Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs • Hacker News Board

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

#461

Post by caconym_ » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 5:20 PM UTC

syllogism wrote: post #374

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…

The corruptions of this administration are legion, but this isn't one of them. Unless you can point to something Lutnick did to create this outcome, I don't see how he had a better view of the whole thing than anyone else.

Isn't Lutnick literally the chief architect of Trump's tariff policy? I can hardly imagine anybody more responsible for creating this outcome besides Trump himself, who would presumably have appointed somebody else if Lutnick hadn't been available.

> I don't see how he had a better view of the whole thing than anyone else.

Given the above, you really don't think Lutnick had a "better view" of the likely outcomes and timelines, including the Trump admin's planned and gamed out responses to certain outcomes, than the average Joe on the street? I think that's extremely, uh, naive.

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

#462

Post by garyfirestorm » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 5:21 PM UTC

anon7000 wrote: post #230

gruez wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>if you facilitate the legislation of tarrifs that you knew are illegal? Did they know it was illegal? Any more than say, the Biden administration "knew" that forgiving student loans were illegal?

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

> Did they know it was illegal

it doesnt have to be black and white. they knew enough to spin up a business that when it is overturned they could make money... which means they knew the probability was high.

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

#463

Post by blitzar » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 5:22 PM UTC

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 am old enough to remember when the great minds at DOGE found $10T a year of fraudulent Social Security spending which would have cut the total governement spending from $7T a year to negative $3T.

The DOGE refund cheque is of course, in the mail.

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

#464

Post by hedora » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 5:22 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #95

jacquesm wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not smart, it's extortion by someone connected to the state and self dealing. If you think this is smart then you may as well go around clubbing old ladies over their heads, as long as you don't get caught it's like free money right? The alternative is not to forbid companies from selling those rights, the alternative is to undo this deal and pay the whole amount back to those that originally forked it over and…

>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…

Extortion rackets come in many forms.

For example, NCR (National Cash Register) used to have their sales people "accidentally" break competitive machines (dropping them on the floor was common -- these were old precision mechanical adders), then offer an NCR machine as a "free" replacement.

You could argue this wasn't extortion. What are the damages? The replacement machine was higher value, so the shop was "made whole", and was only temporarily without a cash register. Of course, the competitor got screwed out of support contracts + renewal, and it was made very clear to the stores they had to play ball. (Unless they wanted to buy a replacement, and watch it also get smashed.)

It's the same with the tariffs:

Adopt a bunch of Trump dictated policies, or they steal your money (the mechanism is not providing exemptions). Later, they "refund" the payments (so, no further court action), but somehow the money does not go back to the people that it came from.

Ignoring the businesses that sold their rights to collect, all sorts of prices have skyrocketed in the last year. The consumers that are paying the increased amounts at retail are not going to see a cent of this settlement. Where is my check?

Also, it's unclear how many Supreme Court justices changed their votes because of the sold rights to collect refunds. The company involved gave a lot of money to Trump and conservative campaigns, and many of the justices are in his pocket. It's also unclear if they bribed the justices directly, since that's not public data.

On top of that, when these "securities" were sold, it could have been made clear that they would come with favoritism in the future. Did businesses that paid up get special exemptions? Were they threatened with intimidation that then didn't happen because they sold the rights?

All of the above is standard practice with this administration. They had the benefit of the doubt, but burned through it years ago.

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

#465

Post by sonotathrowaway » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 5:23 PM UTC

jonathanlydall wrote: post #434

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…

Maybe I don't understand as I'm an outsider, but as per my recent comment on this topic [0], I fail to see the logic of how "other countries" pay the US when the tariffs are paid by the importer and not the other country which is exporting. I do acknowledge that import taxes can in theory help local industries, especially if the other countries are subsidizing exported goods. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id…

Next time you wonder why a Trump supporter has a bad argument, remind yourself there was a nonzero number of them who literally drank bleach and Lysol after he told them too.

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

#466

Post by everforward » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 5:23 PM UTC

arunabha wrote: post #422

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.wikipe…

The studies I’ve seen seem to indicate that tariffs can work but are like running with scissors.

The artificially reduced competition will spur buying domestic products, but can also make domestic producers complacent. They don’t develop new features because they have an almost captive audience, until foreign producers advance enough that people will pay the tariff premium for better foreign products.

Then it’s a catch-22. Domestic producers are behind on technology so killing the tariffs will bankrupt them, but raising the tariffs only leans into their complacency.

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

#467

Post by Refreeze5224 » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 5:23 PM UTC

empath75 wrote: post #304

joshlemer wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prices don’t monotonically go up forever, prices come down all the time Edit: Sorry autocorrect thought I said moronically,

I just love this idea that corporations just discovered greed during the pandemic and before that had been selflessly dedicated to selling goods for the benefit of mankind at the lowest price they possibly could. Companies always try to maximize prices, and they do that by trying to optimize the price they sell things at to sell as much as they possibly can at the highest price they can get away with. Sometimes you c…

I think you're mistaking what's happening here. Companies are not discovering greed. People are finally recognizing that greed, and the greed inherent in the system, and recognizing that just because it's "part of the system", it's not OK.

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

#468

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 5:23 PM UTC

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #415

burkaman wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand your position but I disagree. If I were trying to predict whether the government is going to win in court, I think reading what the government's own lawyers think about the case would be valuable. If it were possible to pay for this I think people would, that's why I think it is material. Some random person's opinion is not relevant information, but the opinion of people directly involved in a case is.

That's fine, to each their own on trying to make predictions. I did try to predict it, did it accurately (along with many others, this wasn't the hardest thing ever), and wouldn't have had any interest in any internal memo. It's a public arena on things like this. I don't think even the justices themselves have "material inside information" until a little ways through the hearing, and people are trying to predict the…

[deleted]

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

#469

Post by wetpaws » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 5:23 PM UTC

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.

[dead]

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

#470

Post by epolanski » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 5:24 PM UTC

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….

> Absolutely absurd that we’re at this point.

It's not really, this is the result of having a flawed democratic system.

What do Turkey, Philippines, Russia, Belarus, Hungary, Nicaragua, etc and now US have all in common?

They are ALL presidential or semi-presidential republics where a single person "rules" without needing to face opposition in a parliament nor even requiring support from its own party.

Winner-takes-all democracies, aren't democracies if only part of the electors is represented in the executive.

Presidential republics are super dangerous, they combine the perils of dictatorships with a cherry on the cake of being able to claim popular mandate.

Seriously, it's not a coincidence that the last parliamentary republic to turn into an authocracy has been Sri Lanka 50+ years ago.