It is strange and I haven't read anyone who will say what I am about to type. The prices of some US made goods is X and some foreign countries export the same item for X-20 (or whatever). Some US consumers will buy the foreign product cheaper than the US product. Now when tariffs are enacted, the price of the foreign goods increase to a price greater than X-20. Presumably the US consumer will buy the US product since it has become cheaper. In doing so the US consumer will be taxed for the difference he was paying for the price he is now paying anyway. In either case the US consumer has seen a tax on goods.
The forward thinking is that at some point, US manufacturers will increase production and the US products will become cheaper. Unfortunately for this time in history, the US has moved past a manufacturing phase in capitalism, and there is no interest by enough companies to re-enter heavy manufacturing, so it won't do much good.
Bottom line is the US consumer WILL pay more ... because of flawed thinking by a nitwit who probably failed to attend economics classes at Wharton. Of course all of his brain dead economic advisers are boot licking sycophants, who will simply regurgitate what the boss says in order to keep their position of power.
I floated this idea on a Rightie dominated forum recently:
Seems obvious that subsidizing U.S. manufacturing would be a more direct and productive method for “bringing back” industry than tariffs. Same amount of “short term pain”, but without the what-ifs and upfront cost and risk of establishing or growing businesses on the gamble that in five years they might be profitable. New jobs would appear instantly, too.
The tax burden would be the same - tariffs are taxes, too. And the subsidy route would put the funds directly back into the economy. Jobs created would benefit lower income workers, not the class of people who make more money than they need by playing with their excess dough. Maybe keeping folks off of unemployment compensation and food stamps and saving the government there, too.
People with jobs have the capacity to purchase the produced goods - that’s a huge factor in the equation.
So, use the tariff tax revenues to support the industries that the tariffs are supposed to be protecting.
I see avoidance of the fact that subsidies would provide upfront material benefits to job creation, the economy, and allay welfare costs.
Tariffs have no tangible benefits, except taxing consumers for federal revenue - the other supporting arguments are all long-term speculation.
That's an amalgam of several posts responding to comments of utter abhorrence of subsidies being Socialism, and encouraging laziness and freeloading; and tariffs somehow being Capitalism, exhibiting strength, power, and dominance. I pointed out that both were acts of government interference in the sacred doctrine of free markets, but one type comes with immediate tangible benefits, the other being nothing but a heinous TAX (gasp!) consisting of empty and delusional speculation, putting more money in the much despised federal coffers.
Still no takers...
Folks, we are not dealing with a political problem, we are faced with mass insanity - a severe, widespread toxic personality disorder. Thinking about it from that perspective might make a difference in charting a path through the storm.
