It's just false that it's necessarily bad for consumers," Hassett asserted. "And a way to think about it is imagine right now we did the estimate that last year. U.S. companies, U.S.-based companies paid foreign governments $370 billion in taxes. Meanwhile, foreign companies paid the U.S. $57 billion in taxes. So, we mailed foreign governments $370 billion in taxes. And those taxes are being paid for by us citizens. And so if you think that that asymmetry is something that could be addressed and improved upon, and if we did that, it would be good for us citizens."
He continued, "Is it good for us citizens to mail $370 billion to them, while they're sending $57 billion to us? And are we supposed to keep doing that because of some economic model that doesn't have the whole real world in it, that says that we're better off because of inflation if we keep sending $370 billion to foreign governments? It just doesn't make sense. And so if you'd like, we could go to the blackboard and talk about the economic modeling and the elasticity of supply versus demand and all that stuff. But I usually save that for Ali Velshi."U.S. based companies like Apple or Tesla do business in foreign countries the same way those countries have companies doing business here. All such companies are subject to taxation in other countries. So nobody is “mailing” money from America to foreign lands. Those companies are incurring the cost of doing business overseas, just as they do here.
And “foreign countries” in his example covers a lot more real estate than the single country of America, so it’s no surprise taxes here (assuming arguendo he’s not just pulling numbers out of his ass, like Trump or Musk or anybody in the current administration) don’t aggregate to the same amount as taxes from almost all the other countries in the world.
Taxes and tariffs have nothing in common. Taxes are the cost of having a government to supply a stable economy and currency and banking system and laws for commerce and contract , and generally to make doing business possible. Tariffs are trade barriers to protect domestic markets that worked so well in the 19th century that the century, in this country at least, was almost an endless cycle of economic disasters and major recessions, the likes of which would prompt civil unrest in the 21st century. As they did in the 19th and early 20th. One of the major concerns in the early years of the Great Depression was that a violent overthrow of the government and the economic system was a distinct possibility. And tariffs were one of the many causes of that recession.
And this guy is an economist? Allegedly. Is he really this stupid, or does he play this dumb for Trump? All I can say is, when you think you’re smarter than all the other experts on the planet, it’s a sure sign you don’t have a clue.
He's a University of Pennsylvania product, you know, one of the minor Ivys, the same one that gives courtesy degrees to the Trump family. I think what you have to be to work for Trump or be a Republican these days is a frickin' liar.
ReplyDelete