted Russian owned us steel mills somehow. Canada is not getting any favors from that guy.
Apparently, farmers buy a lot of fertilizer from China.
Don’t worry, that can be sourced locally. Trump produces enough bullshit to supply the country.
Unfortunately toxic bullshit isnt great for growing things.
I’m sure the fuckface is going to only tariff countries and products he doesn’t like, that saidF we have no idea if Mr. KFC drinks coffee or andrenochrome (joke) my guess is he hates mexico so coffee is getting taxed and things like monster and coke are gonna be the only caffeine available. Start growing coffee folks.
I have a gut feeling that his talk of tariffs is a bluff. Even if it’s not my gut still tells me there’s going to be exceptions for certain things that are big money makers for Trump and his allies. Trump’s administration is not going to tax themselves unless they can provide a loophole to get themselves out of it. Ultimately it’s the consumer who pays for tariffs, but they’re entire purpose is to slow down trade and if that costs Trump and his allies too much of their wealth it won’t happen.
Trump is as predictable as he is unpredictable because he doesn’t stay consistent. He changes what he says and does to be perceived as best he can in that moment. Which makes understanding his actions a little easier, his past actions are irrelevant to his future decisions, it’s just about what’s in his head in the moment. Which is just a lot of words to say that Trump, his administration, and his allies are just chaos, and you never really know what chaos will bring except a change in the status quo. It’s not looking optimistic though.
You mean, so-called shit hole countries?
As a Canadian, I’m curious if we’re considered a “shit hole country” to these fucks.
I think it depends more on how white you are.
Maybe there’s money in starting a coffee exporting business to the US…
???
Not only do tariffs decrease demand by increasing cost, I think you’ll find that people have, in fact, considered that idea before.
Gonna be some cranky leopards in America.
They are just gonna blame Biden still
“I can’t believe Kamala did this!”
Huge uptick in folks drinking 4 Loco.
Dude, if we tariff coffee I will personally write a strenuous letter to Trump. In crayon, and strenuous because I won’t have had my coffee.
I do think like 1 million americans sending letters to the white house telling them to fuck off is a funny thing to do. How many letters can be opened by 1 person a day?
All of them in severe grogginess crayon writing on construction paper. So they know as soon as they open it.
On slave plantations for the most part
Foreign slave plantations.
… Not that slave plantations anywhere makes it better, but the fact that it’s foreign will mean that not only is the labor mainly performed by slaves, but we’re also paying a premium because it’s imported goods. Double jeopardy.
Yay capitalism!
I’m not American, but tariffs to fix import issues is pretty stupid.
This is the capitalist dream, export all the production of the goods you use daily to third world countries, who will have shit labor practices like the US used to have when slavery was a thing (and bluntly, for quite a while afterwards), so that the boots-on-the-ground laborers that produce everything are either treated like slaves or literally are slaves, then import the raw material to be manufactured into whatever you’re selling in the US, so you can slap a “made in the USA” sticker on your shit to enhance sales and charge more. Meanwhile “made in the USA” doesn’t and shouldn’t imply that there’s no imported goods going into the manufacturing process to make that thing, just that you took raw materials (from wherever) and made this thing in the USA.
Tariffs unduly harm end consumers, pretty much everything we buy and own is, or has components that are, imported shit.
Most microchips, a large amount of the food we eat, most electronics, pretty much everything you’ll find at a dollar general, etc (the list is very very long)… all imported in whole or in part.
Hell, there was a time that it was more economical to have your raw materials, even if they’re mined/harvested/produced in the USA, shipped overseas for assembly by slave labor, then shipped back for sale to the US public, than to have it assembled inside the US. Much of that is still true. The US neither has the manufacturing capacity, nor the desire to build their own shit. The only time that’s not the economical option is for large cost (and scale, either in size or money) items, like housing or vehicles. Assembly generally happens in the country/landmass where the vehicle will be sold and used. Even a company like Toyota, a Japanese brand, will have assembly plants in the USA for cars sold in the USA, because that’s cheaper than importing hundreds of vehicles. For everything else, it’s generally cheaper to assemble it outside of the country and import the final product.
You think process are high now? Wait until the tariff wars really kick off.
No company is going to accept the costs of tariffs and be okay with that eating their profits, they’re passing that cost into consumers, because we’re the saps that are still going to buy it.
When the tariffs come down, and they will eventually, prices will drop, but not to where they were from before the tariffs. Companies will continue to post record profits, justifying not giving raises because tariffs, and wages will remain stagnant. We’ll earn less, while they rob is for more than they already do.
The worst part is that when the tariffs are lifted, we’ll thank them for lowering the prices by buying more of their shit. We’ll be grateful for the opportunity to pay even more into their profit margins.
Congratulations, you’re experiencing late stage capitalism. The system is working as intended. You are poor, you remain poor, barely able to scratch out a living, while your owners profit more and more off of your hard work, and you get to thank them for that opportunity.
I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.
I want everyone to be angry enough to do something about this.
How do we get everyone angry.
You spew this every day for the next four years with as wide a firehose as possible. Track every tariff and price it effects, scream it into every tar pit media site out there. Literally just shove this in everyone’s faces for this entire time. Every time.
Won’t work, they yell “fake news” then bury their heads in the sand like they always do.
Idk misinformation tactics would probably work the same for information and with Republicans theres enough hidden truth to firehose. We aren’t swaying MAGAts. We’re grabbing those dumb centrists
A proper education would have done it.
nor the desire to build their own shit
I would say that we’ve also largely lost the means to afford stuff built here, in large part as a consequence of our endless pursuit of cheap crap while scraping the bottom of the barrel with outsourcing. Even if you want to buy domestically-made goods, since we’ve lost so many of those good union jobs, especially in manufacturing, we no longer have the means to pay what it costs to make such a product with American workers. Especially if people intend to continue with their current consumerist trends.
I’m making $20/hour at the moment. If I want to buy American, union-made shoes, it’ll run me $400 a pair, on the lower end. I think it’s pretty reasonable to have a pair of work boots, a pair of regular shoes for wearing out and about, and a pair of dress shoes, which at that low end will run me 37.5% of my monthly gross pay. Now do the same for domestically produced clothing, and you’ve probably run up a bill of several month’s pay, just to have enough outfits to last you a single week, leaving aside coats, seasonal clothing, or formal attire. We’re either going to have to sharply curtail our purchasing and focus on buying a smaller amount of goods meant to last as long as possibly, or the sadly more likely scenario, we’ll see the establishment of domestic sweatshops to fuel the consumerist impulses of what remains of the middle class and up. Whether we’ll just go even more insane in our treatment of the poor here, or use prison labor and undocumented migrants “pending” deportation in these sweatshops remains to be seen, but Americans have demonstrated we shortsightedly value our ability to accumulate cheap trash over anything else.
I’d love to be proven wrong, and see a growth of strong unions and domestic production leading to a resurgence in American craftsmanship again, but the current environment is less than amenable to this outcome, to put it mildly.
I don’t mean to imply the US should go back to manufacturing their own goods like they had to before global trade was economical.
I hope the point I’m making is that the people like Trump, mostly aggressive capitalists, are significantly in favor of these trends, and adding tariffs to imported goods will harm the businesses that the tariff is intended to protect.
Sales will drop because most goods are simply more price elastic than that. Cost goes up, sales drop, and overall you lose profits. When costs go up, alternative products are supposed to take up the business you lost by raising prices.
Though, to be fair, that price elasticity model is broken. Most product types have been agglutinated into a couple of large companies in an oligopoly, so all brands of that kind of product raise prices to match all the other brands. With no other competition in the market, consumers have the “choice” of paying more for the same thing, or not buying it.
In any case, the entire economy has been so thoroughly fucked by corporations that is just a money printing machine for the ultra rich to get richer.
I’ve depressed myself now. I’m gonna go.
I didn’t think you were, I was more saying that the loss of many of those jobs that had been outsourced in the pursuit of cheap stuff means that, even if Trump’s proposed tariffs were effective at bringing those jobs back, it might not matter because they would still cost more than most residents of the US would be able to afford. At least, with current working conditions, many of these goods would simply cost more than people would be willing to pay, as we’ve been collectively conditioned to want as much stuff as possible, as cheap as possible. Domestic production of so many goods would require a drastic shift in consumer habits to even have a chance at being viable in the long term, but they absolutely couldn’t do the sort of volume that places like China has and be able to sell at a profit, barring the implementation of Chinese-style working conditions.
The worst part is that when the tariffs are lifted, we’ll thank them for lowering the prices by buying more of their shit. We’ll be grateful for the opportunity to pay even more into their profit margins.
Prices won’t go down, companies will pocket the difference
Oh, they’ll go down… But it won’t be nearly as much as it went up to cover the tariff.
What I’m thinking is, let’s say a widget is $100, tariffs go in at, say 5%. So it should cost $105, but the price increases to $110. People cry bloody murder, but ultimately they “need” the widget so they buy it. Tariffs go away, yay, the price is dropped, it’s now $107.99
that’s what I’m thinking.
Also it’s all the Democrats fault.
In practice, that’s not what happens generally. A widget is $100, the 5% tariff brings it up to $105 and company bumps the price to $110. People need the widget so they buy it at $110. Tariff goes away, but company knows that people will pay at least $110 for the widget, so they try bumping the price to $115. Maybe it doesn’t sell, so they “discount” it back to $110 and people will happily buy it thinking they’re getting a deal, while the company is pocketing that extra $10.
Hahaha, shame on you. I live in a country where we make the coffee and we still pay taxes for it.
Where is that? Brasil?
My remembrance fo colombian coffee is that it was stupidly good and stupidly cheap to buy freaking everywhere inside the country… I may be wrong though
Yep, Brazil. We pay around 10 to 15% IIRC. Could be more, idk.
Well, someone has to pay to keep the land out of poor people.
