Live updates: Trump announces sweeping tariffs

[4am@lemm.ee]

As I understand it, that “rest of the world” is actually a base tariff, and the rest of these are ON TOP OF that.

So China is actually 44%, etc

[gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works]

Lmfao buckle up for the second Great Depression, everyone! It’ll be fun! ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

[gonzo-rand19@moist.catsweat.com]

Oh, I don't mean on an industrial scale. Sorry for any confusion. I was thinking of small-scale artists who have crochet businesses. It might be easier to sell $30 plushies if all of the plushies from Vietnam (and other places known for cheap hand-made products) are now $50.

[jesuisunhombre@lemm.ee]

I think it's important to note that this will kill a great many small businesses.

Larger companies have a larger supply in giant warehouses. Small businesses order smaller quantities more often. They get fucked sooner with the costs going up. If a customer wants to support that small business they sometimes would have to pay twice what they could get it for from a larger company. This is a deep consolidation of wealth.

[10001110101@lemm.ee]

He wants to use tariffs (which act like a flat-tax) to lower income tax on the rich. There's speculation he's also doing something like the "Mar-a-Lago Accord," which involves devaluing the dollar (causing inflation). If wages don't rise with the inflation (which they don't want), US labor will be more competitive, so people can work in factory jobs with pay analogous to current Chinese factory workers.

[ambiguousprops@lemmy.today]

Ah, gotcha. It'll be interesting (in a bad way, most likely) to see how this will affect those business.

[windex007@lemmy.world]

One of the benefits of having young children is that if I play my cards right "my" boycott could exceed my own lifetime.

[Guest]

If Trump would be killed by a medieval seige weapon, then I will believe in god again.

[bigmikeinaustin@lemmy.world]

Did he wait until late afternoon Apr 2nd?

He failed to do it "the day l'm elected."

He failed to do it the day he was sworn in.

He failed to do it, like 5 times from Jan - Mar.

He failed to do it Apr 1.

He failed to do business during business hours Apr 2nd.

This little baby just keeps failing and hiding.

[Guest]

The following quote from ChrisO_wiki on bsky

"@chriso-wiki.bsky.social
Just figured out where these fake tariff rates come from. They didn't actually calculate tariff rates + non-tariff barriers, as they say they did. Instead, for every country, they just took our trade deficit with that country and divided it by the country's exports to us." Just about sums it up.

[Guest]

Don't forget land sales tax which happened a lot after the Louisiana Purchase and the Gold Rush.

[Guest]

Some of the architects who helped win the second American civil war say yes:

Firstly, it is essential to squash the democratic myth that a state ‘belongs’ to the citizenry. The point of neo-cameralism is to buy out the real stakeholders in sovereign power, not to perpetuate sentimental lies about mass enfranchisement. Unless ownership of the state is formally transferred into the hands of its actual rulers, the neo-cameral transition will simply not take place, power will remain in the shadows, and the democratic farce will continue.

So, secondly, the ruling class must be plausibly identified. It should be noted immediately, in contradistinction to Marxist principles of social analysis, that this is not the ‘capitalist bourgeoisie’. Logically, it cannot be. The power of the business class is already clearly formalized, in monetary terms, so the identification of capital with political power is perfectly redundant. It is necessary to ask, rather, who do capitalists pay for political favors, how much these favors are potentially worth, and how the authority to grant them is distributed. This requires, with a minimum of moral irritation, that the entire social landscape of political bribery (‘lobbying’) is exactly mapped, and the administrative, legislative, judicial, media, and academic privileges accessed by such bribes are converted into fungible shares. Insofar as voters are worth bribing, there is no need to entirely exclude them from this calculation, although their portion of sovereignty will be estimated with appropriate derision. The conclusion of this exercise is the mapping of a ruling entity that is the truly dominant instance of the democratic polity. Moldbug calls it the Cathedral.

The formalization of political powers, thirdly, allows for the possibility of effective government. Once the universe of democratic corruption is converted into a (freely transferable) shareholding in gov-corp. the owners of the state can initiate rational corporate governance, beginning with the appointment of a CEO. As with any business, the interests of the state are now precisely formalized as the maximization of long-term shareholder value. There is no longer any need for residents (clients) to take any interest in politics whatsoever. In fact, to do so would be to exhibit semi-criminal proclivities. If gov-corp doesn’t deliver acceptable value for its taxes (sovereign rent), they can notify its customer service function, and if necessary take their custom elsewhere. Gov-corp would concentrate upon running an efficient, attractive, vital, clean, and secure country, of a kind that is able to draw customers. No voice, free exit.

[crystalmerchant@lemmy.world]

Cambodia be like

[Guest]

Yep. In the next few years I expect more Americans to raise pigs on their suburban plots.

[brucethemoose@lemmy.world]

I’m not sure that’s any better, as traders and news have a whole night to digest it now. It might’ve seemed less bad with just an hour (before the next controversy consumes the cycle).

[brucethemoose@lemmy.world]

Probably fucking subsidized instead, though I didn’t see specifics about fossil fuels

[brucethemoose@lemmy.world]

The tiny scale artists still have to buy supplies. And eat, and pay rent.

Don’t forget, this is a regressive tax, and small craft workers tend to be poor.

Their prices will go up as much. It may even be worse for them, in aggregate, even if selling more of their stuff.

[brucethemoose@lemmy.world]

Bingo.

It’s true in many roundabout ways, but the math adds up to “break for billionaires.”

Like, it’s full of nepotism, too. Take the discrete tax on automobiles and auto parts: I'll give you one guess on who that benefits.

[buelldozer@lemmy.today]

Smells like Smoot-Hawley up in this bitch.

[brucethemoose@lemmy.world]

Most headlines I see are going with 10%, which is a big understatement.

It’s because they’re run by billionaires. Even liberal, big outlets harp on cultural issues to redirect focus.