The fact we still have to explain what a tariff is because the president of the United States keeps lying about what a tariff is (and nobody in his circle bothers to call out his lies) pretty much summarizes the current state of the country.
It was a surprise to me that the article claims that tariffs are only on imports. I understand that usually tariffs are imposed on imports, but aren't there also cases where export is hit by a tariff, e.g. to discourage export to improve local availability or to hit a specific country with higher costs.
Normally we presume having a proper word for a thing is more descriptive, but in this case because people aren't used to the idea: maybe being more verbose is the answer.
Lots of countries do call them import taxes, or import duties, or just duties.
That’s where the term “duty free” that you see in airports comes from.
But I guess until a certain influential individual started lying about tariffs, this wasn’t really necessary because no one was really confused about who paid the tariffs, because the people who knew about them clearly knew it was the importers paid for them and the people who didn’t understand how they worked had no reason to be confused because everyone who did would clearly explain that importers paid them.
> (and nobody in his circle bothers to call out his lies)
Not only that, they double down!
There is this press conference with Karoline Leavitt where she claims that tarriffs are a "tax hike on foreign countries" and the reporter tries to explain to her that tarriffs are paid by the importer. She then acts insulted that he would dare to "test her economic knowledge". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYj9yyo8Tk0
I mean, these people apparently have a university degree. I don't believe they don't know what a tarriff is. But how can you be comfortable saying such stupid shit in front of a world audience?
> I mean, these people apparently have a university degree. I don't believe they don't know what a tarriff is. But how can you be comfortable saying such stupid shit in front of a world audience?
It's simple. The way democracy works is that if you get 51% of votes (or something like that), you have absolute power. This means that the most effective strategy to "win" is to find some social group that happens to be 51% of the whole society, and focus on them. Actually, you don't need that. You need 51% of votes, not nation-wide support, so if your social group happens to vote more actively than the rest, you can win the election despite having minority support. Or you can use quirks of the voting system (gerrymandering, electoral college, etc.) to your advantage.
And guess what social group is at least 51% of the whole society, easy to control, and won't mind you wrecking the country? Stupid and poor people combined. Stupid people are the majority and can be easily manipulated. Poor people can't lose anything, so they're willing to vote for any change whatsoever. By convincing the majority of stupid and poor people to vote for you, which is easy as long as you forgo your personal honor, you're pretty much guaranteed to win.
The bottom line is, when a politician says something that isn't logical, it's not because they're uneducated, it's because their target audience isn't expecting logical arguments, but rather emotional ones. They're not addressing an intelligent conversation partner, they're addressing an elderly with dementia. There are seven million boomers with Alzheimer's in the US. And 1,5 million college teachers. It makes zero sense to focus on the latter group, if the former group is four times larger. That's an extreme example, but it illustrates the point.
Source: this is how the "gays spread ADHD and 5G" party won election in my country. The good news is that after eight years they lost the majority in the parliament, but they still remain a monument to the monumental collective stupidity of my nation.
To be clear, you don't need 51% of the vote or anything close to it with our current electoral college system. In fact, the system is so broken that you can win the presidency with as little as 21% of the popular vote:
I find it pretty amazing that so many people are calling Karoline Leavitt a liar. She is the press secretary for the president of the United States.
However, it's possible that mistakes have been made inadvertently. The stock market is down 5 trillion dollars, and the president must be very busy using his business prowess to deal with the situation (just like he did when he turned his casinos around).
Biden had six or seven bankruptcies when he was a senator and people didn't say he had no clothes on. I think we can give the current president a little grace.
I can't find any source that says this. It's hard to check for sure because there are lots of articles about the student loan bailout. But I was unable to find even a single source saying this.
Sorry, I just looked and it's Trump who had six or seven bankruptcies.
It seems like a lot of people are saying that Trump is a very chaotic and incompetent person who doesn't know how to manage money. Trump's leadership has already caused the stock market to lose five trillion dollars in value since the start of his term.
Biden doesn't have any bankruptcies or personal scandals. Biden didn't pay off an adult film start before the 2016 election. That was Trump too. And Biden wasn't convicted of 34 felonies either. That was also Trump.
It's weird because Trump promised to bring down prices on day 1, but I it sure doesn't look like he knows what he's doing. Or maybe Trump is a liar and a demagogue. Please take the 'demagogue' bit with a grain of salt, I hate to even seem inflammatory.
MAGA is Maoism. They low-key despise most good things about Western civilisation: freedom of thought, rule of law, presumption of innocence, trial by peers - they want goon squads and struggle sessions against political enemies. They think the sayings of Dear Leader, and the knowledge that you're part of the Revolution are superior to affordability and availability of goods. They prioritize commodities, resource extraction and the nobility of working in agriculture over scientific research and advanced manufacturing.
Tariffs are an instrument in a trade flow process that can be used in many ways that can be contextually good or bad.
The deal with these tariffs is the flip flopping, the high rates, the probable corrupt behind doors and under the table deals on where they are applied and where they aren't, etc.
This might be of interest:
Why Trump’s tariffs are better than you think — and much worse
From an outside PoV a disturbing fact of the Trump tariffs is they were put in force by executive order (OK), they were appealed for review (OK), there's a law that requires that appeal for review to be heard within a specific short time frame (OK) ... and recently the US Republicans passed a rider that offically " Stops Time " wrt to the passage of days to review Trump's tariffs ...
Yes, here's an old ad from Canada's Liberal party using NAFTA to attack the Conservative party:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=eBcRYmk88jw
That said, most people, in any era, on both the left and right, probably agree that 'sudden tariffs for no reason whose details change every few weeks' are a bad thing.
I stopped being a Libertarian around 10 years ago. I could write whole essays about, but it started when I realised that the world was already anarchist and if Libertarian societies were superior then they would naturally outcompete other societies and we would all live in an Libertarian utopia right now.
> [...]if Libertarian societies were superior then they would naturally outcompete other societies[...]
Not for the lack of trying. There have been more than a handful of Libertarian city takeovers and sea-steading projects, and they all end in similar, predictable ways. The sea-steader/new country declarations fail to defend "their" territory against an actual military, and the libertarian towns run out of money and/or people willing to live in a free-for-all society without common services.
It's busy work, this eroding civil liberties stuff.
Nikola's convicted ceo is defended by the current AG's relative btw, and even less surprisingly, donated over a million to trumps campaign. Oh yeah and measles is back and we're not doing the flu vaccine next year. We're totally a serious country, not a rapidly waning oligarchy.
Vile, but that sounds like a favor for L.P. Jobs/The Atlantic, who were Ozy's biggest backers. I have no idea why else he would be commuting the head of a would-be anti-Trump center-left media empire. Just an affinity for financial scammers?
In 2019: "Because of that, you’re not paying for those tariffs. China’s paying for those tariffs,” the president said, hours after announcing the new set of tariffs on Chinese goods. “Until such time as there is a deal, we will be taxing the hell out of China.”" - https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/trump-slaps-10-perc...
In 2024 - "I am going to put tariffs on other countries coming into our country, and that has nothing to do with taxes to us. That is a tax on another country." - https://x.com/acyn/status/1827139464906600538
The idea is that the USA basically pissing off it's friends is a great idea and that the USA doesn't really need friends, or friendly trade agreements is where people get confused.
People are using the term isolationist because that's what this is, there is an idea here that The USA can just piss the world off and destroy it's reputation because the whole world just can't go on without the USA and the USA doesn't need anyone else is really misguided and it is an isolationist policy.
What I find most fascinating is that when I read MAGA / Conservative posts online, many of them seem to think that it also doesn't matter if people boycott American made products. If sentiment towards America is negative, it's seen as a positive thing.
Let me ask you this, what on earth is the point of on shoring manufacturing, and making America great again, if it's only great within the confines of red states in the USA?
Checkout /askconvervative, since Trump has been elected it's a pretty interesting place to lurk.
What I find really interesting is how many "conservatives" seem to think that it's fine if the rest of the world has a low opinion / doesn't want to buy American made products anymore. Like it's amazing to me that people think America becoming a nothing from a something is good.
I'm not 100% sure how much of the views on there represent actual "conservatives" but it's just a fun yet frustrating sub to browse.
Ultimately it will lead to more of the "we're hard done by attitude" that seems to have some popularity and eventually maybe lead to conflict depending on how bad the economy gets.
r/flairedusersonly , the great bastion of freedom of speech, of course feels it "scary" to even allow anyone posting who hasn't been safely found to be part of the Inner circle. And even downvotes or the slightest disagreement from cultists already in the circle disagreeing must be "infiltrators".
TRUMP: “The tariffs have cost nothing, in my opinion. ...And we’re not paying for the tariffs; China is paying for the tariffs, for the one-hundredth time.” — remarks on Aug. 18 to reporters in Morristown, New Jersey.
Wow, that's pure gaslighting. Shockingly, it seems to work. This guy still has an approval rating of 47% at the moment! Seriously, what's going on with this country?
You should read The Authoritarians. I can give you link if you want.
But in a nutshell, a lot of people who have authoritarian tendencies believe that law and justice flow out of the leader. The leader is, therefore, literally above the law (since it emanates from him).
But he’s right. The U.S. collected tens of billions in tariff revenue, and much of that came from price cuts by Chinese exporters trying to stay competitive. China may not write the check, but they absolutely paid through lost profits and market share.
A single anecdote does not summarize the current state of the country. Assuming that something as complex as the state of a country can be summarized in any rational way.
