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40 sats \ 5 replies \ @kepford 11 Apr \ parent \ on: Bob Murphy on Tariffs and the Triffin Dilemma econ
Caught myself ranting about how ignorant most people seem to be about economics when talking in favor of tariffs. It is like a case study in sports team political thinking. Then you have the hypocrites in the democrat side that all of a sudden have a problem with taxes and suddenly realize they have consequences... Its something to watch.
Now, there are people that recognize tariffs are being used as leverage and they aren't good per se. But, that's not most people in my experience.
The anti-tariff argument that annoys me is the assertion that the entire cost gets passed through to the consumer.
- That's not how tax incidence ever works
- Why are foreign countries so angry, if none of the burden falls on their side?
I agree that the realpolitik argument for tariffs is the most common one with economic merit. I just find those folks to generally be ethically grotesque.
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Good summary. I co-sign this.
entire cost gets passed through to the consumer.
Yeah... I mentioned Apple's margin yesterday. Sure Apple could pass 100% of the tariffs to consumers but this also could backfire and actually hurt them more than absorbing some of the cost and diminish the effect on sales by keep prices lower.
What is so appealing to the Austrian view to me is the human action portion. Really we are talking about choices made by millions of individuals. Most people dumb things down far to much. Learning from this school has taught me that I and others need to be much more humble about what we think may happen.
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