People that can still afford stuff will be so cool. The hippest tech, biggest cars and newest kicks, everything will be uber exclusive. This is good for america because reasons.
Especially because every grift that trump has made, his shoes and the like, were all made internationally. Wonder who will pay for those tarrifs when he does the same?
If that is truly their plan, they are dumber than we fucking figured.
If a billionaire wants to buy a swimming pool, he needs a considerable amount of other people to be able to afford swimming pools or it it becomes impossible for him to get one at all eventually.
To have a swimming pool, there needs to be an industry of specialized labororers who can manufacture and install. There has to be electricians who specialize in mixing water and electricity. There has to be people working the factories where the chlorine gets manufactured and bottled.
This is true for every product that billionaires consume. You really gotta think that these people with all this wealth would have people on the payroll pointing this out to them.
And now do some basic Google Foo and find out what is manufactured in Taiwan. If China gets it's way, because Trump thinks Xi is cool and he's a good guy, China will just waltz in - TSMC, ASML and Trumpf have some safeguards in place as far as I know to destroy anything valuable. So while you might want to buy shit, you can't because the Cheeto and his cronies collapsed it.
But in the case of the hefty tariffs that Trump put on China during his first term, economic studies found that most of those costs were passed on to American consumers.
Economists believe this could happen again. One study by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, for example, calculated that Trump’s current tariff plans would increase costs for a typical American household by $2,600 a year.
I'm not sure it's a safe bet. Only if the tariffs last longer than 4 years. Building new factories takes a couple years, then you need to break even all within 4 years? Just seems risky to me
Unlikely. In the age of globalism, it's much more likely that manufacturing will leave the US to dodge counter-tariffs. The combined markets of Europe and Asia is for most products larger than the US market, and that trend is only likely to increase in the future as Asia develops. Manufacturers know making stuff in Asia is just cheaper, and that American consumers are more likely to go into debt to buy stuff than other consumers. They also know that these tariffs are unlikely to last for long, because if the US takes the expected economic hit here then it becomes less likely that Trump/the GOP remains in control (eg midterms flip control back to the democrats).
Not much reason to move factories to the US, which is wildly expensive, when taking the hit and waiting it out is ultimately most likely cheaper.
I'm actually really excited about the smuggling opportunities such a high tariff presents. It's a real job creator. It's been a long time since we've had major smuggling operations on the great lakes. Will be a big boom for Chicago too, since that's the point where the smuggled goods get put on trains. Maybe even get the outfit back together.
I think the "logic" is that if things are too expensive to import then companies will start manufacturing them domestically and create jobs. But that almost never works out. An economist could probably explain why better than I can.
I do know that the better approach is to support those industries here. That's why we recently dumped a bunch of money into the CHIPS and Science act.
I am actually in favor of tariffs in a couple of limited situations:
Foreign goods are cheap due to non-existent labor laws
Foreign goods are cheap, but produce more emissions than domestic manufacturing
#2 is also called a carbon border adjustment mechanism, or CBAM, and the EU voted to implement one last year that goes into effect in 2026. The USA desperately needs one IMHO. I'm involved in a nonprofit that's been lobbying Congress to implement our own CBAM.
It's silly though to think that a tariff is anything but a tax. It's not any different than any other way that we use our tax laws to try to regulate "pure" capitalism by encouraging certain behavior and discouraging other behavior.
Good work Gamers. Your hardware will be more expensive, but at least Biden won't be suggesting a non-enforceable DEI directive at the HR of those game studios.
I never use Google, so this is from a blank slate search. The top result for "can i c" is "can I change my vote?" Also the top 2 results for "what is" by itself are: "what is the 4b movement" and "what is a tariff". Here come the leopards.
As a small business owner I will likely have to completely shut down if/when tariffs are imposed, so yeah, this isn't about paying more for a video game for many of us.
I'm still waiting for the wall to be built with Mexican money. Just because Trump says he's going to do something doesn't mean he actually will. I don't care what liars say, I care what they do.
I could ask you the same thing for expecting me to answer to a question that ends like this. Now you just end on the blocklist with the rest of the incivil jerks.