he really is the dumbest motherfucker on the planet
It’s simultaneously a grift and a way to impose a flat sales tax all in one package.
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Republicans have been creaming their pants for years at the thought of imposing a regressive flat tax on all sales while doing away with income based taxation. This would forever shift the majority of the tax burden to the poor and middle class. Which is why we see Trump cutting taxes on the wealthy with his Big Ugly Bill and imposing a tariff as a way to tax the unwashed masses while simultaneously claiming he isn’t. Hopefully the courts strike down his power grab and force Congress to vote on Tariffs. The weasels will probably give it to them but at least we get to see Republicans go on record as voting for a tax increase.
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Trump has announced or will announce tariff exemptions that benefit large companies that have donated to him. Sometime later if he feels he needs more money he will announce a higher random tariff on the exempted goods and shake these corps down for more money/favors. All the while he can claim he is doing our industry a favor.
Never forget Trump is a grifting piece of shit who will always stick it to the little guy.
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The other 95% of us:
No he won’t
Dude is a great decision machine. Someone should make him preside- oh. 😕
Nah, I think he’s much better suited to being a reality TV star. Oh wait, that’s what he is.
Conservatives are 100% onboard with a felon rapist pedo skyrocketing our cost of living while destroying our global reputation.
If anyone is still unsure if conservatives are traitors to our nation, now is the time to pinch yourself and wake up.
I wouldn’t call them traitors but they do embody everything else that makes a person horrible! If you’re a republican I seriously hope you get bad allergi s diarrhea and stuck in traffic at the same time, no sun if your car windows get stuck up too.
Nah they are traitors and I hope they all die a traitor’s death.
Perhaps this could tax the huge data centers being built in the USA, which tend to get huge local tax incentives. But, if I had a data center I was trying to kit out, this would encourage me to setup shop any place other than the USA. (Latency matters, but not equally for everything.)
Oh no, don’t worry. Big tech will get exemptions and write offs.
A bit of chip history: Taiwan Semiconductor (the current pseudo-monoply in cutting edge processor making) rose as Taiwan the country transitioned from a dictatorship to democracy.
They got state funding, and support for thier business as trade opened up. To simplify, it was like a mix of hyper free-trade capitalism and technocratic command economy/socialism no one on either end of political spectrum would like. And it worked! It’s still working.
The CHIPS act in the US was a baby step in that direction, which (even with Intel’s incredible corporate dysfunction) got me excited.
…And that is basically the opposite of what Trump is proposing.
Basically, take away Intel/Micron/IBM subsidies and tax the shit out of their existing overseas business. And deregulate them instead of directing them.
In other words, drain their capital, and give them free reign to think short term as their manufacturing circles the drain.
To be fair to Trump, most business people do not grasp how indescribably capital/research intense processor manufacturing is. Investment is in the many billions, planning takes decades and is extremely technical, and dependent on economic and research forecasts. They have to be forced to think long term, given truckloads of cash to do it, and not get derailed by quarterly earnings targets and cutting long-term projects on the vine for quick cash.
But still… this is like the worst thing he could have done, IMO.
Yes, we all know the most successful economic endeavors are funded by taxpayers. Then leeches come in to steal the profits from the public and useful idiots are all-to-proud to support them.
Just look at how Iceland has the cheapest electricity on the planet; it’s because they built their infrastructure using public money without an incentive to maximize profit.
That’s not what I’m implying.
TSMC would not have thrived if it was purely nationalized, and could have easily collapsed into capitalist hell.
For the processor fab business, specifically, the ideal conditions seem to be some kind of bastardized hybrid. Samsung and China Semi are not far from ‘hybrids’ either, while the corpses of pure extremes (GloFo, Intel, the Soviet’s and modern Russia’s computing efforts, DARPA projects, other pure government efforts and some RISC ones) are littered everywhere.
Intel was heading towards a state-supported hybrid, but apparently not anymore (and is now barreling into capitalist collapse).
The other part of what I’m saying is this does not necessarily apply to, say, the hotel business like Trump is channeling, where short term maneuvering and branding pay off more. Nor engergy generation, which is different too (and probably should be nationalized in such a geothermal-heavy place like Iceland).
CHIPS Act. Yet another major Biden win that gets overlooked in favor of shitting on him.
Do it, idiot.
Release the Epstein files.
Every time somebody says this it always makes me think of the scientist from the expanse.
We should definitely release those files it would be really helpful.
“There was a button. I pushed it.” Where’s Holden when you need him?
Fuck, I’m going to have to go back to doing math in my head again, aren’t I?
Just get a slide rule off ebay
Get an abacus before tariffs catch up with them too
It’s not that bad, you go to Youtube & look up your local Indian mathematician
But do it quick while the country can still afford the internet
I still have a Texas instrument scientific calculator. I have never found a calculator app that I like better.
Put of course I was actually allowed to bring it into an exam which would definitely not possible with a phone.
What do you mean “likely pushing up cost of electronics”. That is the literal point of a tariff, to push the prices up and make competing goods more appealing to consumers. The only way it doesnt raise prices is if importers just eat the cost, which they will almost certainly not do and, frankly, shouldn’t do.
I’ll throw in the “well actually” here so no one gets wrapped around the axle — the true point of tariffs are to boost domestic business at the expense of weakening foreign sales. The scales tipped in favor of domestic businesses should be advantageous and arguably a good strategy in some circumstances …in a vacuum. That’s the “well actually” and it’s worth nothing in 2025 because all advantage is nullified if those domestic businesses lack the skill and resources to produce said goods. The industries currently targeted by tariffs are so huge and complex that domestic businesses stand zero chance (even with tariffs) in place to replicate the technology, supply chain, and workforce that would be able to stand competitively toe-to-toe with the global market.
So it’s entirely a tax on Americans by another name, and for zero gain.
In this case there are no competing domestic products though, or few enough as makes little difference. This is just taxation with extra steps.
Yes, I did mean in the ideal sense, there is a functional purpose for raising the prices of foreign goods IF there is a domestic alternative you wish to boost or expand. But the mechanism for the benefit, IF(big if) there is one, is the increase in price. Tariff (ideally) equals targetted price increases. Saying tariffs might raise prices is like saying stabbing you might wound you. I might have a good reason for wounding you, I might not, but the wounding will happen as a direct consequences of my stabbing you, regardless.
In the US the point of tarrifs is to tax the poor to pay for tax breaks for the rich.
Bingo, this is just a way of raising taxes on the poor without “raising taxes”.
CPUs are so expensive, I guess I’ll buy a good old US made abacus instead!
Damn, if only we had some bill that would increase manufacturing of chips domestically. It would be foolish to cancel such a bill while also creating a tariff. How will people favor domestic manufacturing without that manufacturing existing? Surely the president would never do that.
Now to figure out how to play Doom on it.
that’s probably the one thing I’d buy purposely Chinese.
Yes, but the media is willing to lie for him and whatever form necessary to normalize all this
Every American needs to be forced to learn the components of a supply and demand diagram.
The important won’t eat the costs because there’s literally no reason for them to do that.
The tariffs don’t actually upset shipping companies, they literally do not care. They continue to sell the product at exactly the same prices it always cost, once it arrives in a US port, that’s the end of the transaction as far as they are concerned, since the tariffs apply after that, they are irrelevant.
Release the Epstein files
I agree, but I think we should amend this phrase.
Release the UNREDACTED Epstein files
I want it in audiobook format. Read by Will Wheaton.
Excuse me? LeVar Burton is still alive.
This will surely bring manufacturing back to the US /s
America in a few years when no one wants their goods anymore and every country outside the US ramped up production since US is the most unreliable partner ever.
shocked pikachu face
Does the US actually have any domestic manufacturing of anything other than basic commodity products?
There is that YouTuber who’s trying to make a pan scrubber something in the US, and he’s finding it really difficult to be able to find manufacturers for the various components.
It’s a brush for scrubbing barbecue grills, priced at an affordable $87.
I watched part of this announcement and he said something I normally don’t pick up on
“If they have started to build or have plans to build they don’t have to pay the tariff.”
Sounds like.jobs.
But what I heard was it was a discount for the oligarchy. Why do you only get a discount if you are in the position to at least pretend to be building a factory?
And then since prices are now double, you get to import and sell at an easy profit.
Yeah, Apple’s stock went up 5% yesterday because of Tim Cook’s meeting with Trump (where he promised $600 billion investment in US manufacturing), and Apple’s saying they won’t be affected by the new 50% tariffs on India. There are also ghost factories that were built during Trump’s first term.
Which literally means they have to announce fake plans to build which be continually delayed until at least 2028
Even once it opens, it’s cheaper to pay taxes on an empty factory than it is to pay tariffs or American workers.
Plus of course the problem that chip manufacturing is not a US traditional industry, so there probably isn’t that much skilled labor.
Ironically they’re probably going to end up having to hire foreign nationals.
