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Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

wsj.com

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Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#151

Post by bluGill »

jacquesm wrote: post #104
gruez wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's not smart, it's extortion by someone connected to the state and self dealing. Where's the extortion? The "it's a nice shop you got there..." racket only works if you can strongly influence whether the damages occur (ie. you tell your goons to attack the shop, or not). So far as I can tell however, that's not the case, because Trump wanted the tariffs to stay, and was sad that they got revoked. Going back to the…

You think businesses as a rule can all survive a 15 to 100% surcharge on their products without running into liquidity issues?

Those are a sunk cost at this point though. The business likely is better off having sold and got the money now - vs risking they will never get a refund.

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#152

Post by [deleted] »

seydor wrote: post #137
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is wrong. It's not insider trading. Lutnick didn't have inside information. His son just had a brain. Anyone who read the case knew which way the court was going, it was the least surprising decision ever. Perhaps the only surprising thing is that the court ever heard it.

is it not a conflict of interest if you facilitate the legislation of tarrifs that you knew are illegal?

[deleted]

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#153

Post by AdamN »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #90
AdamN wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically I was mildly in favor of tariffs from the left pov. Reduced consumption and getting more taxes to help pay down the debt. Consumption was likely mildly reduced (and still is with the 15% tax) but now we have more inflation coming our way when those billions start flowing and our debt just keeps going up.

Such a regressive tax to get behind. Now if tariffs had only been applied to, I don't know, yachts, private jets…

I'd go for a more progressive tax if it was on offer. But there is so much debt that I'm pretty worried that taxes are simply unsustainably low.

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#154

Post by danielmarkbruce »

seydor wrote: post #137
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is wrong. It's not insider trading. Lutnick didn't have inside information. His son just had a brain. Anyone who read the case knew which way the court was going, it was the least surprising decision ever. Perhaps the only surprising thing is that the court ever heard it.

is it not a conflict of interest if you facilitate the legislation of tarrifs that you knew are illegal?

No, it's not a conflict of interest. It's perhaps dumb, or morally bad, or several other things.

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#155

Post by ranger_danger »

NickC25 wrote: post #42

Private businesses get refunded and a payday, prices for the consumer stay high (because consumers have proven that they can bear them), and inflation goes up. Clearly, this makes America great again. /s

What if lowering prices actually resulted in enough extra sales that it provided more profit?

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#156

Post by downrightmike »

benrutter wrote: post #119

Lots of comments along the lines that tarrifs were mostly passed down indirectly to consumers, who aren't entitled to refunds. I definitely agree on principle, it sounds pretty tricky to see how proving "I paid $x more for groceries because of tarrifs" would work in practice. Does anyone know of policy suggestions for how that could work?

Most everything was probably bought with credit/debit cards. The individual records exist. Just using your Amazon etc order history should be dead simple

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#157

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

shin_lao wrote: post #101

Unclear if the SC ruling is retro active. But of course, lawyers will try to make money out of this...

It's 100% clear, and even if it weren't the government already conceded that the tariffs are refundable to get this far. If the tariffs were not refundable, that would mean that the injury from them is irreparable, and they would have had to be enjoined pending the decision.

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#158

Post by GaryBluto »

satvikpendem wrote: post #30

Cantor Fitzgerald, formerly led by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and is now run by his son, went to various companies that were affected by tariffs and bought the rights to their potential tariff refunds for 20% of the value on the expectation that it'd be struck down by the courts. Now they stand to make huge returns of 3 to 5x for being correct on that bet, while, of course, consumers get nothing. Now if this i…

> Now if this isn't insider trading [...], I don't know what is.

Correct.

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#159

Post by tegiddrone »

Herring wrote: post #33
hypeatei wrote: post #7

[flagged]

In 2023, 28% of U.S. adults scored at or below Level 1 literacy, indicating significant difficulty with everyday reading tasks. https://www.nu.edu/blog/49-adult-literacy-statistics-and-fac... You guys are surrounded by other college-educated SWE, you have no idea how bad it is out there. People without a college degree went Trump 56-43. People with a college degree went for Harris 56-42. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki…

Yeah, it is an interesting bubble to be in. I worked with a company that could not keep up with the rising SWE salaries and thus attracted a different kind of SWE. I definitely felt the difference in education with the new hires. Reading comprehension/attention was weak. AI will easily replace them, I guess.

Finding the data on this would be convenient but its still unclear to me. I'm not a fan of how that article from NU cites its sources loosely, including lazily citing Wikipedia.

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#160

Post by jonlucc »

throwaway667555 wrote: post #92

I'm gonna have a stroke. The Congressional Budget Office found that consumers paid 70-80% of the tariffs, totaling more than $1000 per household. Where is my refund?

In practice, the entities who gave money directly to the US government are the ones who paid the tariff. Those entities should be pressured to refund the consumers, but in practice, that's unlikely.

I (unknowingly) ordered something on Etsy from another country. UPS delivered the items, then sent me a letter requiring I pay the tariff and an extra tariff handling fee. UPS paid the government, so UPS should get their money back from the government, then refund me. I'm not holding my breath.

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