Be ready for the new coming value added tax

Yes, taxes and tariffs are a drag on commerce. So is IT theft, prison camp labor, and potentially CCP interference with shipping and an invasion of Taiwan.

Every option has a downside.

 

Did the ChiComms reduce tariffs after the 2020 election?
Did we reduce OURS for them?

Even fake news and state funded media has addressed this point nearly accurately before and since the 2024 election.

Most people are like Trump's vanquished opponent.
To be charitable they are at least wildly uninformed about what tariffs really do, and how many we ACTUALLY have in place.

Tariffs are a FAFO tool.
You use them to stop people from doing 's' you don't want them to (Japan, raping China, South Africa's apartheid, Iran funding terror, Russia invading.....like, three or four places since the 90s)

You can also use them reciprocally - for every country that places tariffs on US!
(This is the part that MSM 'sometimes' obfuscates.... )

^ THAT!

Yep.
FAFO goes both ways.

 

"The factories in China are feverishly working overtime..." This stimulated some searching:


China Industrial Production


Latest month here (2024 October) was not out of line. But choose a longer-timeline option (e.g. 10 yrs) and see some wild action in 2020 and 2021. So wild that one might seek confirmation from other sources.

Then follows wondering about causes and so on.

 

Other analyses like this one are available on negative effects of tariffs on GDP:

Trump Tariffs & Biden Tariffs: Economic Impact of the Trade War

I cannot asses their accuracy. No idea how to even begin.

 

That isn’t the point of the tariffs according to the thing. Thing said over and over China pays it. All these Chinese manufacturers are not setting up shop to pay USA wages and benefits. We get to pay more, and that money goes into the treasury to offset the things tax cuts for the richest.
Look for elimination of the inheritance tax with lipstick on it so people not affected think that’s good for them too.

 

Mexico and, I assume Canada are also targets for auto manufacturing. As much as a 200% tariff on Mexico imports has been suggested.

 

trumps proposed tariffs would raise prices on these products
Trump's proposed tariffs would raise prices for these products, experts say

 

So.... "free trade agreements, AREN'T????"

United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement - Wikipedia

Good to know!
Seems to me that LOTS (like....ALL!!!) of the folks at "foggy bottom" might be a good target for DOGE.

 

Remember for the next four years any price increases or shortages

I know but China China China had a better ring to it for the election.
Any price increases are now Biden and Harris’s fault for four full years. The word smiths are in place.

 

The man still says China pays it and still doesn’t understand what tariffs are.

I wonder how things are in Ukraine since I don’t look at the news. I do get peeks accidentally. I feel for them. That’s all I care about now, the wars and my simple life. President Biden I hope presses for them to be in NATO, and fortifies NATO’s existence.

 

"{ wonder how things are in Ukraine ..." Not good. US and NATO allies have recently supplied more weapons including land mines, which are icky. These will be discussed if anywhere in 'political'.

"President Biden I hope presses for them to be in NATO, and fortifies NATO’s existence" First is a hard no. Second could happen on a longer timeine.

 

long range missiles, land mines, what next? i don't have the answers, but this seems wrong

 

Yeah, I'm worried prices will go up. But who cares, prices go up and down. And maybe I (or we as a nation) buy too much anyway.

On the other hand, some people think car prices might actually go down.

 

They already had the longer range missiles, but weren't allowed to fire them into Russia. Though that stipulation was before Ukraine siezed Russian territory, and Russia got N Korea troops. Lifting the limitation is mostly about letting Ukraine hold onto that captured land to have as a bargaining chip in negotiations.

The US land mines are 'non-persistent'. The trigger device is battery operated. So that part will eventually die, though you still got explosives sitting in the environment.

 

There will be more Ukraine news soon next spring. I am guessing he won’t waste time revenging the words of Zelensky saying you had many 24 hour periods to stop the war as president, why didn’t you?

Well I pray he pardons his son Hunter. Things changed. I don’t see any of it as political. The election is over, no question the Constitution is going to be obeyed, this time. Lets not talk about Germany during WW2, it’s political? Maybe it’s interpretation.

 

Yes, tariffs should be used to help protect the American worker.

Case in point is our hometown in Northern Maine. It was home to a huge papermill since the late 1800's....producing paper for various things like toilet paper, newspapers, and magazines. The population of the town was close to 8,000 in the 1960's. But when the digital era came in, the demand for printed materials like newspapers and magazines started declining. Also, around 1990, the cost of paper products from Canada was cheaper so large corporations, of course, started buying Canadian instead of American.
In 2008, the papermill, called the Great Northern Papermill, shut its doors forever and it was sold and resold until the final buyer sold all of the equipment and, now, it's just a sad looking huge parking lot being overgrown with weeds as nature takes over.
Today, the population of our old hometown is around 4,000 and has a 60% unemployment rate. (Mostly older retired folks and folks living on welfare.) It's very sad...most of the homes have been owned by the banks for years and they don't even bother putting "For Sale" signs up, now. You can buy a home VERY cheap if you just pay the back-taxes owed....some for just hundreds of dollars. (Many are owned by out-of-staters, now, as their summer vacation spots.)
The mill was very environmentally conscience and planted around 5 new trees for everyone harvested. Today, there's more trees in the Maine forests than ever. Sadly, the old mining roads aren't maintained so when forest fires come they have a very hard time fighting them due to the inability to get equipment out there.
A big lessons learned topic was to NOT have a single-source of primary employment for a town, the city planners should've worked to bring in other companies and industries while the "good times" were there...primarily 1950's-1980's.

 

I wonder if any of that paper was shipped out of country, either directly by the mill or indirectly by magazine companies. I have no idea what the end result would be, but I do know that when tariffs are placed on imports then you can expect other countries to react and place tariffs on the USA's exports. Depending where that paper went that still could end up being a loss.

 

Global pulp and paper production has increased every year since 1961. China is currently #1 producing country and USA is #2.

Largest company is International Paper in USA. Second largest is Nine Dragons in China at about half size of the first.