Comment by SideQuark
4 days ago
At significant loss to the consumer. Sure a tariff can benefit a subset of people, by costing others even more.
We could also do this without tariffs by simply taking money from some group and handing it to another.
4 days ago
At significant loss to the consumer. Sure a tariff can benefit a subset of people, by costing others even more.
We could also do this without tariffs by simply taking money from some group and handing it to another.
Someone mentioned a week or two ago on HN that the point of the auto tariffs was national security (maintaining the industry/expertise/etc. in the US, I assume), not economic.
They’re wrong. Lyndon Johnson imposed the 25% Chicken Tax during trade skirmishes with Germany to make Volkswagens more expensive, and later tapes surfaced showing this was actually done for political favors. It had zero to do with national security. As a result Americans pay about 25% more for light trucks of inferior quality ever sense, as a giant handout to the car industry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tariffs_in_the_Unit...
So as usual, tariffs cost the country imposing them, returning less net goods, and moves money into the protected class at the expense of the wider public.
Receiving money for free is different than money earned for work (even if subsidised).
It creates different incentives for the receiver.