Wow it’s super cool how people who don’t understand global economics are running our economy now 🫠
this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2025
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They do, they're just lying about it.
This guy literally sourced all of his claims from a fake economist who was actually an anagram of his own name. I wish I was joking
This timeline is so fucking dumb 😓
How much they really understand is unknowable and irrelevant. The problem is that they're in power. That has to change.
This idiot probably thinks his grocery store is cheating him because he only buys food from them, and not the other way around.
This is why these "zero for zero" offers are going to go absolutely nowhere.
By their own admission, the administration is simply inventing these numbers for "tariffs applied against the US". What they are, in actually, is the US trade deficit against that country as a percentage.
But the thing is, you're never going see an even trade balance between the US and Vietnam while still having trade between those countries, because nothing made in the US is affordable to the average person living in Vietnam.
The only way to get that fictional "tariffs applied against the US" number down to zero is for Vietnam to stop all exports to the US. That means that a whole lot of clothes, electronics and other consumer goods will need to be made in the US instead of being made in Vietnam.
No version of this works out well for Vietnam, and even for the US it either involves prices increasing to reflect the higher average wages and cost of living in the US, or US wages decreasing to the point where you've basically got all these goods being made by utterly impoverished workers in American sweat shops.
I'm not going to say that American consumers exploiting poorer Vietnamese workers to subsidize their own cost of living is a morally good system, but it sure is one that was working pretty well for the average American consumer.
This, 100%. Some sane analysis of US idiocy.
Some sane analysis of MAGA idiocy.
I can't stress to you enough how little this distinction matters to the rest of the world.
America elected Trump. Again. Knowing exactly who he was, and what he would do, because it's just more of what he did the first time.
We don't really care which specific Americans are to blame for that. The existence of good Americans is as meaningful to us as the existence of good cops.
This is why the relationship between America and its allies is never going to be the same again. We can't trust you. Sure, maybe in four years Trump will be gone. Maybe he won't. But, to paraphrase a French senator, we can't put our security in the hands of a bunch of voters in Wisconsin every four years.
America held a trusted place in the world. That can't happen anymore, because the American people have proven themselves incapable of living up to that trust.
At this moment, on a geopolitical scale, the two are synonymous.
The distinction only matters to those of us unfortunate enough to be in the US right now.
Wait until he demands equality on things like chocolate and coffee.
"Uh sir, we can't grow cocoa in the US."
I think the countries that are making "deals" are just agreeing to buying a shitload of some market commodity like LNG. If you need energy anyway, it's a pretty easy way to adjust the "imbalance" obviously that won't work for every country.
Hey, isn't this the fuck that helped attempt to overturn the 2020 election and then ignored Congressional subpoenas and then went to prison for 4 months?
IT IS!!!!
I wonder what his expert source, Ron Varo thinks of this?
When the world finally understands that the only true way this administration believes they can be really fair is to provide all the goods you can crank out and expect nothing in return they will truly understand the depth of these people's understanding of reality
"Now adjust your laws to match ours. Now your pay...keep going..."
Why is VAT so hard to understand for otherwise literate Americans?
Probably because we don't really ever hear it explained
I consider myself pretty well read and I think I know what it means, but I'm making some assumptions. Could you explain it, and why it's a good solution here?
Google is your friend 🙄
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-added_tax
Simply speaking it is the tax which cost of, could be claimed back on a every stage of the process, so only the difference between the purchasing/manufacturing price and selling price really attracts the tax.
If you buy something for a tenner and £2 vat (total £12) and sell for £15 and £3 vat (total £18) you are only liable for £1 tax, being the difference between the vat you charged and the vat you paid.
Okay, but like... What does that mean? What are the implications? I feel like I have to be missing something
Like, we do something similar with write-offs - that $12 you spent to buy the thing is subtracted from your tax burden
And the way we do taxes sucks. It's terrible and VAT sounds cleaner... But I don't see where that has any implications for international trade
But I don't see where that has any implications for international trade
Because there aren't any, it is only the perception.
If the final amount of vat is £20 for something which costs £100, for goods manufactured in the UK, these £20 have been collected "on the way" with the final retailer taking £20 from the end seller but paying let's say £15 to the wholesaler so only paying the taxman £5 (and wholesaler another £5 and manufacturer another £10 etc).
If however something has been imported by the retailer and the final vat is £20, the retailer will pay the entire £20 to the taxman. It is still the same £20 and makes no difference at all. But perception of Trump's halfwits may be different.
Wait... What? You say it has no implications for international trade, but you just said things produced in-country are taxed less...
It's doesn't sound like it's just perception, it's incentivizing production within the country. You're taxing imports fully, but making sure to tax the value added in county only once, which is huge
I'm not opposed to such a thing, I'm all about producing as locally as possible, but that seems like it's in the same ballpark as a tarrif. Am I missing something?
No, things produced in-country are taxed bit by bit along the production and transport chain, each time someone takes the thing and "adds value" to it. It's a value-added tax. Imported things are taxed all at once when imported. In the end it's the same amount of tax.
You could say imports are subject to a sales tax exactly equal to the value-added tax on domestic products. Sort of.
But like... Don't you think the home country(ies) taxed the production themselves at every stage themselves? And now it's coming into your country, and it's all taxed again. If it was made in your country, it would have been theoretically taxed at the final value once
So the lower value the import coming into the country, the lower the taxes on it. It's essentially a tax break for manufacturing in the country, no?
Honestly, I don't quite remember the details of what happens when you export an item. There won't be a sale to collect VAT on, but you'll have paid prices including VAT to your suppliers and there is something about tax credits. But at the end of the day it's a conceptually more complex sales tax but when you're working with it it's simple enough.
Read again 🤦
Ok I did... Someone else told me
You sell something for 20€, you put on VAT to that and that's the total price paid by the buyer.
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills, I'm not even opposed to the idea of a VAT or a country incentivizing local production, but I feel like I'm being led in circles trying to understand what it actually is
I can definitely see the issues sane, adult and usually well educated EU officials encountered when they were trying to explain VAT to a bunch of cretins Trump employed.
you just said things produced in-country are taxed less...
I said no such thing
But I don’t see where that has any implications for international trade
That's because there aren't any.
Man Google is nobody's friend
You sell something for 20€, you put on VAT to that and that's the total price paid by the buyer.
VAT is used in many countries. It's not an ideal system, since it's regressive, but it's none of the US's business.
Navarro's other assertions require evidence. His word is as worthless as Trump's.
Navarro? the same Navarro who makes people up as experts who justify his own mediocre ideas?!
I was about to say, isn't that the Ron Vara guy?
Peter Navarro probably can’t reliably remember how to spell “tariff”
If anyone knows about cheating it is this admin