re: Trump tariffs are paid by Americans according to Bessent

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American producers will charge UP to the tariff rate

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Price inflation

His point is that we pay more for the product. Most times, the consumer isn’t actually looking for imported goods, but that’s all the retailer has in stock (the only source may be through imports).

I work in manufacturing across different markets with factories in many foreign countries.

Not a single manufacturer I know is absorbing the tariffs, they are added to price lists and passed along to distribution companies who pass it to retailers and the consumers pay it.

Not arguing impacts & ripple effects, but that is what is going on in most cases.

All Don has to do is abolish taxes and it rights itself. Until then, we are paying tariffs and taxes.

Yep.

Metal, concrete, some lumber, windows, doors and some eastern made kitchen appliances…

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Yep,” Bessent said. “And the importer can pass it on or not.”

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wonder what they’ll do

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At least they gave up on tariffs being able to, checks notes, “refinance our debt.” That was a good one.

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Those were good times.

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He ran on an America first platform, no?

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"America First" is just a mindless slogan, no?

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It's a way to get people to buy American first.

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Well, when that explanation is convenient, that's the agenda. When it's not, the explanation pivots to an opposing agenda. Like replacing income tax, or forcing other countries to drop their tariffs.

And no, those cannot all happen at the same time.

If other countries drop their tariffs, there would be no reason to "buy American first."

And forcing manufacturing to be brought back to the US would be economically stupid in the first place. I get that there are other reasons we might want to make certain things here, but from a purely economic standpoint it would be folly.

The average factory worker in the US makes around $17 an hour. So we're not talking about the caliber of job that is going to transform the American middle class.

On the other hand, that's almost triple the labor cost of making things in China, where the average factory worker makes roughly $6 an hour. In Mexico the average factory worker makes less than that, at around $4.80 And before you scream some idiot leftist phrase like 'slave labor,' that above the minimum wage in both countries...their economies are simply not as developed as ours. The Chinese and Mexican factory worker likely lives better there on $6 and $4.80 an hour than our American factory worker at $17 an hour.

So bringing this manufacturing back here costs 3-4 x as much in labor which would significantly raise the price of the items, but only creates $17 an hour jobs.

And if we're talking about recovering every single manufacturing job we "lost," we're talking about maybe 12 million or so jobs.

$17 an hour jobs.

Forcing other countries to remove their tariffs would be a positive effect and would benefit our manufacturers. Bringing manufacturing jobs back would be an "America Dumb" strategy.

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Bingo….its an endless game of Whack-A-Mole. Tariffs are justified by:

1) bring manufacturing back and if not,
2) raise government revenue to reduce debt or eliminate the income tax

They try really hard to make an intellectual argument justifying tariffs

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until they get to #3: ART OF THE DEAL, BITCHES

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but they can’t escape the simple economic truth that if you want more of something, you subsidize it, but if you want less of it, you tax it

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Notice SDV shirked away when I posed a similar question to him about this binary paradigm.

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At least they gave up on tariffs being able to, checks notes, “refinance our debt.”

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Good times my man. That was some 9D Phase 10 that *checks notes* failed spectacularly. Although I do kind of think that may have actually been the idea, but it failed and they kind of started scrambling after. That's why it's been so convoluted and chaotic since then.

Bringing manufacturing jobs back would be an "America Dumb" strategy.

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Yep, its backward to our economic evolution.