this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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Leopards Ate My Face

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

Plot twist: the person writing this is President Musk and the employee he's referring to is Trump.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

literally googling tariffs, brings you to a government page that lists tariffs, duties, and taxes under the same fucking definition.

How people like this DO NOT understand this shit, is beyond me. I can respect the humility in changing your position after being that stupid though, please, due your due diligence before mindlessly repeating the shit other people tell you, so you don't look stupid.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

What, visit a website, read it, then comprehend it? What, like a book?! May as well ask them to make a phone call.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

My job has been impacted by Trumpas well. Stock prices falling and tariffs have caused them to do layoff of 2500 people. I fucking hate this so much. I work with many international customers and Trump/Musk has been brought up constantly and in my line of work people typically avoid political discussions but it's kinda nice to hear our allies don't actually hate Americans and know what the real problem is.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

By the way, if tariffs are directly sent back to the customer through tax reduction on the tariffed category of products, wouldn't it be painless for the company/customers (if you forget the retaliation tariffs) while increasing you local insensitive to production? (all things equal if you imagine companies reduce the cost of the products properly etc which is not realistic)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That's 2 if's. Sure, IF both of those things were true, maybe it would net out, but still be a paperwork and cashflow delay for the company (pay the duty today, get the money back at some point in the future) which sucks liquidity out of the market and generally holds back growth and investment.

But that isn't particularly relevant since neither of those two things will ever happen. The tax cuts will go to the top earners, and retaliatory tariffs are very much a thing and cannot be ignored.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

I don't see how that would help. In the ideal case of a finished product, tariffs artificially raise the effective price for the buyer; they don't change the math on the cost of production. Usually, they hurt the producing/exporting firm by forcing it to increase the asking price, which reduces sales. It reduces sales because the buying/importing firm has to pay higher prices. If the buying/importing firm gets tax reductions that are directly tied to the tariff, then its out-of-pocket expense hasn't changed, and it can just keep buying the imported product with no effect on its profits. That means that the producing/exporting firm can still sell exactly the same volume of product at the higher price, covering the tariff cost, with no effect on its profits. Nothing much has changed, except a bunch of extra paperwork and transactions.

There's only incentive to move production locally if the buying/importing firm can switch to a cheaper, local product, but retain the tax benefits, allowing it to keep more money. But that means the tariff money is no longer being collected, so somebody else is paying the taxes while not getting the benefits. In short, tariffs can only work by causing pain to somebody locally.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

And the people who voted for the orangetard will still be shafted by him and his mafia yet will continue to blame "obiden" for their economic woes. πŸ₯±

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Some people genuinely are fucking dumber than a rock

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Your telling me the US government can't just demand other countries pay them money for no reason?

/j

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