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

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

#341

Post by NetMageSCW »

jacquesm wrote: post #198
gruez wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stocks of major retailers haven't cratered, so maybe? You're going to have to present some figures rather than just asking rhetorical questions.

You have to present figures when you're arguing the hard-to-prove side of something not when it's plain obvious that business are not in a position to deal with such shocks in the market without having to reach for capital. This is not normal. Typical operating margins of business is anywhere from 5 to 20% with outliers in the digital domain but that's not the part that we are talking about here. Anyway, you want fig…

There’s a long way from businesses like predictable stable climates (and that ship has long sailed) and business won’t survive. There’s no reason to believe the latter is true.

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

#343

Post by jcranmer »

cj wrote: post #168
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> dumb, or morally bad This is easy to say in hindsight. There was a non-zero chance the decision could have went the other way. Also, companies aren't stupid. They don't buy insurance against things that are impossible. And the supreme court doesn't hear cases that are 100% obviously illegal.

> And the supreme court doesn't hear cases that are 100% obviously illegal.

There is an argument in about two months' time as to whether or not the Birthright Citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment actually guarantees birthright citizenship in the US. There is no serious legal argument in favor of the interpretation being advanced by the Trump administration, that it does not. And yet here we are.

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

#344

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

hammock wrote: post #293
anon7000 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They literally spent a decent chunk of money spinning up a line of business that could only make money if the tariffs were illegal.

[flagged]

Insurance company deal: if you pay us $X now, and then Y happens, we will make you whole, even though that cost may very well exceed $X.

Lutnick deal: we pay you $X' now, and if Y' happens, we collect everything which will substantively exceed $X'.

This is not insurance, its closer to shorting stocks.

Oh, one other thing: the insurance company has essentially nothing to do with Y at all, in the sense that they have no control over Y and generally speaking no involvement in it (think: accidents, floods, storms, fires). By contrast Lutnick is the Secretary of Commerce of the United States of America.

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

#345

Post by NetMageSCW »

phil21 wrote: post #273
podgietaru wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't the whole point of selling your right to refunds that the initial tariff was so onerous to businesses that they needed a cash injection to stay afloat. Don't sell your right to your tariff refund is one of those things that sounds good in principle, but falls apart when you apply some sense to it.

Is a 20 cent on the dollar or so payment for the new tariff expense really going to save a company that much on the bubble? I'm sure there are a few exceptional cases, but that doesn't seem to me like it would be the typical cases. A company needing to pay $100 in tariffs but then the $20 of cash infusion being the thing that saves the day seems rather unlikely. I'd say it's more likely this was a profit center to mo…

I really hope those companies that passed the tariff to consumers are required to refund the increase to those same consumers, regardless of whether they sold their refund or not.

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

#346

Post by happyopossum »

recursivedoubts wrote: post #20

in other news: https://newrepublic.com/post/206882/trump-commerce-secretary...

Also in other news:

"Amid online claims Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s sons, Brandon and Kyle Lutnick, senior executives at Cantor Fitzgerald, could benefit from the Supreme Court’s tariff ruling, a firm spokesperson told Newsweek it has “never executed any transactions or taken risk on the legality of tariffs.""

[0] https://www.newsweek.com/howard-lutnick-sons-may-make-money-...

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

#347

Post by NetMageSCW »

hermanzegerman wrote: post #67
sillysaurusx wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s smart though. If you don’t want to lose your rights to tariff refunds, don’t sell them. Would the alternative be to forbid companies from selling those rights in this case? As for whether consumers should get anything, I’m sympathetic. It’s a matter of implementation though. How would you refund so many people? You’d have to quantify how much overhead they’ve paid in tariffs, and that seems like an IRS-scale j…

It's enriching himself on the taxpayers expense. Or would you trust someone on advising you, that has a pretty huge financial interest in proposing you policies that will fail because they are illegal?

What evidence do you have that those tariffs were proposed by him?

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

#348

Post by behringer »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #122
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…

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.

Yeah it's not insider trading. It's just that someone on the inside engaged in trade... Cmon guys you know there's a difference!

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

#349

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

cj wrote: post #168
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> dumb, or morally bad This is easy to say in hindsight. There was a non-zero chance the decision could have went the other way. Also, companies aren't stupid. They don't buy insurance against things that are impossible. And the supreme court doesn't hear cases that are 100% obviously illegal.

They weren't buying insurance. There's no insurance payout for the companies. They got a small amount of money in hand, and lost the chance to reclaim any of the tariff refund. That isn't insurance.

Also, the SCOTUS is not a criminal court, it is a constitutional court. If a case is heard there, both sides have not agreed on "obvious illegality". That is unsuprising since in general one side (in this case, the administrative branch of the US Government) is being accused of illegal behavior - when it comes to constitutional rather than criminal questions, most parties do not just accept their guilt, but push as far as they can towards exoneration.

Frequently, however to everybody else, the case concerns obvious illegality.

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