Isn't this literally economics 101? How did we ever even end up imagining that tariffs are somehow paid by the exporter??
So do buyers also pay for 96% of the advertising, 96% of the manufacturing, etc.?
American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis
181–190 of 814 posts
Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot of Americans believed the guy they wanted to believe in, because they didn't want to believe the people they didn't want to believe in. You're assuming that modern politics across most of the World has something to do with rational, logical thought. Russia, China, Europe, the US, the Middle East - they are all in a quagmire of irrational fractures between the public and the political classes who want power/cont…
Well when we look at rational economic policies take a look at top ~10 in terms of GDP, purchase parity adjusted, per capita: monaco, liechtenstein, singapore, luxembourg, ireland, macau, qatar, bermuda, norway, switzerland Monarchy: monaco, liechtenstein, qatar One party state w/ elections: singapore, macau direct democracy: switzerland represented democracy: Norway, Bermuda, Ireland, Luxembourg Multi-party represen…
Also worth noticing the size of these countries. Mostly on the small/tiny side, besides Norway (an oil exporter) and Ireland (a corporate tax haven)
Perhaps making good economic decisions grows exponentially in difficulty with the population size, especially for “conventional” economies that do not have another cash cow.
Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis
#183Can the title be changed to match some of the content text (eg America’s Own Goal: Who Pays the Tariffs?) ‘US Americans’ makes it sound as if a distinction is being drawn between Americans inside and outside of the US or something
US-American is a Germanism and the authors are German.
Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis
#184I'm glad they've done the work here and put a figure on it - the impact absolutely needed to be quantified - but I also have to say... to the surprise of absolutely no-one with even the most basic grasp of how economies function. People, lots of people, lots of people who have a really deep understanding of national and global economics (unlike me), have been warning about this since talk of tariffs became common cur…
It isn't US specific and what goes into people's head is what propaganda wants it to be. Economics tell people the clear impact, but it doesn't make the news. We get fed with whatever the political influencers decide to tell us. Did the brits expect the consequence of brexit? No but that's because they deemed whatever the news said to be unreliable on this topic. Which for once happened to be true.
>Did the brits expect the consequence of brexit?
I mean there were plenty of what would be considered intelligent people that laid out the exact consequences of brexit... problem is the masses don't seem to pay attention to well mannered intelligent people.
Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis
#185Trump has floated the idea of eliminating federal income tax completely, which would balance things out. I think I’d rather pay taxes in the form of tariffs than through income tax. The tariffs can help protect jobs from being outsourced, which has been a big issue over the last several decades. With everyone talking about out AI coming for our jobs, having more options for employment seems like a good thing. I suppo…
Probably not enough to offset the regression tax.
Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis
#186I'm glad they've done the work here and put a figure on it - the impact absolutely needed to be quantified - but I also have to say... to the surprise of absolutely no-one with even the most basic grasp of how economies function. People, lots of people, lots of people who have a really deep understanding of national and global economics (unlike me), have been warning about this since talk of tariffs became common cur…
Tariffs could make sense economically, but even in that case, they would "hurt consumers", because that's the whole point - address the imbalance between consumption and production currently being made to add up with constantly increasing debt.
If you were going to do that though, it would be more like a 10-20% blanket tariff on all goods. No exceptions, no special deals, and you can't use tariffs as a negotiating tool. So that's not what's going on and the current approach doesn't make any sense economically
Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis
#187I'm glad they've done the work here and put a figure on it - the impact absolutely needed to be quantified - but I also have to say... to the surprise of absolutely no-one with even the most basic grasp of how economies function. People, lots of people, lots of people who have a really deep understanding of national and global economics (unlike me), have been warning about this since talk of tariffs became common cur…
A lot of Americans believed the guy they wanted to believe in, because they didn't want to believe the people they didn't want to believe in. You're assuming that modern politics across most of the World has something to do with rational, logical thought. Russia, China, Europe, the US, the Middle East - they are all in a quagmire of irrational fractures between the public and the political classes who want power/cont…
> A lot of Americans believed the guy they wanted to believe in, because they didn't want to believe the people they didn't want to believe in.
It's sad but true. Deep down, political thinking is influenced by tribal thinking, a rigid us versus them mentality.
This is, after all, how the "divide and conquer" method gets to be so effective. A house divided amongst itself and all that.
Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis
#188Americans will rightly be suspicious when a think tank in Germany writes about tariff relief that benefits them. Of course, we should all be critical always – that's the first word in the term "critical thinking".
Nitpick: The Kiel Institute is not a think tank in the sense that people would understand the word. It is a federally funded research organization (part of the family of Leibniz institutes) similar to a university but without teaching. Here's a list of the others [1]. These are independent, high-quality research institutions without political money or a designated political agenda. [1] https://www.leibniz-gemeinschaf…
The fact that they don't have an agenda written into their charter doesn't mean they don't have an agenda. Basically every American news organization is an example of this.
Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't that exactly the point of tariffs? To decrease import volumes so local industry can fill the gap and compete?
Not so much compete as being protected from having to compete.
Talking about competition between places with good labor standards and environmental regulation and places without those things is bullshit.
I would be 100% pro free trade between nations with identical labor rights and environmental protections, but that really isn't what free trade is about, is it?
Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis
#190In India, every tax imposed on a business goes straight to consumer. The consumer receipt even mentions some of those taxes item-wise. I thought American consumer also might see this on their shopping receipts? Who thinks businesses would swallow taxes?
Amazon planned on doing it. Trump got mad.