We need to abolish the legal system. Just go back to old-school vigilante justice. It's just too arbitrary. Blanket tariffs were a good idea but if they're being selectively applied, then it's fundamentally unfair; it becomes a matter of who is better at bribing the government using lobbyists. Justice is impossible at scale.
Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court
801–810 of 1001 posts
Re: Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court
#802Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes but in practice they delegate this power to the executive. Congress doesn’t run the IRS themselves after all
> Yes but in practice they delegate this power to the executive. No, they do not delegate the power to lay (set) taxes to the executive, they do assign the executive the function of collecting the taxes laid by Congress. > Congress doesn’t run the IRS themselves after all The IRS doesn't freely set taxes, it collects the taxes set by Congress.
The moment Congress authorizes that the Executive may use discretion then the Executive can effectively levy taxes. They may be wielding a bat owned by someone else, but who swings it is ultimately what's important.
Now I'm generally of the opinion that Congress shouldn't be allowed to give the Executive discretion but seems no one agrees with that and Congress would rather let the Executive write "not quite laws" on their behalf.
Re: Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court
#803Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t see how constitutional changes would help. The constitution already creates separation of powers, limits on executive authority, and procedures for removing an unfit president or one who commits serious crimes. But these only matter to the extent that majorities of elected and appointed officials care, and today’s ruling notwithstanding, there’s no political will to enforce any of them. The plurality of Ameri…
Necessary changes, off the top of my head: 1. Ranked Pairs voting for national elections, including eliminating the electoral college. Break this two-party duopoly of bad-cop worse-cop. 2. Enshrining the concept of independent executive agencies, with scope created by Congress, with agency heads chosen by the same national elections. (repudiation of "Unitary Executive Theory", and a general partitioning of the execut…
0. Removing the nonsensical doctrines Presidential immunity the Supreme Court has created out of whole cloth, and drastically curtailing all pardon ability with something like requiring the approval of Congress.
(yeesh, I can't believe I forgot that. I started thinking about reforming sovereign immunity, concluded that was something more fine-grained that Congress could do that didn't need to be in the Constitution, and moved on)
Re: Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court
#804Am I understanding this right? 1) US customer pays huge import tax on imported goods in the form of higher prices. 2) Seller sends the collected tax to the US government 3) US government will refund all/most of that tax back to the seller after this ruling 4) Seller gets to keep the returned tax money as pure profit (no refund to customer)
This will be so in some cases, but there are extra steps in others. e.g. In a different path, 1 and 2 are the same, but things then diverge. 3) To recoup some of those tariff costs, the company sells the rights to any potential future tariff refunds. They recoup a portion of what they paid immediately but hand away the right to a full refund to another party, such as Cantor Fitzgerald. The seller might use this to re…
Some additional context to your note: Howard Lutnick is Trump's Secretary of the Treasury. And also was Epstein's literal next-door neighbor.
Re: Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court
#805Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Can I get compensation from UPS or FedEx for making me pay illegal tariffs - and making me pay a fee to them for processing it too? I can see why you are mad, but it seems like the were fulfilling their legal obligation (at the time). The good news is that having directly paid UPS and not a middleman makes it much more likely that you will receive the money back. If anybody does.
> it seems like the were fulfilling their legal obligation (at the time) Rather, their illegal obligation (at the time)? It was clear from the start these import tariffs are illegal. Only congress can set them. It says so in the constitution! Hand waving at some pretend emergency doesn't give you the right to ignore constitutional law. The logistics companies should probably have fought these clearly illegal tariffs…
In many cases they charged me ~$25 in processing fees to collect a ~$3 tariff.
Re: Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court
#806Earlier quoted context omitted.
What an odd thing to say. The businesses in the other countries are, you know, businesses. Even if it were Chinese companies that were paying the tariffs, that will be baked into the cost of the good. This is literally first-day economics. No such thing as a free lunch. The cost of the item that the end user pays should reflect all costs associated with production and distribution to that end user. I have no idea how…
> I have no idea how the fuck the rumor that these tariffs will be “paid by other countries” started. It's what POTUS was saying since day 1. That we've been getting ripped off and we're gonna make the other countries pay us etc etc etc. It is, as I said in the post, obviously wrong - but that's where it comes from.
I guess I mostly don't understand how anyone believed it.
He ran on lowering grocery prices, and he was going to do this by making tariffs. So his plan boiled down to "I'm going to lower prices by raising prices".
With Trump it can be tough to tell if it's idiocy of malice but at some point I suppose it's a distinction without much of a difference.
Re: Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court
#807I don't think tariffs should be imposed capriciously at the President's whim. But I do think tariffs are an appropriate policy tool that should be used to protect US companies against overseas competitors that get government subsidies or other unfair advantages: Low wages, safety regulations, worker protection, environmental rules, etc.
It protects US compagnies at the expense of US consumers. Almost no economist think they are actually good for the economy, not even retaliatory tariffs.
Re: Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court
#808Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe as a US citizen I have no say in how they make these decisions so this thought exercise is pointless. We all structure our governments differently and so compete globally with differing rules, I only care about how we do it here in the US. At times, what we do may be in reaction to others, but how we do it needs to be agreed upon here at home and for that we have a Constitution that gives this power to cong…
The entire point of the WTO was that countries can cooperate globally to reduce tariffs and other trade barriers, so it does matter what you think of other countries' decisions.
Not how they make them, as in who is responsible within their government or whatever the might have
Re: Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court
#809Am I understanding this right? 1) US customer pays huge import tax on imported goods in the form of higher prices. 2) Seller sends the collected tax to the US government 3) US government will refund all/most of that tax back to the seller after this ruling 4) Seller gets to keep the returned tax money as pure profit (no refund to customer)
Can I get compensation from UPS or FedEx for making me pay illegal tariffs - and making me pay a fee to them for processing it too? (I know the answer is practically ’no’, but it does still seem to me that the bureaucracy and companies that went along with this obviously illegal operation bear some culpability...)
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Re: Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court
#810Am I understanding this right? 1) US customer pays huge import tax on imported goods in the form of higher prices. 2) Seller sends the collected tax to the US government 3) US government will refund all/most of that tax back to the seller after this ruling 4) Seller gets to keep the returned tax money as pure profit (no refund to customer)
Can I get compensation from UPS or FedEx for making me pay illegal tariffs - and making me pay a fee to them for processing it too? (I know the answer is practically ’no’, but it does still seem to me that the bureaucracy and companies that went along with this obviously illegal operation bear some culpability...)
Unclear.
I am certainly planning on seeking reimbursement from DHL and FedEx for the difference between the Trump rates, and the previous MFN rates. And if not, request charge backs via my credit card issuers.