Summary
Americans, frustrated with high prices despite a strong economy, voted for change with Donald Trump’s election. Trump promises to reverse Biden-era policies, vowing steep tariffs, tax cuts, and mass deportations.
Economists warn his plans could worsen inflation, increase the federal deficit, and destabilize growth. The Peterson Institute predicts Trump’s tariffs could drive up costs for American consumers, while deportations could shrink GDP by $5.1 trillion.
His proposed tax cuts could add $4.1 trillion to the deficit, while economists question his willingness to address fiscal imbalances through spending cuts.
I am too, which is why am buying appliances I’ve been putting off and a gaming PC before the end of the year and getting my garden ready to go and got my deep freezer full of food.
Oh just to share the phyrric victory of Trump’s last round of tariffs.
https://taxfoundation.org/blog/international-trade-commission-tariffs/
TLDR:
Through one lens, the tariff policy was a success. Imports of washers declined steadily between 2017 and 2022. The ITC reports that imports were 90 percent lower in 2022 than they were in 2017. As a consequence, the “domestic industry gained market share and improved its financial performance during the 2018-22 period,” the ITC determined.
The irony, however, is that the entire increase in domestic market share was driven by washers made by Samsung and LG in their new U.S. factories. The fortunes of the incumbent domestic manufacturers not only failed to improve—they continued to decline.
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The results suggest that cheap imports were not the problem for incumbent domestic producers who sought protections, nor were the protectionist tariffs the solution. Incumbent producers proved unable to compete before and after the protections.
In the case of the washers it still generated USA based jobs. I think the major concern is things that aren’t manufactured in the USA atscale or at all. Computer chips come to mind with the majority being imported. It’ll take time to build factories and train workers.
The CHIPS act already kicked off that process. Of course Trump will take credit for it once those factories are online in a few years.
Another concern is just where the labor is supposed to come from
The USA unemployment rate is currently below the long term average and they’re planning for mass deportations.
What are they going to give up doing in order to restart basic manufacturing?
The point of that Trump tarrif plan was to bolster the current American company manufacturing and did nothing but cost American manufacturing companies and the continued decline of actual American companies.
This cockamamie plan for blanket tariffs isn’t going to produce anything close to washers and like you said chips.
Speaking of computer chips, which Biden/Harris spurred on with the CHIPS Act with a TSMC plant in Arizona, that has problems getting skilled workers, we import a lot of raw materials to produce then as well as higher cost of labor. Add tariffs.
Now think of food, we actually export a ton of it. Now think about tariffs, those going down just like with Trump tariffs when other countries retaliated in the trade war, costing billions.
We import a shit ton of food, both in season and out of season, why do you think we still have tomatoes in winter. Blanket tariffs and good luck bringing that back that never existed.
Same goes for clothing, shoes, we don’t make those we don’t have the factories, labor, or enough raw materials. Tariffs.
I’m not against targeted tariffs, they can produce results, though like above might not be what you actually wanted, but this trumpian fever dream isn’t a smart idea.
which is why am buying appliances
I half wondered if the market spiked so much because some people expect a huge uptick in spending (for the next two months) by people that are bracing for the tariff impact.
Fwiw, appliances and computers have not really been affected by inflation, it’s more housing, health care, childcare, groceries and gas
Trump’s tariffs will impact appliances and computer parts. All that stuff is made abroad and most brands are foreign brands and the Chinese brands will get taxed even higher.
So
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We’re not talking about inflation due to COVID and corporate price gouging, we’re taking about tariffs.
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Appliances and computers would suffer from tariff-induced inflation because the parts come from China and elsewhere not the US.
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Housing was affected, mostly new home prices, with his Canadian lumber tarrifs. Which is another story of tarrifs not always working as intended.
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Hey, the stock market and crypto went up even HIGHER and donvict is not even in office. Aren’t they all millionaires now?
But I’m told that economic indicators like that are not something the qons are interested in, because “but I felt poor, you guyyz!!!1111”
We’ll see how long that lasts, won’t we? The same dumbshits that were blathering on about how eggs were costing $20 each and bacon went up 11-bazillion-percent are going to be pointing at the stock market if that is doing ok, and corporations are still gouging away on grocery prices…
You goddamn rubes. You’ve fucked us all.
Lol. You’re gonna get fucked you idiots.
He’s going to undo Biden-era policies that attempted to correct Trump-Era policies so he can continue making shit policy.
And he has a corrupt supreme court to rubber stamp every unconstitutional law he proclaims.
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it, good and hard.” - H.L. Mencken
People about to be surprised that the leopards are eating their faces.
The economic situation is a 50 year problem. Since 1973 the bottom half of Americans wages went up only $3 despite inflation. Good luck Trump, you won’t get through this trap you have set for yourself
Good. Bring on the economic pain. The worst case scenario is if he actually improved things while doing the evil he promised
Tariffs/wars will show a long term price hike, but there will be some products that decrease in price giving people strawmen. When countries place tariffs back against us, our exports will drop. When they do those products will have a surplus until they slow production to meet new expectations. When they have the surplus the prices will drop to sell the extra product. Once that product line is sold, and they lower their production to get their profit margins back up, that’s when prices will increase for those products. Last time soybeans were one of those products I believe.
Prices will come down in two weeks everyone. Just like their infrastructure plan, their ACA replacement, his taxes…
They’ll come down even before he is in office, because “the markets anticipate his miraculousness, you silly libs!”
Economic change will come. Food +15-35% Imported goods +20-45% Taxes will rise Wages will stagnate Unions will be busted Social services will be discontinued
If tariffs are instated, unions will gain a huge amount of leverage in those industries domestically, even with a hostile NLRB.
Except they won’t be able to exercise that leverage for years, bringing manufacturing home is not just flipping a light switch. We don’t even have basics
Yeah, of course. Some industries were already starting the onshoring though, and there’s going to be a ton of lobbying by industries to actually not implement those tariffs, so we’re not even sure this is going to happen.
You think fascists aren’t going to criminalize unions? The constitution, rule of law, precedent… None of these arbitrary barriers mean anything to tyrants, especially tyrants with no checks ave balances; commanding the most advanced war machine in history.
All of this has happened before, and ~100 million people were murdered or killed. That’s the equivalent of 400-500 million today. Europe and Asia were leveled. Nobody had nukes until the final 2 months, and those were all of the nukes in existence. Today there are several thousand.
A general strike is basically the only check left, and it’s definitely not going to be pretty. But it’s not like there’s anything else you can count on, the courts are in his pocket, police love Trump, Congress will enable him, so it’s unions or there’s nothing else left.
Good luck with the tariffs, fascist bootlickers ❤
People genuinely don’t understand this and it’s scary.
I feel like I’m going crazy explaining what a tariff is to people over and over who have never heard the word before but are praising it as a way to make everything cheaper and boost our economy
The same dumb-dumbs think Elon is both a brilliant businessman in the way he’s running Xitter (now worth 80% less. I don’t have an MBA, but I think that might not be a good way to run a business), AND think he would be just perfect for “fixing” our “wasteful” government spending.
SMH.
You silly! Elon told us he’s running it as a “reverse start-up”.
I predict increase in marijuana sales over the next four years.
Guns
Stay strapped, friends.
If the Heritage Foundation gets its way you won’t be able to buy weed legally.
Nah, there’s a good chance the DEA will continue enforcing federal laws even in states that have legalised it.
I imagine weed will become illegal again… along with porn. Family values…
Tinfoil hat time. What if Trump convinced food CEOs to make everything expensive and then when he returns they put the prices down.
Occam’s Razor time, he doesn’t have to do anything because we are on the downslope of the inflation. He just has to sit there and tweet for a year, then claim credit. And the same low information voters who said it was Biden’s fault bread went from $2 to $5, will praise his economic prowess.
Who the hell is buying $5 bread.
I was actually quoting a buddy of mine. That was his reasoning:
If a loaf of bread goes from $2 to $5 in one presidential term somebody fucked up
You have to love those GOP talking points. State some facts, then intentionally come to all the wrong conclusions. World class whiners.
If inflation works like it has in the past, prices are not returning to their prior amounts, though. The brainstems won’t be able to grasp that, I’d wager.
Exactly.
If inflation is 10% in one year and falls to 2% the next then stuff is still 12% more expensive than it was two years ago.
I can’t help wondering how many people who voted in the last election understand this though. Single digits?
Given my time on this planet and how I’ve seen get very basic things related to math so very, very wrong, I would say it’s likely to be a disappointing answer.
Remember, those CEOs are also all trump sycophant idiots. They’ll artificially lower costs further, to sell the lie, trump admin will make up the difference, and then some, on “lost” profits in tax breaks for the rich. Then, once he can take credit, they’ll start to raise again, blame China or another country for rising prices as they climb back up and surpass current.
That will be the paper plan though, in reality, he’ll lose his focus and just say it out loud halfway through.
Another … Brexit
All over again
