politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
Yes. We will pay for the tariffs.
American companies will pay for the tariffs, and then we the consumers who buy their products will pay for the tariffs via price increases.
This is money that we will invest. It is a tax. It is the government causing us to spend more money.
It is not a usual tax in the sense of money paid to the IRS. But it is an economic cost that we will pay in order to support a government policy.
The cost is paid to enact a certain outcome. The outcome is less importing of goods, and more of those goods being provided by sources within our borders. It will cost money to make this change. That cost will be paid by us.
We are being forced to pay money to enact a policy. That’s how it’s essentially a tax.
Except this policy is basically:
That is a set of changes being targeted by this policy. We will pay for this policy by paying higher prices. The intention, the hope, is that the policy will pay for itself in terms of the third bullet point: more manufacturing in America means more jobs for Americans. More demand for American stuff means better bargaining position for American workers, means more income.
In the short term it’ll suck. Just like any other heavy tax can suck in the short term, before the benefits can manifest and make it worth it.
This was tried under Trump the first time and it was an abject failure.
Trump’s tariffs raised the price of foreign made dishwashers by 20%. American manufacturers also jacked up the cost of their appliances, in order to match that price that customers were paying. As a result there was no incentive to change consumer behavior and there was no boost in “buying American.”
Wow, it's almost like companies will take any excuse they can to raise prices and make more profit.
Economics really isn't my strong suit so the fact that the outcome is surprising or confusing to me isn't entirely unexpected but I have to say that outcome is actually kind of surprising. I would have thought the theory for how the tariff was supposed to work was that the 20% increase in price seen on the ground for foreign made washing machines owing to the cost of the tariff being passed on to the consumer would mean that the domestic producer of washing machines could expect to look more attractive on the shelf than the foreign made ones for being cheaper. The domestic manufacturer could also afford to be cheaper in a way that's easy for them to achieve because they don't face the artificial increase in the cost of making and selling their washing machines. This would mean they had the opportunity to sell more of them than their foreign competitors resulting in higher profits. If they saw it as an opportunity to raise prices by 20% without being punished by their competitors, wouldn't that eliminates their natural advantage? Seems they'd be leaving money on the table. I would have thought the more likely outcome you'd see would be the domestic company essentially raise prices by something more like 19% so that they still get to profiteer from the chance to raise prices without penalty in the marketplace and unlike their competitors keep that as profit rather than put it towards paying tarrifs, but still be cheapest on the market meaning increased sales. You'd see a double benefit from their perspective. I mean that would still completely suck, everyone would be paying 19% more than when they started, but you'd think you'd see some of the intended desireable effects of the tariff in this one simple example of the washing machines, ignoring other factors.
Lol
What will the incentive be for these supposed new manufacturers, who just spent a whole lot of money building factories, to offer significantly lower prices than what Americans will have already gotten used to paying by the time said manufacturers have been able to build out their production facilities?
Better yet; Why would these manufacturers even invest in building out these supply lines when they can't be sure that the next administration won't remove the tariffs? Seems like a risky investment.