Does Trump have a strategy with these tariffs or is he just YOLOing \ stacker news ~econ

pull down to refresh

Does Trump have a strategy with these tariffs or is he just YOLOing

195 sats \ 17 comments \ @HardMoney 31 Jan econ

9 sats \ 0 replies \ @Rothbardian_fanatic 31 Jan

YOLOing!? How about YOYOing? I think he is acting like a yo-yo. I think the threat of the tariffs is what is doing some of the work in breaking down resistance to some of his other ideas. Whether it works on everybody or not, remains to be seen and the dangers of kicking off another trade war, a la 1930s, is a real risk. I don’t think these ijits have seen the boomerang effect of all the stupid sanctions, yet. The sanctions are hurting us and our ”friends and allies” much more than they are hurting us. Perhaps that is the reason they are being employed, to hurt our allies. What do you think?

9 sats \ 11 replies \ @Undisciplined 31 Jan

It's hard to tease out signal from noise right now (at least for me it is), but I think there is method in the madness (not an endorsement).

Some of the tariffs are clearly being levied or threatened as a negotiating tactic. Agree or disagree, that's at least easy enough to understand.

The tariffs on our neighbors seem different, though. I'm wondering if they're part of the proposal to replace the income tax and IRS with tariffs and a national sales tax.

51 sats \ 7 replies \ @freetx 31 Jan

and a national sales tax

A national sales tax administered by the states would be much better approach.

We already don't locally tax things like food, rent, or mortgage payments....so you would sort of have the "exclusion" built-in and pre-sorted.

Plus it would subtly shift power back to the states in the sense that they would collect the money and forward to the feds

9 sats \ 6 replies \ @Undisciplined 31 Jan

I agree. It would suck for the small number of places that have no sales taxes in place, though.

42 sats \ 4 replies \ @Bell_curve 31 Jan

NH has no sales tax but they have excise taxes on alcohol and tobacco

call it a federal excise tax, problem solved

9 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 31 Jan

I would expect most of the localities have sales taxes, though.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 1 Feb

I agree

California has a sales tax 5 percent. Los Angeles is about 4.75 percent

reply on another page

9 sats \ 1 reply \ @freetx 31 Jan

Good point. I think the problem is for all the non alcohol / tobacco stores.

A hardware store / electronics store / etc. There would be lots of places that wouldn't have the software infrastructure to collect it.....

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 31 Jan

In that case, the state or feds should pay for a new POS and payroll system for these small businesses

Running a small business is hard enough w/o the state mandating new software upgrades

update: https://www.tax-rates.org/new_hampshire/excise-tax NH taxes gas and cell phones.

Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon

Among these states, we should only provide assistance to Montana. Alaska has so much money from oil. The other states can 'suffer' especially Oregon and Portlandia

second update: every state has an excise tax on tobacco. We give a license to sell tobaccco to every hardware/electronic/etc store so they can collect excise taxes on tobacco sales including nicotine vape products

reply on another page

41 sats \ 0 replies \ @freetx 31 Jan

oh....great point.

Well, income tax only if you live in a state that either refuses or doesn't have sales tax.....

31 sats \ 2 replies \ @HardMoney OP 31 Jan

Yea the one on Canada specifically seems contradictory. In some cases he references fentanyl as the cause (although it seems statistically the north border has a fraction of issues vs south) and makes it seem like “if you fix this it goes away”. But then separately will reference trade deficit figures that are kind of moronic to use since the trade deficit is mainly driven by oil and gas being sold to USA at a steep discount to global prices which benefits the country.

I think it’s rather dumb to use net deficits or surpluses without applying context as a way to evaluate a trade relationship.

Agreed it’s a tool for leverage tho

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Bell_curve 1 Feb

As long as the liberals are in charge Canada is not a friendly neighbor

40 sats \ 0 replies \ @HardMoney OP 1 Feb

Agreed liberals are terrible. However there’s potentially a lot of ramifications of escalating and ignoring trade agreements prev negotiated by the last trump admin. Discredits the ability to rely on terms

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @7e6e393a56 1 Feb

He has a strategy (demanding too much, to actually achieve what he wanted from the beginning), and I believe that it will be effective mainly with the so-called allied countries and also with countries that are geographically close. These actions by Trump reminded me of a phrase about diplomacy.

"Diplomacy without weapons is like music without instruments"

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @User21000000 1 Feb

Aren’t they just a negotiating tactic

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 1 Feb

The two are not mutually exclusive

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @LowK3y19 31 Jan

Just YOLOing for sure