So let me say, I agree entirely that the tariffs raise consumer prices. Trumps tarrifs plan is indeed insane, and his claims about it being paid by China or whoever are entirely ludicrous.
However, as a technical point, all taxes have a “tax incidence” that you can measure. The tax incidence is the percent of the tax on a corporation, good, service etc that is borne by an entity. It is not always 100% on a consumer except in the most trivial, “consumers pay for everything” kind of way. For competitive or reputational reasons a firm with substantial revenue might decide to absorb some cost, rather than pass it on. In those cases, the tax incidence is not 100% on the consumer, but shared by the business out of their revenue.
I promise though, Trump has the mind of a decomposing tangerine and absolutely could not speak about or understand the subtleties here.
Anyway, politically speaking, I’ll never bring this up again. Please keep hammering Trump however you like and I’ll keep my corrections to myself, lol.
Correct. So in the car example, it really only works if the US puts a tariff on imports, and then they do some kind of government credit for domestic cars. This would raise the price of imported cars while making domestic cars more affordable to Americans.
The tariff is paid by the car dealer and passed onto the consumer. As one example.
Consumers pay it, not the overseas manufacturer.
This assumes the thing with the tariff is even available. I can’t buy a Hilux because of the Chicken Tax.
And how the fuck am I even to make a decent technical without a Hilux?
There’s a Second Amendment argument to be made here
Honestly? This would work on this court.
So let me say, I agree entirely that the tariffs raise consumer prices. Trumps tarrifs plan is indeed insane, and his claims about it being paid by China or whoever are entirely ludicrous.
However, as a technical point, all taxes have a “tax incidence” that you can measure. The tax incidence is the percent of the tax on a corporation, good, service etc that is borne by an entity. It is not always 100% on a consumer except in the most trivial, “consumers pay for everything” kind of way. For competitive or reputational reasons a firm with substantial revenue might decide to absorb some cost, rather than pass it on. In those cases, the tax incidence is not 100% on the consumer, but shared by the business out of their revenue.
I promise though, Trump has the mind of a decomposing tangerine and absolutely could not speak about or understand the subtleties here.
Anyway, politically speaking, I’ll never bring this up again. Please keep hammering Trump however you like and I’ll keep my corrections to myself, lol.
Correct. So in the car example, it really only works if the US puts a tariff on imports, and then they do some kind of government credit for domestic cars. This would raise the price of imported cars while making domestic cars more affordable to Americans.