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Are Trump's tariffs supposed to "make America rich again" or put stocks on sale for bottom feeding billionaires.

devildavid said:
The fact is the rich are extracting wealth from wherever they can extract it. Since they get richer and the poor get poorer it looks like wealth does in part come from the poor.
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Demagoguery proclaiming the voluntary choice of consumers to buy goods and services as "extracting wealth" is classic Marxist class warfare. It doesn't stand up to real world scrutiny. Take for example the smart phone developed under the autocratic leadership of Apple CEO Steven Jobs with private investment, consumers lined up to buy the innovation at substantial cost. Today cell phones with similar capabilities are ubiquitous across all economic classes. Was the cell phone evolution from a costly technophile accessory to ubiquity extracting wealth or technological progress driven by capitalism?
Stage a show? Conspire and collude? Ask the makers of the Blackberry once the dominant hand held device if the cell phone was staged. Where is evidence of collusion?

Here’s what I wrote.
"If the 1% were satisfied with what they had they wouldn't have made it to the 1%. It's an attribute of success just as Democrat career politicians demanding we must punish success in business is a product of envy."
Where you got an endorsement of unquenchable greed is a mystery.

devildavid said:
The vulture capitalism is happening every day in this country as there is zero interest by the rich in bringing back manufacturing here because that costs more than what they can easily profit from by feeding off of the destruction of companies.
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Haven't been paying attention to the trillions in new investment capital pouring into the US?
Another CT to justify government meddling in the free market.
 
devildavid said:
Yes, it does. What is worse is the false hope that somehow things will all turn out ok even as Trump trashes everything and we should passively wait it out because things always magically get better.
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I get it. Whatever Trump is doing now is worse than the great depression, worse than the S&L collapse, worse than the 2008 crash, worse than the dot-com crash, worse than shutting down absolutely everything over covid, worse than Germany in the 30s, worse than any otherr economic downturn in the history of the universe...I get it. That's what I say that it sucks.
 

They extract the wealth by exploitation of cheap labor.

It is the greed of the 1% that motivated them to become the 1% and it doesn’t ever magically disappear at any level of wealth. You still contradict yourself.

There are not trillions of investments pouring into the US. There is no evidence to support this false claim.
 

What Trump is doing now could lead to a depression. And it could be worse than any in the past. And he is doing it on purpose, for no good reason. He is causing something that he doesn’t have to and that can only have negative consequences. This is a man who bankrupted a freaking casino, where the house always wins.
 

Tariffs are government meddling in the free market.
 
Gozaburo said:
Who would you call his benefactors? Musk? Thiel? How is venture capital helped by a devastated stock market and highly skeptical investors?



This is the most likely of the three, although I don't even think this is very descriptive.
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Apply tariffs.

Rich ****s buy everything at fire sale prices.

Remove tariffs.

Rich ****s own damn near everything.
 
Hamish Howl said:
Apply tariffs.

Rich ****s buy everything at fire sale prices.

Remove tariffs.

Rich ****s own damn near everything.
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They already own everything. The vast majority of their wealth is in finance and the stock market. There's no reason we should suppose they would take massive losses to (in theory) scrape the bottom of the barrel from the middle, particularly when they do much better in an investment-friendly economy where they can poach assets the middle class actually does have, like real estate.

No. I think it's much more likely Trump either has terrible advisors OR he thinks this is some 4D chess move to shuffle debt around. Ignorance is the far more likely catalyst.
 
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You're 100% right. We have never seen this kind of economic decline before. We have never experienced this high a probability of global destruction. The end is nigh!!!!!
 
It's sabotage and looting. Look at which entities, both foreign and domestic, benefit from the chaos, and there you go.
 
forn said:
I've been hearing about wealthy investors selling off their stock for about the past six months now. Not sure what the reason was though. Maybe they were just expecting a correction.
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Treasury Secretary Bissent touches upon this point at the 5:42 mark when he was interviewed by Carlson.



The rest of the interview is well worth watching, too.

Here are the various topic discussed.

0:00 Trump’s Tariff Plan
5:42 The Current State of the Stock Market
8:22 Will Americans See Substantial Tax Cuts Because of Tariffs?
13:16 How Much Money Will America Make Through Tariffs?
14:33 Bringing Manufacturing Back to the US
20:14 Tariff Pushback From Foreign Countries
22:16 Will China Retaliate?
25:42 How Will Europe Be Impacted?
33:12 Is the Upper Class Out of Touch With the Lower and Middle Class?
35:47 Bessent’s Biggest Worries
42:35 The Long Term Benefits of DOGE
46:17 The Corruption of the Federal Reserve
49:22 Why Gold Is So Critical Right Now
52:13 Zelensky’s Self-Sabotaging Negotiation Tactics
1:00:19 The Trump Administration’s Messaging About the Economy​
 
The stock market is down because at this point in time no one knows what the rules are. And no one will until we find out which countries negotiate, and what they negotiate. Once that happens, the stock market will stabilize.

I'm not necessarily a big fan of the tariffs, but doing nothing ensures that the US continues its decline, our manufacturing remains down, and we continue to transfer large amounts of wealth to other countries.
 

I think turning every country on the planet into an economic adversary will cause the decline of the US much quicker.
 
How much bigger do you think US GDP should be?

We've successfully transformed into a Service based Economy.

The Importance of Service Industries in Economic Growth | Essay Example

Are you investigating the service economy? Check out this essay example! It examines the service industry and its importance in business.
ivypanda.com

We can target increased manufacturing for certain industries in a far more reasonable way.
 
CimpleMan said:
We can target increased manufacturing for certain industries in a far more reasonable way.
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We all know Trump could be more diplomatic, and reasonable. Not sure that's in the cards though.
Being a service economy is one thing, but if global tensions should erupt, it would be good for our national security to have manufacturing capability in our country.
 
Right, we can target those areas and subsidize if needed. Trump is blanketing tariffs haphazardly. Let's have conversations on what needs to be manufactured here and what doesn't.

It's a balancing act for every country in regards to protection for industries. All leaders have to consider what's best for their citizens and needs for their economy's. We are already a wealthy nation so don't see a need to export as much.
 
CimpleMan said:
Right, we can target those areas and subsidize if needed. Trump is blanketing tariffs haphazardly.
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I think most people would be more comfortable with a more methodical approach. Trump likes to move big and fast though, and doesn't have the patience for moving that slowly.
Also, he probably doesn't like the idea that subsidizing costs the government money.

I kind of wonder why libs don't like the tariffs though - they're essentially a tax on big corporations. Isn't that what they want?
 
PRESIDENT FOREST TRUMP
 
Every President uses tariffs. Trump is using at unprecedented levels. Hopefully only temporarily. Trade imbalances are not necessarily good or bad.

Trade Deficit: Advantages and Disadvantages

A trade deficit has pros and cons for a deficit-running country. People get needed products from exports, but foreign capital used unwisely can mean financial trouble.
www.investopedia.com
 
CimpleMan said:
Every President uses tariffs. Trump is using at unprecedented levels. Hopefully only temporarily. Trade imbalances are not necessarily good or bad.
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Agree that trade imbalances are not necessarily good or bad - especially on a country by country basis.
Anyway, hopefully most of these countries will negotiate, and that will make the disruptions more temporary.
 
forn said:
Agree that trade imbalances are not necessarily good or bad - especially on a country by country basis.
Anyway, hopefully most of these countries will negotiate, and that will make the disruptions more temporary.
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All we can do is hope it's temporary. Think damage inflicted longterm is going to be far greater than any returns longterm.

Not going to see any benefits of increased Manufacturing of any kind for quite awhile. In the meantime going to have to rebuild relationships with trading partners.
 
SCrider said:
These tariffs seem to be one of three things:
1: trump is just stupid and drunk on power
2: Trump is just insane
3: a plan to fundamentally change the global economy to benefit Trump's benefactors.
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It can be all three: They want the third so they use the first two to manipulate him.

I'll add a fourth - he desperately wants the approval of the moneyed elites, always has, and will burn the country down to get it.
 
Lutherf said:
You're 100% right. We have never seen this kind of economic decline before. We have never experienced this high a probability of global destruction. The end is nigh!!!!!
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Why is it always this stupid shit with you?

No President in modern history has ever committed an act they knew, its very clear they knew, would harm the economy.

They have done it without any sort of clear plan, they have done it without any real thought and they have done it while having a party and pretending its the greatest thing ever.

In any sane universe, whether you're left, right or whatever, you would see this all for what it is.

Its such a clown show, it's such a travesty, it's clear they put no thought or effort into what they are doing given the evidence strongly shows they may have come up with this entire plan through chatgbt or equivalent and it was such a clown show they tariffed an uninhabited island and that the calculations they gave were a lie.

Come on Luther.

Take off the brain sucking cultist hat you wear and see this all for what it really is.
 
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