I hate to bother you again, but you've just written pretty much exactly what you wrote here last night, RE: "Buy American and you don't have to pay the tax."
One more time I tell you you are wrong, i.e. in fact you DO have to pay for the tariff if you buy American. Once a tariff is in place, the low cost option is gone, and all buyers MUST pay more, a reality due solely to the existence of the tariff. Hence your statement is patently false. You admit that an import tariff raises domestic prices, which would seem to be in line with my thinking here. So note that there MUST be money spent over and above what would have been necessary without the tariffs. This money must be accounted for. Already, the tariff has harmed a foreign business and caused us to pay more for the same goods. That extra money spent would have otherwise gone to something else, creating other goods/jobs now never to be known, due to the existence of the tariff. Domestic industry now doesn't need to improve in order to meet the foreign competition, which removes any motivation to improve the product now sellable due only to the tariff on the competition. Without the tariff, the motivation to meet the competition would remain strong, causing potential innovation. What do tariffs give us? Preservation of status quo and stagnancy. Truths such as this are real as the dickens, believe it or not Craig.
Running the country like a corporation has nothing to do with it. You persist in imagining that tariffs are a political decision having nothing to do with dollars and cents(not to mention jobs lost), and nothing could be further from the truth of both the functioning and the effect of tariffs, plainly. You don't show any interest in gauging the harm done, and therefore can't possibly offer a credible conclusion as to the long-term harm I'm assuring you tariffs must do, VS the short term limited(exceedingly limited, if I should continue explaining consequences) protection provided. Indeed, when the perceived benefit of tariffs is shown to be far more than offset by the loss of efficiences and overall jobs(as shown above), you rail against the need for efficiency, saying we are not a corporation. Duh...!!!! But we are NOT immune to the actual loss of efficiencies and jobs, especially not in the long run. Hardship is hardship. It is NOT good, and it will add up to much sour ado for us all, if the likes of you have their way.
Knuckleheads? You obviously haven't a clue, fool! :-)
Dan B |
