Trump's Treasury Secretary Admits Tariffs Are Paid by Americans

[Rotadom]

 

[Rotadom]

Trump fumes and again insists companies pay tariffs not consumers as he bashes criticism of his plan

‘Consumers aren’t even paying these Tariffs, it is mostly Companies and Governments,’ Trump continues to claim.

 

[Lazaran]

View attachment 2557774

DonOld did that, but the common MAGAts elected DonOld, so…



We. Told. Them. So.

 

[Beachguy23]

Well who the fuck did people think we’re paying them . Time for that orange piece of shit to go, preferably permanently.

 

[RagnarHairyBreeches]

There’s something hitting the news here in Australia recently – Illegal cigarette sales.

In an effort to get people to reduce their smoking habit (a health issue) the Australian govt placed a tax on cigarettes. A pack of 25 costs about $65, but a lot of tobacconists are selling smuggled cigs for under $10. To prevent tracking some tobacconists have placed teller machines in their shops so people can withdraw and pay using cash. There’s talk of the teller machines being used for money laundering, too. But that’s a side issue.

If you were a smoker, would you pay for the legitimate item for $65 or the smuggled item for $10? Hard decision. Easy decision. The US might experience something similar. To make up an example, would you spend $1200 on your new phone or buy one for $1000 from the guy in the pub, who knows a guy, who knows a guy with a fishing boat. If it was a tariff that put the price up, it would be tempting. There's got to be so many ways to avoid customs.

Sales like that might not ruin the country, but if it avoids paying a tariff, there might be a tendency to do so if you’re short by a few dollars. The downside is that if it puts the phone retailer out of business and staff lose their jobs, it’s not a good outlook, and it that starts happening everywhere you're looking at increasing unemployment and a downward spiral.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that in 1929 tariffs were introduced and in 1930 you had the Depression. The Depression went world wide. And it has since been demonstrated that tariffs don’t work.

Where I live, in Australia, we import more from the US than we export. So, no big deal for us. But, and a big but, is that the things the US do seem to affect the world. If the US goes into a Depression chances are that the rest of the world will follow.

I’d like to hope economists will be able to avert a follow on. If the US goes down hill (recession/depression) other countries may be able to support one another. Australia and China and Japan and India may well be able to pull together, for example, and bolster trade and let the US go economically. Sink on its own and not pull other countries with it.

 

[coati]

There’s something hitting the news here in Australia recently – Illegal cigarette sales.

In an effort to get people to reduce their smoking habit (a health issue) the Australian govt placed a tax on cigarettes. A pack of 25 costs about $65, but a lot of tobacconists are selling smuggled cigs for under $10. To prevent tracking some tobacconists have placed teller machines in their shops so people can withdraw and pay using cash. There’s talk of the teller machines being used for money laundering, too. But that’s a side issue.

If you were a smoker, would you pay for the legitimate item for $65 or the smuggled item for $10? Hard decision. Easy decision. The US might experience something similar. To make up an example, would you spend $1200 on your new phone or buy one for $1000 from the guy in the pub, who knows a guy, who knows a guy with a fishing boat. If it was a tariff that put the price up, it would be tempting. There's got to be so many ways to avoid customs.

Sales like that might not ruin the country, but if it avoids paying a tariff, there might be a tendency to do so if you’re short by a few dollars. The downside is that if it puts the phone retailer out of business and staff lose their jobs, it’s not a good outlook, and it that starts happening everywhere you're looking at increasing unemployment and a downward spiral.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that in 1929 tariffs were introduced and in 1930 you had the Depression. The Depression went world wide. And it has since been demonstrated that tariffs don’t work.

Where I live, in Australia, we import more from the US than we export. So, no big deal for us. But, and a big but, is that the things the US do seem to affect the world. If the US goes into a Depression chances are that the rest of the world will follow.

I’d like to hope economists will be able to avert a follow on. If the US goes down hill (recession/depression) other countries may be able to support one another. Australia and China and Japan and India may well be able to pull together, for example, and bolster trade and let the US go economically. Sink on its own and not pull other countries with it.

I agree. When corrupt and capricious administrations like the current one in the USA increase the cost of living with tariffs so that billionnars can get tax breaks, black markets will emerge within the middle and lower economic populations.

 

[RoryN]

You are a racist.

And you're a WELSHER

^^^
You finally admit that you're a racist. Progress.

And the fact that you think the two traits are evenly weighted confirms your racism even further.

 

[wallstreetguy]

^^^[wallsteetguy points to the city where a trans person had the audacity to be trans]

Yup, we are taking it back too. Even cities I gave up on. Even cities of my childhood that are now overrun with filth. We are taking it all back.

 

[stxjimmy]

Today’s inflation numbers benign as indicated by stock market numbers. You people cry wolf, you don’t know what you’re talking about! Just imagine if *TOO LATE* lowered interest rates.

Manufacturing wage numbers are higher than most foreign competitors, always have been. Buy American! Tariffs work.

Not responded to a single point, fluent only in gibberish

 

[Lazaran]

"wallstreetgurl"
Nice transphobia. I am a transphobe too. But was not aware you were in my camp on that one.

wallstreetgurl seems upset that someone did (for effect / to highlight) EXACTLY what DonOld & the MAGAts do ALL THE TIME (ad hominem attacks, misgendering, etc,).

Poor wallstreetgurl…



wallstreetgurl also completely avoided (dodged) addressing the other serious points that were made in post #19. I wonder why???



We. Know. Why.



We. Told. Them. So.

 

[coati]

Yup, we are taking it back too. Even cities I gave up on. Even cities of my childhood that are now overrun with filth. We are taking it all back.

^^^A hateful MAGAt refers to trans people as "filth".

 

[Rockymtnman]

I work in analysis of things like this. The inflation numbers do not reflect higher prices at all, thus far. Walmart said they would raise some prices but that was for 50 products out of the tens of thousands they sell. The prices also went from $2 to $3, in most cases. That is a 50% rise, but it was a single buck.
Other chains like Costco and Home Depot are swallowing costs because they do not want to pass along even minor cost increases. Their stocks were unaffected and their earnings will swallow any losses.
Ultimately, consumers pay the price. But that is because they chose to consume. Companies are eating part of it. Those are facts, not deflection.
Try reading the words before you send half-assed replies.

So as an analyst… you just skip over the CPI which shows prices have indeed jumped. Remind me not to invest with your company.

 

[RoryN]

I work in analysis of things like this.

So as an analyst… you just skip over the CPI which shows prices have indeed jumped. Remind me not to invest with your company.

#sickburn

 

[ashbb]

Yup, we are taking it back too. Even cities I gave up on. Even cities of my childhood that are now overrun with filth. We are taking it all back.

It's too bad you're not smart enough to debate without dehumanizing entire groups of people.

 

[dmallord]

I work in analysis of things like this. The inflation numbers do not reflect higher prices at all, thus far. Walmart said they would raise some prices but that was for 50 products out of the tens of thousands they sell. The prices also went from $2 to $3, in most cases. That is a 50% rise, but it was a single buck.
Other chains like Costco and Home Depot are swallowing costs because they do not want to pass along even minor cost increases. Their stocks were unaffected and their earnings will swallow any losses.
Ultimately, consumers pay the price. But that is because they chose to consume. Companies are eating part of it. Those are facts, not deflection.
Try reading the words before you send half-assed replies.

As a Wall Street professional, I understand you focus on the macroeconomic picture. I'd like to examine the micro level for a moment: the family level and how Walmart's recent price hikes—about 2.5%, costing roughly $1 billion in tariffs—affect households, including products like Tide, household paper, and cleaning supplies.

That $1.00 increase you mentioned may seem small, but it doesn't tell the full story at the family level. Families buy many small-dollar items. For example, a $ 1.00 increase on Tide detergent, combined with shrinkflation—smaller containers—further raises the cost per load. It is just $0.50 to $1.00 more each week, depending on the product and size.

But, adding in rising costs for laundry soap and household paper—up over 30%—quickly adds up. Suppose a family usually spends $5 weekly on these items. In that case, a 30% hike equals $1.50. If they also buy dish soap and hand soap, each with about a $1 increase, the total weekly extra cost for household essentials ranges from roughly $1.75 to $3.00. Just these two categories increase a family's weekly expenses by $2.50 to $3.50. To Wall Street, that's small over a year, amounting to $182.00—$3.50 times 52 weeks. And you have to know that families buy food, of course, and those costs add up with other consumable goods. That $1.00 piles up!

Including more categories, as The Hill. com notes, the total piles up: “Trump's tariffs are expected to put upward pressure on costs. Experts project the higher fees on goods from Canada, the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, and other major trading partners could cost the average family of four an additional $ 2,400 or more in annual expenses.”

That means a family of four could go from paying just a $1.00 more—as you pointed out—to paying around $2,400 annually, give or take a dollar. At 132,000,000 households, that's macroeconomic level: $319,200,000,000. [Billions]

How many families can handle that kind of financial hit, just because Trump thinks tariffs make America wealthy again?

 

[icanhelp1]

That largely depends on what is being manufactured. I don't see a huge plus in manufacturing high volume, low margin items unless they are critical to national defense or essential goods. I would rather see us specialize in higher margin items or services where we enjoy comparative advantage.



Higher wages than who? Foreign manufacturers? Sure, but irrelevant. Other industries such as retail or IT services or financial services? Not so much.

That’s what I wrote, foreign manufacturers.

 

[RagnarHairyBreeches]

Large complex manufacturing is not easy nor cheap to set up. The US used to be big in steel works. Not any more. It’s cheaper to buy steel from overseas. Australia exports some steel to the US. Not much, admittedly. The last I heard it was for your military operations (subs, I think).

There is a steel foundry in Whyalla, Australia that’s been in the news recently. The current owner has been running it into the ground. To help with local industry the govt here is baling it out. I think they are going to be putting in about $300M. That’s a hell of an investment for something that might not work. All the abandoned US steel works would probably take just as much cash to get them up and running. What investor is going to spend that amount of money on the off chance that tariffs will remain for the next 5 or so years or more (the time for production to get going) when it’s cheaper to buy from some other country?

Then there’s the skills involved. If you have a steel works, who knows how to make it. Where do the engineers, chemists, metallurgists come from that aren’t already happy in their own jobs in some other part of the world? To say nothing of the labour with the skills in loading the smelter, pouring, rolling, and generally making a steel works work.

There are simpler industries like clothing industries that would be easier to set up, but they all require skilled labour. People can be trained, for sure. But the reason many Asian countries can sell their products cheaply is because they employ staff that don’t demand high salaries. Sweat shops. All those ‘throw away’ clothes that are so popular depend on cheap labour. They are next to being slaves. Any clothing industry in the US will have to pay the minimum wage, which is likely to be many times higher than the pittance Asian factories pay their staff. The irony in that is that anyone who might have worked for next to nothing in those horrible jobs that no one else wants to do is currently a target for deportation.

Traditional industry is unlikely to move to the US to avoid tariffs.

 

[wallstreetguy]

So as an analyst… you just skip over the CPI which shows prices have indeed jumped. Remind me not to invest with your company.

Don't invest in my company (even if you could afford to open an account, which you cannot; our minimums are too high even for me, and I am killing it).

 

[ChinoMoreno]

Bro who is this radical left lunatic talking crap about tariffs?!

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[Rockymtnman]

Don't invest in my company (even if you could afford to open an account, which you cannot; our minimums are too high even for me, and I am killing it).

Depends on your minimum, if you have one. But there aren’t too many places that wouldn’t take my portfolio over if they had the chance. But I’ve been with my guy for over 25 years. So it would take massive returns for me to meet with anyone. Also, I noticed you didn’t answer my question about CPI showing an uptick in pricing over the past 8 months. From your posts it seems the only thing you analyze is whether to ask people, do you want fries with that?

 

[wallstreetguy]

It's too bad you're not smart enough to debate without dehumanizing entire groups of people.

Yeah, I am done with that

Bro who is this radical left lunatic talking crap about tariffs?!

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I know this one! He's the demented old man who got conned by the Speaker of the House into signing an immigration amnesty that destroyed his legacy adn the country.
Nailed it!

 

[DeluxAuto]

Companies are eating part of it.

That's unsustainable. A smart businessman would know this simple fact.

 

[wallstreetguy]

That's unsustainable. A smart businessman would know this simple fact.

So, since you have never run a business or a department, let me explain a "loss leader." That is when you sell an item at a loss so that you get people in the door to buy other things. It is why a Big Mac costs more to sell but you win on the fries and soda.
Companies have to eat certain costs. Like a restaurant having to provide paper towels in the bathroom. You work it into your cost of doing business.
Big companies are eating a certain amount of the tariffs because it will scare off their customers if prices rise too quickly/too much. Going from $1.25 to $1.50 is ok. But from $1.25 to $2.50 might not. So, eat the cost on the Target t-shirt and you will get the money back on makeup and frozen foods.
The market is up and staying there even as some companies are eating the loss because it is good governance and stewardship. And the losses are negligible for most big corporations.
No one can beat Trump on this. The money is rolling in and Americans will see that, along with stable prices (see above) and strong markets (see above).

 

[RoryN]

you have never run a business or a department

^^^
Back this statement with proof, "analyst".

 

[DeluxAuto]

let me explain a "loss leader." That is when you sell an item at a loss so that you get people in the door to buy other things.

This is wonderful.

That's the definition, but that's not what's happening, you idiot. Blanket tariffs don't allow a business to sell ONE ITEM at a lower margin to gain traffic. Fuck, that was too easy.