Sanity Check on Trade
Please think about that Tweet for just one second.
Sanity Check on Big Government
If Trump said that the government knew how to spend your money better than you do, you would likely think he has turned crazy.
But tariffs do the same thing. They are a tax on consumers and/or businesses that import goods.
When Trump raises tariffs, not only is he picking winners and losers, he is also spending your money by making businesses and/or you pay more for goods.
Trump even bragged about it!
Got that?
Trump proposed a tax on consumers or businesses to help pay down the national debt. That is big government in action.
Sanity Check on Your Positions
If you support Trump’s tariffs and you are against big government, your positions are dramatically inconsistent.
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Trump is using tariffs as a temporary stick to change systemically corrupt behavior, which will be beneficial for US companies long term. As long as incomes increase more than costs, it’s good. Reducing costs is not beneficial if incomes fall faster.
“Sanity Check: Does Government Know How to Spend Your Money Better Than You?”
People know best how they want to spend their money, not necessarily the best way to spend their money. People do a lot of stupid things with their money. A lot of people make a living off people doing stupid things with their money.
People only do stupid things with their money, as judged by the standards of someone other than themselves. If there is one group there are more of than the one living off the supposed stupidity of others, it is the one who busies themselves having all manners of opinions about how others should spend their money.
“People only do stupid things with their money, as judged by the standards of someone other than themselves.”
Supposedly, something like a third of lottery winners wind up bankrupt.
Because, while they like money, they like hookers and blow even more.
Trump shrinking Apple’s margins through tariff is no different than what Sanders would do though taxes or also tariffs. Poulists – left and right – invariably go after corporate profits. Trump will bankrupt us by picking winners and losers just as surely as Sanders.
Tariffs are NOT a tax.
Tariffs are tariffs and the one who pays them is the company with lowered profit margins and therefore lowered profitability for the company and lowered stock price for the company.
Companies ALWAYS price their product for the MAXIMUM they can get per product when multiplied by the Maximum numbers of products sold with the most optimal pricing that moves most products with the highest profit margin for highest overall profits.
If Apple COULD charge 2000 per phone they already would.
With tariffs Apple will have a smaller profit margin.
If a nail company could charge 1 dollar per nail they would but in the case of bulk products like nails the pricing decision is made by the store that buys the nails from the cheapest supplier that gives the store the highest profit so with tariffs their profits are also cut since the lowest priced nails will be a bit higher but if other hardware stores sell nails for cheaply they have to follow that too.
So I guess it’s a corporate tax, but still a tax:
“compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the government on workers’ income and business profits“
With recent corporate tax cut, I don’t think corporations have grounds to complain about the tariff tax. Just look at the size of stock buyback…
Apple could charge $2000 per Iphone. They’ll just sell fewer of them. If Trump insists on a $1500 kickback for every phone sold, that’s what they will do. They sure won’t continue to sell them for $1000 for long…. At which point many fewer will own an Iphone, and the few who still buy them, will effectively pay a 300% tax for the privilege.
Yes, it is a tax. The tariffs are a tax. Trump is a big government taxer. Unfortunately, the Dems are becoming just as bad on trade. Populism ascends at the price of prosperity, then peace.
What you say would be true, if the tariff only applied to one company. If there was a 25% tariff only on Apple, Apple would raise their prices somewhat, but could not increase it by close to 25%. If, however, there is a 25% tariff on all phones, then all phone makers will raise prices, and the price increase will be much, much closer to the full 25%. Furthermore, to the extent that business profits fall because they can not recoup the entire tariff through price increases, that will mean lower raises for employees, less dividends for stockholders, and less job creation. Thus, Americans, as a whole, will see higher prices, lower raises, less jobs, and less dividend income.
80%+ of Federal spending is on Social Security (wildly popular), Medicare (wildly popular), Medicaid (popularish) Defense and Veterans (wildly popular), Interest on the Debt (wildly popular for the rich and foreign lenders). The people LOVE Federal spending. And if so, the revenue MUST be found to pay for this spending. Stop the borrowing and just admit it … we are a socialist country, just like all the other countries we like to make fun of.
LOL, they are not paying any debt down, these are politicians, they are mostly all narcissists, masters at believing their own lies, they have to be, it’s the only way to get the rest to believe them. That next meeting with China diplomats? They are not going to meet with Trump, they are going to meet with U.S. corporations because they know that’s who is really in charge here anyway. Politician is just a talking head that takes campaign donations which is really just bribe/kickback money.
Sanity check – The US govt debt is so huge that tariffs is like a drop in the ocean. This piece and the tariffs have nothing to do with US government spending.
Every tax is a drop in the ocean to start out with. Then a constituency whose jobs, pensions, benefits and social status depend on the tax forms. And the tax grows. And grows. And grows. And never, ever, until Armageddon, shrinks.
This is inconsistent with Chinese government statements that they are reducing taxes on exports to offset US tariffs — i.e, the tariffs are in effect a tax on the Chinese government, not on the US consumer.
Most of us would like to see the elimination of tariffs and (more importantly) non-tariff barriers. How to get there from here, where the US has an unsustainable trade deficit?
End the Fed, along with activity taxation, would work. With 100% certainty. As there simply exists no failure modes for freedom.
Of course, Trump being the single biggest crony capitalism beneficiary in America, with his administration and social circle close behind; the goal never was, never will be, to help “the american worker.” But rather, to help the only people Trump knows, the crony capitalists themselves, avail themselves to ever more loot.
So, the Fed is safe from him. Along with mass indoctrination promoted as “education.” Gotta keep them retarded, after all. Or they might start gettin’ uppity.
You mean “you” as me personally, or “you” as in the average American, who has no savings whatsoever and carries huge amounts of debt?
That is completely irrelevant. Individual preferences are opaque to anyone but the acting individual himself, and preferences are revealed only by individuals’ choice of action. Whichever choice someone makes, is the correct one for him, at that moment. Up to, and including, suicide. Noone can make a better choice, including government.