Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t think anyone here has yet come to the realization that ending rampant consumerism is the whole damn point of the tariffs.
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Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States
171–180 of 459 posts
Re: Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States
#172This needs to be repeated. Tariffs are a tax on ordinary citizens. Unlike regular taxes, tariffs are not progressive and therefore benefit the wealthy. These are the sort of things the poor and middle class voted for. To make the rich, richer. And then turn around and complain that rich are getting richer and they are getting poorer.
They're not nearly as bad as income tax which would have to be raised if we didn't do tariffs. At least tariffs tax consumption rather than production. Taxing production/income is horribly evil and in better times (such as when the country was founded) people who insisted on it would have been shot.
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Re: Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States
#173Re: Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That's not within his power to do. Trump has the power to do anything that people (especially Congress) does not push back against. > 1. Do not obey in advance. > Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what i…
>Trump has the power to do anything that people (especially Congress) does not push back against. Elections are run at the state level, so it's not like Trump can direct state agencies to stop counting mail-in ballots. That said, the fact that elections are run at the state level, and the fact that only a handful of swing states matter means it only takes a few pliant election officials to change the outcome of the e…
> Elections are run at the state level, so it's not like Trump can direct state agencies to stop counting mail-in ballots.
Trump asked Texas to redistrict that they were all for it.
Re: Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
Trump has tried to do plenty of things that aren't within his power, like ending birthright citizenship by executive order.
Has he "ended" it? Does he have the discipline, intelligence, and patience to do the work to end things legislatively or just make executive orders that will be tied up in courts for years and rescinded as soon he's out of office?
He has codified massive funding to ICE in the BBB, which he has direct control over.
So he can order people to be detained and deported, knowing that the legal system can't handle the appeals of that many people.
Furthermore, the only way he will leave office is if his disease gets bad enough to where he can't function. And then the assumption is that the crazies he has hired aren't going to basically take over the government completely. If he is able to function in 2026 and 2028, US won't have real elections.
Re: Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States
#176This needs to be repeated. Tariffs are a tax on ordinary citizens. Unlike regular taxes, tariffs are not progressive and therefore benefit the wealthy. These are the sort of things the poor and middle class voted for. To make the rich, richer. And then turn around and complain that rich are getting richer and they are getting poorer.
Everyone has been repeating this for months but inflation remains relatively normal so prices are not rising. Maybe it's a delayed effect that we won't see until later in the year, but at this point it is a theory and far from a fact, not something that needs to be repeated. We have already observed that the opposite does not hold - in 2017 we slashed corporate income tax by 14% across the board, roughly the same as…
Companies have reserves, local stock etc.
Fixed prices are a bet on TACO and hoping to avoid the orange rage: see what happens when you blame price increases on tariffs.
Lots and lots of bribes have been paid. This is yet another.
Re: Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is no "level playing field" when you are competing with literal sweatshops though. Frankly tariffs get a bad rep because of from who and how they are implemented but can absolutely serve a purpose.
Automation consistently outcompetes sweatshops. What’s missing from these discussions is the idea of competitive advantage. It is inherently more efficient to grow crops in climates where they thrive, tacking a tariff to protect domestic production means intentionally lowering the standard of living of everyone both domestically and abroad to favor some tiny group doing something wasteful.
Automation is not replacing sweatshops, they've just made the sweatshop workers more productive (economically) while requiring them to be less productive (in activity).
So all that's happened is an exponential increase in the output volume of sweatshops :/
Re: Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States
#178India has done the same as well https://www.business-standard.com/immigration/india-post-sus...
And New Zealand
Re: Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States
#179This needs to be repeated. Tariffs are a tax on ordinary citizens. Unlike regular taxes, tariffs are not progressive and therefore benefit the wealthy. These are the sort of things the poor and middle class voted for. To make the rich, richer. And then turn around and complain that rich are getting richer and they are getting poorer.
They're not nearly as bad as income tax which would have to be raised if we didn't do tariffs. At least tariffs tax consumption rather than production. Taxing production/income is horribly evil and in better times (such as when the country was founded) people who insisted on it would have been shot.
> At least tariffs tax consumption rather than production. Taxing production/income is horribly evil and in better times (such as when the country was founded) people who insisted on it would have been shot.
Not true. Producing almost anything in the material world requires raw materials. If any of them are imported, they suffer from tariffs.
IMO, if a consumption tax is what you're looking for, then value added tax (VAT) is a more suitable solution.
Re: Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t think anyone here has yet come to the realization that ending rampant consumerism is the whole damn point of the tariffs.
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You can support some of trumps policies while thinking the insurrectionist peadophile should be behind bars
You can also support tarrifs in principal but not support the way they have been implemented (club not calpol, used as a political weapon or to extract mafia style favours)