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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

#421

Post by danielmarkbruce »

bogtog wrote: post #416
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.

> 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. If this was so obvious, wouldn't there have been more competitors pushing down the value of it?

Think about how to actually pull this trade off. It isn't pushing a button on your trading app. Competitors cant enter this competition easily.

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

#422

Post by arunabha »

trymas wrote: post #256

Side topic, but this number puts into how crazy it was for trump[0] to go on tariff war against enemies and friends alike. All the propaganda and extortionist language about how all countries will pay up to USA. Astronomical tariffs in some cases, trade wars and dramas, alienate all allies and from all of this they got only $130B ? $7T of spending, $1.77T in deficit[1] and they planned to fix this hole with $100B?! M…

It's clear that there was no reasoned thought behind the tariff push. Tariffs can work if implemented in a principled way and coupled with a complementary industrial policy to develop critical sectors of the economy.

Instead, we had a completely chaotic implementation of tariffs which seemed to be completely at the whim of Trump with zero supportive industrial policy. So much so that the term 'Taco' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Always_Chickens_Out was coined to describe Trump's approach.

The charitable explanation is that Trump had no plan and was making it up as he went along. The less charitable explanation is that the chaos was an intentional feature to enable a quid pro quo of favourable policy in exchange for under the table payments via crypto or 'investments' in his family's various businesses.

When you couple completely illegal application of a supposed 'emergency' to invoke tariffs with a chaotic, whim based implementation, is there any wonder that they failed?

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

#423

Post by usefulcat »

trymas wrote: post #256

Side topic, but this number puts into how crazy it was for trump[0] to go on tariff war against enemies and friends alike. All the propaganda and extortionist language about how all countries will pay up to USA. Astronomical tariffs in some cases, trade wars and dramas, alienate all allies and from all of this they got only $130B ? $7T of spending, $1.77T in deficit[1] and they planned to fix this hole with $100B?! M…

I had the same thought, but really I think a lot of it is just spectacle for his more gullible followers.

I mean, FFS--we have a nominally Republican candidate who campaigned on raising taxes and was elected anyway!

You'd have to be pretty gullible to think that raising taxes on imported goods won't result in price hikes at the checkout counter.

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

#424

Post by kubelsmieci »

lokar wrote: post #389
lokar wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Friends? America has no friends, only client states.

I'm serious. The Trump/MAGA view of foreign policy is that the US sits at the top, we owe friendship to no one. We engage with other nations transactionally, zero sum, with the US always getting more.

Don't antropomorfize countries. Countries can't have friends. There are only common interests. Or opposite.

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

#425

Post by hermanzegerman »

NetMageSCW wrote: post #347
hermanzegerman wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

He bragged about it, and certainly didn't spoke out against them

So I pitch these ideas, and he says, ‘Let’s do it.’ ” Why not replace the I.R.S. with an External Revenue Service, which will collect tariffs and other levies from foreign sources instead of taxing citizens?

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/07/28/donald-trumps-...

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

#426

Post by snark_attack »

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…

[dead]

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

#427

Post by apercu »

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.

Oh? You have some sort of insider knowledge here?

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

#429

Post by baggachipz »

softwaredoug wrote: post #316

Has anyone else noticed this? In our area, it seems in 2025 a lot of local businesses (ie local toy stores, etc) have closed. Presumably tariff pressures hurt (among other affordability issues). The big players can restructure supply chains. Small businesses can't. The mom and pops seem to suffer. I'm hoping there can be an infusion of $ into those companies and maybe stimulate a little growth, or at least survival t…

> The big players can restructure supply chains. Small businesses can't. The mom and pops seem to suffer.

This is by design. No doubt the large corporations who kissed the ring and gave gold statues will be the first to receive this money.

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

#430

Post by endemic »

wat10000 wrote: post #335
duxup wrote: post #96

Absolutely absurd that we’re at this point. The courts / SCOTUS let the government roll out a massive and obviously illegal tax on citizens for a long time. They should have stepped in earlier. Now we the people probably don’t get our money back….

Congress needs to step up and take its power back from the executive. There was no good reason for the President to have this power in the first place. Why the hell do we have emergency powers to impose tariffs? Is there going to be a fleet of nuclear-armed bombers headed for the USA and the only way to stop them is to impose tariffs? It's ridiculous. Congress has been gradually handing their power over to the execut…

> Congress needs to step up and take its power back from the executive.

Won't happen with this administration at least; the expectation being that unless you are a yes-man, you'll be denounced as "not loyal" and voted out.

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