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The number 39 refers to the 39% tariff rate on Switzerland. Kind of insane that the American President just made up a lie that tariffs are paid by foreign coun
by intermerda 11mo ago
The number 39 refers to the 39% tariff rate on Switzerland.
Kind of insane that the American President just made up a lie that tariffs are paid by foreign countries and rest of the administration just went along with it. It flies in the face of any common sense.
- croisillon 11mo agoit's thanks to the lying that he was elected in the first place, and no one around him dares to contradict him, what would be the incentives to stop?
- Swoerd 11mo agoAnd now that the U.S. has a tyrannical government, there’s no one left to stand in its way, the Second Amendment has proven to be a paper tiger.
- mlrtime 11mo agoCan you expand on what you mean exactly? I see these sentences like your littered throughout reddit, vague notions of violence/war?
- jamincan 11mo agoIt was a common argument that ultimately all of the constitutional protections, balance of powers and all that were protected by the Second Amendment - that in the face of losing their liberty, Americans would rise up against an authoritarian government. Within this administration, a lot of people feel that there has been an assault on constitutional protections, but the people who trumpeted the Second Amendment as being fundamental to protecting American liberty and democracy have largely been silent in the face of it.
- esseph 11mo agoIt was also avoided for decades as "vile" and now the groups that could most use the 2nd Amendment are (mostly) unarmed.
- jibal 11mo agoIt was always BS .. the Founders never intended the 2nd Amendment as a means to overthrow the government they created--the Constitution explicitly says that treason can be punished by death. And the people making that argument were always hypocritical about how they would apply it.
- kelseyfrog 11mo agoIt brought to mind the Four Boxes of Liberty[1]. It used to be toted out by conservatives during the gun control debates, but I haven't seen it used by anyone recently until now. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_boxes_of_liberty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_boxes_of_liberty
- lukan 11mo ago[flagged]
- spiderfarmer 11mo agoWhy are you attacking a point he didn't make? Trump lies. Almost every sentence is a lie. If you're allowed to lie during your campaign and you're immune from the repercussions, of course you're going to sway voters. Don't close your eyes to obvious truths.
- throw0101a 11mo ago> Trump lies. Almost every sentence is a lie. To be fair, a lie is when some knows the truth but says the not-truth. Trump may (a) actually believe the things he is saying (i.e., has no firm grasp on reality), or (b) doesn't care enough to actually find out what is true and just says whatever enters his mind to try to get to the destination he wants: > On Bullshit is a 1986 essay and 2005 book by the American philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt which presents a theory of bullshit that defines the concept and analyzes the applications of bullshit in the context of communication. Frankfurt determines that bullshit is speech intended to persuade without regard for truth. The liar cares about the truth and attempts to hide it; the bullshitter doesn't care whether what they say is true or false.[1]:61 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit
- spiderfarmer 11mo agoYeah, that argument is bullshit in itself. Trump learned to double and triple down on his lies from Roy Cohn: https://forward.com/culture/431851/how-roy-cohns-shame-made-him-and-trump-shameless/ https://forward.com/culture/431851/how-roy-cohns-shame-made-... You'll never make me believe he doesn't do it on purpose. He thrives on it. There's no reason for him to stop lying before he's dead. Again, just like Cohn.
- lukan 11mo ago"Why are you attacking a point he didn't make?" Because I missunderstood. "If you're allowed to lie during your campaign and you're immune from the repercussions, of course you're going to sway voters" But in my world, lying is enough to not vote for them anyway.
- Ekaros 11mo agoI wish there was simple three strike policy on any elected official. Three proven lies and they are remove from office for life. And these can be anything. And not knowing at time does not change it. Only silence or absolute truth should be accepted.
- sneak 11mo agoSo someone gets to arbitrarily decide what is or isn’t true, and thus arbitrarily remove anyone from any office for life? Sounds like a foolproof plan. Did we not read 1984?
- johnnyanmac 11mo agoThat's how it works right now. Besides Trump, the US's last presidental impeachment was over a sex scandal. They "say" it was because he lied about it, but I think we know better at this point. It's just really hard to impeach because you need 66 or 67 of the Senate to agree on something, not the usual 51. But yes, we'd need some truly neutral Ombudsmen to back up such a system. And they themselves would need to be accountable should they corrupt. I don't think it's impossible, but hard to do with the current power structures.
- sneak 11mo agoCheating on your wife isn’t a crime. Perjury is.
- johnnyanmac 11mo agoYeah, use loopholes to get what you want. This year has taught me that well.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- growt 11mo agoThat way politicians would change every week. Probably not a bad thing :)
- charcircuit 11mo ago>It flies in the face of any common sense. The consumer paying the tariff is merely an optimization over the exporter paying the tariff such that the tariff money passes through one less hand. Practically they seem pretty similar.
- exe34 11mo agoThe exporter gets paid the same as before. The buyer pays more. There's a subtle difference, can you spot it?
- xyzzy123 11mo agoWithout knowing what the product and market structure is, you cannot tell if the cost of the tariff will be borne by the seller or the buyer.
- exe34 11mo agoThe shipment won't be released by customs until the buyer pays the tariff. I can tell who's paying. It's impressive how so many are contorting their minds trying to make this seem uncertain.
- jakewins 11mo agoThis isn’t actually how it works though. Who pays the tariff is the same as who pays a tax: it depends on the price elasticity of supply and demand. If the demand curve is very price sensitive - like people might stop buying wool blankets if the price went up 50%, and buy cotton blankets instead - then the tariff will be paid by the suppliers, because they must lower their prices to make the final price the same. And similarly, if the buyers are inelastic, they will pay the tariff. Like for baby formula, maybe parents are willing to stomach significant price hikes without changing how much they buy.
- thesumofall 11mo agoAs with many things in economics the effect of a measure often depends on the timeframe one considers. Honestly, anything could be true if one just chooses the appropriate timeframe. However, the tariffs clearly introduce an inefficiency which - globally speaking - will be net negative. Locally speaking, though, who knows …
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- mrep 11mo agoDepending on the circumstance, the burden of tax can fall more on consumers or on producers based on the elasticity of supply and demand. Microeconomics 101: https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/microeconomics/elasticity-tutorial/price-elasticity-tutorial/a/elasticity-and-tax-incidence https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/microec...
- lijok 11mo agoI don't know how this tariff stuff works, so for my own understanding, how come countries retaliate to US tariffs by imposing retaliatory tariffs? Are they punishing their own nationals?
- lreeves 11mo agoIn a sense you can think of it that way, as a Canadian we counter-tariff the US and that can be considered punishing us; however the US is only one country and it encouraged more free trade with every other one of our trading partners so in a game theory sense it's affecting Canadian trade negatively with one country and affecting US trade negatively with you know.. every country.
- lijok 11mo agoI see, so like saying "we'll make it less appetizing for our nationals to do business with you, so they'll go shopping elsewhere"?
- lreeves 11mo agoExactly right. There are trade deals forming between countries that in unprecedented ways to avoid dealing with the constantly changing tariffs while one country says they'll take their ball and play alone.
- jenadine 11mo agoBut the US is the bigger country just next to it, also the most practical to trade with. Trading with country further appart means less efficient in transport. Is it not still self inflicted harm?
- lreeves 11mo agoIt's not practical when Trump sees a TV ad that enrages him and then cancels all negotiations, how are Canadian leaders supposed to proceed? There's no good faith whatsoever from him.
- TrackerFF 11mo agoIt's not insane when the sitting American president is a known pathological liar, and has been known to be so for half a century. What is insane, though, is that people voted for him. Elect a clown, expect a circus.
- johnnyanmac 11mo ago"But she had a weird laugh!" I guess most voting Americans didn't need much to throw the country's century long superpower streak down the toilet. Or worse yet, just pretend that both sides are equally bad and not use their voice that many died to give them.
- mbrumlow 11mo agoSo why would the Swiss company care then? Care so much to make a special watch? It’s no skin off their back, they don’t pay the tariff right? Americans are the only ones affected right?
- dieortin 11mo agoIt obviously affects Swiss companies too, because their products become more expensive to American consumers, which makes it more unlikely they will buy them. No one said Americans are the only ones affected. But it’s Americans that pay the tariffs.
- burnerRhodov2 11mo agoif i charge a 39% tarrif on swiss watches, doesn't that make american watches 39% more competitive? So, people will just buy more american watches in your example, no?
- johnnyanmac 11mo agoYou'd be correct in an economy not tumbling towards recesssion due to said tarrifs being universal, and not just focusing on specific industries to make american ones more competitive. As it is, American spending is way down and hurts everyone. A small stock crash (the thing propping the US up as of now) would truly hit with a 2nd depression at this point.
- burnerRhodov2 11mo agoEveryone keeps screaming recession, i see an extreme bull market across all asset classes...? Am i missing something?
- johnnyanmac 11mo agoThe very short of it is that a lot of bus bull market is propped up by AI. To such an extent that the top 10 companies of the S&P 500 have half the value right now. Combine this knowledge with some maneuvers as of late that reflect the Dotcom bubble and we're rife for a crash that will take the world economy with it once the bubble pops. Its a bull asset market right now, but its certainly not a healthy one And that's just the economic side of it.When you consider the history of such extreme wealth inequality, ignoring rising unemployment and disresr among the working class can get ugly quickly. That can also go down an expensive route if taken to the extreme.
- tzs 11mo agoIt's even worse than that. Their argument against corporate income taxes is that any tax imposed on a corporation is just passed on to consumers. Hard to see why companies would pass on a government imposed tax if it is an income tax but not a tariff. If anything you'd expect it to be the other way around, because an income tax allows deductions for much of the cost of making that income which generally means the amount of tax is lower in times when the business is not making much money, whereas a tariff is on the cost if the businesses imports which can remain high even in times where the business is not making money.
- tracker1 11mo agoBoth are passed to consumers... the difference is a tariff is a point for international negotiation, there are competing options to a tariffed product, and it's a relativistic approach. The U.S. has lost so much in terms of even being able to produce anything that it's in a weak position not just in terms of trade, but in domestic security in and of itself. The lesson from COVID should be that ensuring domestic production of at least SOME of everything that CAN be produced domestically in the US should be ensured to exist. As examples... IMO, all prescription medications/devices should require dual sourcing and at least 50% domestic production. This ensures actual patent licensing as well as being able to ramp up from 50% in case of a need (war/pandemic). It's nearly impossible to ramp up from 0, but easy to ramp up from 50%. This can/should be extended to essential infrastructure, communications and technologies. Most countries don't have the size/scale/scope to do this... the U.S. and a handful of other countries are and should take advantage of that and ensure it for their own critical security. I don't say any of this from an isolationist PoV, I think trade is important... I think diplomacy is important... I just feel that a level of domestic security in terms of self-reliance at a certain level is more important.