No Stupid Questions

Your degree of credulity should be criminal.

Sir, this instance is called 'No Stupid Questions'.

This is by and large - a stupid question.

A lot more people will be unable to acquire a lot of things. There will be a lot more crime.

The higher tariffs are paid by the importers, who make the customer pay for that. And considering that the minimum wage is now below the poverty line, a lot of electronics, even necessities like washing machines and fridges, will be unaffordable by some people.

And what is the result when a lot of people can’t afford basic necessities? Crime.

Give it a year.

Everything the rapist trump does is to help himself. He does nothing for the good of the people. That's one major way you know he's fucked us.

He also consistently lied to everyone about who pays the tariff, making sure his brainless followers buy in, helping fuck us harder. Nothing that comes from his mouth is understandable or the truth.

We already know. We already know they're bad.

We know because the negative effects are already happening, and literally every expert on the matter has said they are fucking stupid.

They're not. If you think they are you're a moron. There's no gentle way to put it.

It's a grift. They already did it once this month, it's called insider trading.

Any economist or data scientist should be able to pretty easily compare the economic course to a forecast of what would have happened with minimal interference.

Will we listen? No, because experts don’t count for shit in the US anymore.

There are ways that tariffs can be used to protect domestic industries. But when they're done that way, it's normally specific products, implemented carefully and with some warning. I'm pretty sure there are some tariffs to protect American automakers, off the top of my head.

What the president did is just economic suicide. Sudden, huge, fairly indiscriminate, and fluctuating. I think his goal, in his mind, may have been to replace the income tax, but he really fumbled. And that's a bad idea anyway, because tariffs and sales taxes hit the middle class hardest, which slows down the economy.

There may also be an explanation that he really doesn't understand cooperation and believes every deal has a winner and a loser. And then very mistakenly concluded that we were the losers in international trade because of our trade deficit. That's incorrect. We get large amounts of goods and resources for small amounts of fiat currency, which we always seem to have more of. Our trade deficit considerably improves our quality of life in ways that cannot be replicated by an insular economy.

The only person who has any excuse of thinking Tariffs are a good idea is Ferris Bueller because he missed the lecture.

there are people who are completely happy with the economy going to absolute shit as long as its by the hand of conservatives.

literally ran into red-hat magas living on disability from the VA whose children are all now unemployed and they couldnt be fucking happier.

these people will absolutely eat trumps feces if it means a democrat has to smell it. there is no reasoning. facts do not fucking matter.

They were a beneficial strategy. They made Trump and his buddies massive amounts of money from manipulating the stock market. They were even bragging about it after the fact.

Oh, you meant for the country and its people... Nah, that was never the point. If they were thought out at all it was only how it benefits Trump and his buddies.

I’ll take a stab at a “serious” answer, although be cautioned that this thinking is irrational.

If they worked, we would see manufacturers almost instantly beginning construction on US factories, opening new ones and reopening shuttered plants. We would see trade “balance” in terms of imports and exports with every trading partner we have.

The most meaningful metric of any economy in my opinion is always median real income. It means whether most people are more able or less abke to live the life they want (to vastly over-simplify).

If you like paying more for stuff, then yes, it’s a win 🥇

Short answer. They're not.

Tariffs always raise prices. Sometimes they do protect local industry, by raising prices so that local industries can compete against foreign competitors. At least for a time. Usually it leads to the eventual failure of the industry due to making less competitive products.

Roll a die, if it's greater than 7, then they're a good idea.

Even proponents of tariffs have to admit that the level of thought and planning that went in their execution are incredibly lacking.

I am not an economist, but I'd think a couple of reasonable metrics would be:

• Taxes raised through tariffs are enough to significantly replace a significant portion of personal income tax burden across all taxpayers, while not raising the price on goods so much as to negate that benefit.

The math we've seen so far does not come anywhere close to supporting this. According to the St. Louis Fed, personal income taxes collected in 2024 was about $9.6 trillion. The increased tariffs have pulled in $6.3 billion in the past month, according to the Treasury Department, as reported in Newsweek. Extrapolated for the year, that comes out to about $0.08 trillion, or 0.8% of what is collected in income tax. The numbers don't add up even if the tariffs collected increase once the actual rates are stable, nor does this administration seem interested in giving a tax cut to anyone other than the wealthiest taxpayers, nor would I implicitly trust the numbers from this administration's Treasury Department.

Furthermore, that doesn't address how much of the tariffs are past to the consumer - which will be damn near all. Also, around 30%* of tax returns were for $0 in taxes due to low income and various exemptions, so the inflation in goods will be a net negative - as you can't cut a $0 tax - for what is mostly the poorest third of the population. Inflation induced by tariffs are about as regressive a tax as there is. (*The figure I have for this is 31.42% in 2022 according to the National Taxpayers Union Foundation. I'm assuming the figures aren't wildly different for 2024.)

• Increased manufacturing in the US, especially in strategically valuable goods, such as semiconductors.

This is a less quantifiable benefit, but can be good for supply chain stability and national security, in theory. It will take years to come to fruition, as factories take a long time to set up, and businesses will need a clearer picture about where the economy is headed before taking on such large investments. On-again, off-again policies delivered in tweets don't provide that - quite the opposite. Moreover, said goods will mostly be more expensive due to higher labor costs, providing little to no relief on the inflation front. It also should be pointed out that successes on this front will reduce tariffs coming in, acting against my previous metric.

What effect this has on the trade deficit I don't see as important. You run a trade deficit relative to your local grocery store since they don't buy things from you, and what would you do to remedy this? Start a farm? Having invested the time and money in a farm, would you come out ahead? Not likely. The trade deficit is a political football that fiscal conservatives love to complain about, but do not follow up on when they're in power.

All that said, I emphatically do not agree with the current administration on these policies, or really any policies, just to admit my biases.

For the factory workers in the industrial heartland it will be good.

For the general population it will be bad.

The idea of manufacturing more, cutting budget deficit etc may be a good idea. The way they go about it with trade wars pissing off countries usually friendly to the US is dubios. The DOGE and internal politics does not seem much better but that is not really any of my business as a non American.

Also if you want to cut deficit you should fund the IRS more, not less.