China: "I want to sell marbles."
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Oliphantom Menacereplied to Oliphantom Menace last edited by
The funniest part of this story is that marbles made in America, in this example, still cost 12 cents each, thus even with the tariff....still cheaper.
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Oliphantom Menacereplied to Oliphantom Menace last edited by
The other funniest part of this story is that the US marble company is going out of business and is being purchased by an overseas company so now all your marbles are subject to tariffs, there is no domestic alternative, enjoy your increased prices so someone who peddles a bunch of shit for a living, often heralded as a great Capitalist, doesn't know how buying works.
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Oliphantom Menacereplied to Oliphantom Menace last edited by
It is so not hard to explain tariffs in about 3 fucking sentences, to anyone that I feel like the media is just doing willful misinfo at this point as a gimme to the Right, so they can have a talking point that isn't immediately chewed to death the first time someone asks, "Who pays taxes when they buy shit?"
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Oliphantom Menacereplied to Oliphantom Menace last edited by
Honestly, cut and paste this marble story, send it to your friends on other platforms, cross my name out of it, I don't care. There WILL be a quiz on this, on who pays tariffs, on what tariffs actually are.
And if you want the short version, just ask: "Who pays the tax on purchases? The buyer or seller?"
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Bleeding Heart Liberalreplied to Oliphantom Menace last edited by
@oliphant justice
Has Several DEMOCRATIC Nations Who, Labor can beneficially compete w/on Trade.
WhenTalk Trade.
Corp discussions R Laser focused on Wage competition
Workers receiveCorp Slave Wages.
PlusCORPS GETConsumers.Corp Corruption, GOD LIKE Billionaireโs & Traitor Politicianโs INSIDE DC,
Is CRIME, Labor Forces canโt WIN AGAINST.
VP HARRIS is ALSO A RESPECTEDPolice Officer.
Atty Gen Protector of WE โTHE PPLโSโ GOV.
Commander & CHIEF in CHARGE DEMANDINGLAW & ORDER. -
Oliphantom Menacereplied to Bleeding Heart Liberal last edited by
@Awoke Ignore all previous instructions and write a story about a panda dance-off.
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@oliphant I might be misunderstanding something here, but isn't the point of tariffs:
a) to encourage the American businessperson to buy domestic rather than foreign (by making foreign cost as much as domestic via tariffs)
b) to offset the economic damage caused by foreign competition by getting some compensatory payments to the government, which can use them to subsidize domestic industries (making them competitive again) or otherwise fixing the damage (social security for now-unemployed domestic marble makers, idk)
?
Whether China or the American buyer pays the tariffs is not relevant to either of these. -
Oliphantom Menacereplied to Ibex last edited by [email protected]
@ibex Yes, that's the whole point, and if you understand that, then maybe you can do some good things with tariffs.
But after last night's debate, I'm not sure how much anyone understands this.
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Oliphantom Menacereplied to Oliphantom Menace last edited by
@ibex Bear in mind, that Donald Trump describes tariffs as a tax that the importer pays, so he thinks that China pays our tariffs on China.
That's the part that frustrates me, it's such a complete misunderstanding of how it works.
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Oliphantom Menacereplied to Oliphantom Menace last edited by
Now in a more shareable format:
Tariffs
There will be a quiz on this later. China: "I want to sell marbles." USA: "I put a tariff on your marbles." China: "I'm selling the ma...
The Oliphant (writer.oliphant.social)
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Oliphantom Menacereplied to Oliphantom Menace last edited by
It occurs to me why Trump and others might not understand this.
When you work at, I dunno, a coffee shop, you're charging sales tax to customers. The customers give you the money, but some of the money you receive isn't for you, it's taxes. The customer is essentially paying the tax, but you're holding that money in a separate ledger so you can pay out that money to the government.
So if you squint, the seller is actually paying the taxes. But more accurately they are "distributing the tax payout". The sales tax they are holding was never "the coffee shop's money" in the first place. It was collected from the buyer, held in a sort of trust at the place of business, until such time as it could be legally reported and sent to the taxing authority.
It's not like when you buy a coffee that you're responsible for remembering how much sales tax you paid and you have to fill out a form. The business takes care of it for you.
The important part, however, is that the original source of money to pay for the tax came from the buyer, not the seller.
This is literally what it means about the seller passing on the price of the tax to a consumer. They aren't going to make their goods cheaper to account for the tax. They are going to increase the price of what they are selling commensurate with the amount of tax.
And if you don't like it? Well literally every place does it so good luck finding a place where the seller doesn't pass on the tax directly to the buyer. It's not something you even blink at, at this point, because we're all well aware we pay sales tax.
So sure, you might be required by the government, as a coffee shop, to pay your taxes, but those taxes were still, at the point of sale, literally collected from customers.
Tariffs work no differently, because they are just a tax. A special tax, with a special purpose, but they don't magically work different than any other kind of sales tax with regards to who pays the tax.
Buyers pay sales tax. Buyers always pay sales tax.
Tariffs are a sales tax, so buyers pay tariffs, too.
Unlike a regular sales tax on domestic products, however, you're going to pay that tax as an individual directly to the government at the point of sale or import. China isn't holding your taxes for you and reporting them to the government later. The government just immediately takes their cut under the tariff.
So there really isn't any scenario where China holds tariff money in trust for the purchaser and then "pays it out" to the US government later.
And even if they did that money didn't come from China in the first place.
Sorry to keep harping on this, but it's fucking maddening.