this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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Leopards Ate My Face

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[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 10 points 51 minutes ago* (last edited 45 minutes ago)

If you're Republican it's simple:

  1. A tariff is Trump's special magic that saves you from foreigners and wokeness, and MexiCanada pays for it.
  2. Stuff costs more at the store because the Biden Crime Family hurt the economy so bad, not even Trump can fix it right away. In fact it might even take more than 4 years, so we better keep him in office forever.

Even if it were a tax paid by foreign companies, what difference does it make? They would just increase the prices the goods are sold at.

So, lets say, a smartphone that is priced at $1000:

With the 20% tariff in place:

If the Chinese conpanies pay the $200 per device, they just sell each phone at $1200 to the US importer.

If the US importers pay the $200 per device, similarily, they would tack on the $200 (on top of the usual markups), making it $1200 per phone.

There is zero difference, the end consumer always foots the bill.

This is so simple to understand, how are people this stupid

[–] Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee 5 points 50 minutes ago

It's why they're called "pass-through costs."

[–] merdaverse@lemmy.world 1 points 25 minutes ago* (last edited 3 minutes ago)

Not necessarily: the company can choose to absorb part or all the tariff, since the demand would drop at the higher price anyway, and they might make more overall profit at a lower margin per item. But generally yes, most of the cost will be passed on to the consumer and prices will increase on average.

The only difference would be that money we spent would be going to the companies instead of the government. Tarrifs are a government putting taxes on their people to strangle industries in other countries. In both scenarios we pay the same, but the flow of money is different

[–] DarkFuture@lemmy.world 2 points 6 minutes ago

Delete Elon and Trump from existence and nothing will get better.

Why?

Because Americans are dumb as fuck and they'll still be dumb as fuck when and if those two are gone.

I'm old enough to have seen the same pattern multiple times. Republican leadership fails spectacularly, even pissing off many conservatives in the process. But as soon as the next cycle begins, those conservatives are back onboard voting for the absolute shittiest candidates.

Because to them an actual, literal dictator is better than a Democrat as president.

Our society is circling the toilet and it almost certainly won't get better within our lifetimes. Prepare yourselves for that.

[–] merdaverse@lemmy.world 2 points 32 minutes ago

Plot twist: the person writing this is President Musk and the employee he's referring to is Trump.

Omg. We’ve come full circle now that smart people are telling idiots to do your own research…

[–] pyre@lemmy.world 49 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (2 children)

didn't understand why he was told the other countries pay the tariffs

that's easy: you were willing to vote for a guy who lied over 30 thousand times in his first term so he realized you're a fucking idiot and he could say anything without you thinking even half a second about it.

WHAT'S THE POINT OF EXPORTING SHIT YOU IDIOT WHY WOULD A COUNTRY DO IT IF THEY HAD TO PAY FOR IT

[–] qarbone@lemmy.world 7 points 1 hour ago

They willing pay the extra funbucks tariff monies for the privilege and honor of shipping it to America (at cost) on a chance some red-hatted half-wit will waste it.

[–] aesthelete@lemmy.world 2 points 59 minutes ago

WHAT’S THE POINT OF EXPORTING SHIT YOU IDIOT WHY WOULD A COUNTRY DO IT IF THEY HAD TO PAY FOR IT

Yeah this is grade school level reasoning telling you that it obviously doesn't work that way.

A country's aluminum exports for example aren't extra aluminum they want to get rid of because it's junking up their basements and America is 1800-got-junk taking it off their hands at cost. It's a fucking series of material production companies in a different country. They too are based on capitalism and they too require profits in order to function.

[–] fne8w2ah@lemmy.world 2 points 51 minutes ago

And the people who voted for the orangetard will still be shafted by him and his mafia yet will continue to blame "obiden" for their economic woes. 🥱

literally googling tariffs, brings you to a government page that lists tariffs, duties, and taxes under the same fucking definition.

How people like this DO NOT understand this shit, is beyond me. I can respect the humility in changing your position after being that stupid though, please, due your due diligence before mindlessly repeating the shit other people tell you, so you don't look stupid.

[–] Snowpix@lemmy.ca 14 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

"Doing your own research" means watching one or two YouTube videos or Facebook posts as far as these people are concerned. No thought for themselves, just parrot what you hear.

[–] cabinet_sanchez@midwest.social 5 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

I don't understand why this even needs to be researched. I'm no economist and I don't know much about tariffs, but: costs more to get product to me for any reason = product costs me more. When has that ever not been the case? What am I missing?

[–] Halosheep@lemm.ee 1 points 1 hour ago

Hey, you have to factor in things like market capture! They could be operating entirely at a loss just to ensure no other competitor can operate in the same market.

(/s because duh more cost = more price)

[–] It_Is1_24PM@lemmy.world 29 points 3 hours ago

I would like to ask them what happens when taffis are increased to 100%? Does that mean producers are giving stuff for free?

And then what happen when the tarris are at 200%? Do they have to send stuff for free and pay on top of that?

One more thing - don't tell them they are wrong. Tell them they were lied to

Some people genuinely are fucking dumber than a rock

[–] RamblingPanda@lemmynsfw.com 9 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Doing your own research or, you know, trust the experts? There's no way I will get deep enough into virology to get a proper grasp if I need a vaccination. But I for sure won't trust a random space Karen or brainworm Jimmy.

[–] Bytemeister@lemmy.world 34 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Real answer is in the last line there. If 60% of people we're capable of doing their own research (and arriving at the correct answer) then we wouldn't have anti-vaxers, flat-earthers and non-billionaire/non-bigot/non-christian nationalist republicans.

[–] scala@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 hours ago

The problem lies where they "find" their "research" when they see the answer they want to see on social media rather than an actual study or any factual references.

[–] rayyy@lemmy.world 42 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

"He was told the other countries pay the tariffs", by a bunch of liars and he believed the liars.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 4 points 3 hours ago

The real hard part is it's a partial truth.

The sellers do pay the tariffs, they just don't talk about what that does to the prices.

The other problem is it cuts both ways, and a number of the idiots will say as long as you're hurting them too, fine.

And then we have retaliatory tariffs, which also cut both ways.

IMHO, our biggest issue is we've been using cheap Chinese products and labor as a crutch instead of increasing wages. They've been able to cut down wages because Amazon, Temu and Shein have been providing products WAY WAY under marketable US made prices.

[–] JOMusic@lemmy.ml 57 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

I wrote a comment explaining Tariffs on a Fox News YouTube video a few weeks back, and the entire reply chain was people arguing with eachother about how tariffs work because "Trump said it's a tax on other countries, so that's how they work"

[–] immutable@lemm.ee 4 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

It’s the problem that reality is more complicated than the simplified version trump gives his followers.

If you don’t know how something works and someone very confidently tells you how it works and it sorta maps onto familiar concepts, boy is that catnip.

Maybe all the countries are just sitting around like people and Canada is like a guy buying our stuff and we are just making that guy pay a tax. I’m a guy, I pay taxes, sucks to be that guy but probably rules to be the guy getting the tax revenue, and now trump made that us, awesome!!!

Transmitting this wrong idea is fast because it maps onto their lived experiences. It’s easy for them to conceptualize Canada as a single monolithic entity that is buying shit and having to pay a tax. So in one stroke they get a double dopamine hit.

  • I’m not dumb, I get how this all works, and it was pretty easy!
  • we get to collect these taxes instead of having to pay them, awesome!!!

So here you come to explain, “that’s not how any of this works” Canada isn’t one entity, it’s many. Sure the tariff is on their stuff, but it’s paid by the person buying it, us. And you can go on about all the ways they are wrong but you are threatening the fact that they are not dumb and they already understand this and their understanding means they are winning. So you want them to admit they are dumb and getting fucked and that’s a hard sale.

This is the real danger of hypernormalization, it allows people like trump to replace the complexity of reality with a fake but simpler version. And it’s so dangerous because the people that buy in to that fake but simpler version have this weird insane incentive to defend it.

[–] Jaderick@lemmy.world 17 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

You’re doing god’s work in the hellish trenches

[–] Frostbeard@lemmy.world 6 points 3 hours ago

That's front line in "Trench Crusade" level of trenches.

[–] NotLemming@lemm.ee 53 points 7 hours ago (7 children)

I recently learned that almost 1 in 5 Americans are illiterate.

How many Americans do you think are reasonably well educated, so that they would understand somewhat complex issues like tariffs? Or could seek out information if they didn't understand?

[–] Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

Important note - literacy isn’t simply about being able to recognize and pronounce letters and words. A person can sound out every word in English, and understand what each word says, and still be illiterate if they cannot comprehend the message the words express together.

That’s where this illiteracy arises - it’s a failure of reading comprehension. In this light, I imagine many of us have attempted conversation online with somebody functionally illiterate.

[–] homura1650@lemm.ee 1 points 53 minutes ago

Literacy is also about English (at least as commonly reported in the US). About 1/3 of functionally illiterate adults in the US are foreign born. I have never seen literacy stats that measure "literate in any language".

[–] Hozerkiller@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 hours ago

"Are you saying 1 fouth of Americans are removed?" "Yeah at least 1 fourth."

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[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 5 hours ago

The whole thing was very purposefully talked about using the word "tariff" and never ever its synonym "import tax" exactly so that the traditional Fascist technique of redefining the meaning of words could be easily used: if all the Fascists' speech had been about "import taxes" they would not have been able to leverage most people's ignorance anywhere near this level because the very words "import" and "tax" were already reasonably well understood by most - unlike "tariff" - so the opinion makers would not have been able to miseducate their targets anywhere as easily.

I'm not saying that the people who fell for this are to be excused - if there is something important enough for you to put the effort into educating yourself, it's Politics - I'm saying it's understandable how so many were so easy to swindle.

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