I got an unpleasant little surprise a few minutes ago.
For the last few weeks, Donald Trump has been lying about how tariffs against Chinese goods will raise trillions of dollars of Chinese money and pay for any government programs anyone could want.
I would like to believe he doesn’t umderstand tariffs. That would at least make him ignorant but human. Sadly, though, I think he knows exactly what he’s doing, which means he is lying to his followers and is out and out evil.
Don’t forget:
“I love the poorly educated.”
Don’t forget:
“Mexico will pay for the wall.”
To anyone who believes in free markets and free trade, tariffs are nasty things. In fact, tariffs were among the chief causes of the Great Depression nearly a hundred years ago.
Tariffs have only one real purpose — to make imports from other countries more expensive to domestic consumers. Almost without exception, they result in retaliatory tariffs.
And despite Trump’s lies, tariffs on Chinese goods are not paid by China.
As an example:
Let’s say China sells a product to Walmart for $10. Walmart puts it on the shelf and sells it for $15. China gets $10, Walmart gets $5 and the American consumer gets the product for $15.
Then Trump imposes a 100 percent tariff on the product. China still sells it to Walmart for $10, but Walmart has to pay $10 to China and the $10 tariff to the U.S. government. That makes the cost to Walmart $20, so to make the same $5 profit, the consumer has to pay $25.
So here’s the question. The government makes $10 on the sale. So who pays it?
China?
No.
Walmart?
No.
John Q MAGAt pays the $10.
So now for the unpleasant little surprise I mentioned. I read a piece explaining tariffs by billionaire Mark Cuban on the Crooks & Liars website. I thought it would be informative, so I posted it on Facebook with a shorts introduction explaining it.
Within one minute of the time I posted it, Facebook notified me that my post had been taken down. Apparently the problem is that I referred to hardcore Trump supporters as “MAGATs.”
Maybe I should have stuck with my former term of “Trumpanzees.”
Back in the day, someone called me a traitor, an imbecile and a communist. My kids are so tough on me.
In four months, I will have been on Facebook for 16 years.I’ve spent time in the legendary Facebook jail, twice for 30-day sentences. I was writing about hardline religions being a big problem and I referred to hardcore Muslims, Jews and Christians as Muzzies, Jujubes and the Jeebus Folk.
The point was to separate Muslims from Muzzies, etc.
I got a 30-day jaIl sentence and basically said OK, I won’t use those terms anymore. Three months later, I got another 30-day sentence for “Muzzies.” The irony was it was for a post written five years before the other one.
So do I finally abandon Facebook? Probably not. There are old friends and relatives who mean the world to me and my only real way of keeping in touch with them is through Facebook Just this year, I made contact on Facebook with a friend I hadn’t seen in 39 years. He was the one who introduced me to my first wife and was one of the groomsmen in my wedding.
I was surprised to see he is a big-time Trumper, but that matters so little to me. He was a wonderful friend and I am glad to be in contact with him again.
I have a first cousin who lives in Ohio that I haven’t seen since a family funeral in 1990. When we left Ohio in 1963, I was 13 and I think she was 4. To the best of my knowledge, we never had a conversation, but now she is my friend and that means so much to me.
Many of my high school and college friends and fraternity brothers are on Facebook. I have even begun a friendship with a writer I like very much who lives in the United Kingdom.
Even this website has benefitted. I post every piece I write on Facebook, and we’re closing in on 300,000 page views on the soite.
So I’ll stick it out.
I’ll just have to think of a better term for MAGATs.