Also when talking about tariffs reducing demand and inflating prices, I think it’s important to note that’s partly true. It doesn’t raise prices of domestic goods and actually increases demand for domestic goods.
As a counter example, Thomas Piketty argues at length that taxation and wealth redistribution remain an effective way to bolster a societies resilience and lessen wealth inequality - which is still a very real issue in the world, and arguably one that the US shows can have very real negative consequences for letting it go unaddressed.
As for demand and inflating prices, yeah, domestic products may be more attractive, but the economy is huge, and much of it does not have a domestic allegory. The other issue here is the tax is on all imports, not only manufactured goods, which means raw materials - which often have to be sourced elsewhere - make manufacturing more expensive even domestically
> and much of it does not have a domestic allegory
Well some would argue that's the problem. Maybe now we will? Idk.
While nothing does, the actual discussion around it isn't allowing any room for non-tariff tax increases regardless.
Neither tariffs nor cost cutting, unless it targets major programs such as Social Security or Medicaid, will have an effect on the national debt or the deficit.
It’s all marketing.
The social safety net in this country is already terrible, making it more terrible by cutting the programs won't be better for anyone except a slice of the wealthy
Tangentially:
It’s wild how inconsistent the public and political reactions are to different ways of getting revenue. Take this common pattern:
When DOGE identifies billions of dollars in waste, fraud, or unnecessary spending, the reaction is often: "That’s only 0.01% of the federal budget. It’s nothing!"
But when someone proposes a tax on billionaires that would over time raise a similar amount suddenly the reaction flips: "We’ll solve inequality! Fund healthcare!"
This contradiction is everywhere. How can $20 billion in government savings be "nothing," while $20 billion in new tax revenue is "transformational"? It's the same money.
Regardless, "taxing the rich" is not one mediocre policy, but several interdependent policies. It's not just picking the 5 richest people in the world and taking their money. The transformation doesn't come from redistributing $20 billion (wherever that figure is from) but encouraging executives to reinvest into their company instead of trying to suck as much cash out as possible.
Bobby Kotick making $155 million a year while Activison lays off hundreds of employees is insane. What on God's earth could you possibly need more than $20 million a year for? That is not right no matter you slice it. That money needs to be aggressively taxed so it is instead used to keep people employed at a much lower tax rate, not in the hopes that the government can use it for spending.
Surely there's plenty of waste in federal spending but I suspect the vast majority is not going to be blatant and easy to identify
> NPR's analysis found that, of its verifiable work completed so far, DOGE has cut just $2 billion in spending — less than three hundredths of a percent of last fiscal year's federal spending.
> "Think of Congress and its budget as the debt-ridden dad on the way to buy a $250,000 Ferrari on the credit card, and DOGE is the $2 off gas card he used along the way," Riedl said. "It's great that he saved $2 on gas, but I think his wife may be more concerned about the $250,000 car."
https://www.npr.org/2025/02/19/nx-s1-5302705/doge-overstates...
Did DOGE actually identify significant levels of any of this or is it simply labeled that for the expedited purpose of shrinking the federal government's effectiveness by any means possible?
They've been far less than transparent with the data that supports their findings and have been called out numerous times for misrepresentation[0][1][2][3] and lack of transparency which took a lawsuit to at least partially recitify[4]
[0]: https://www.npr.org/2025/02/19/nx-s1-5302705/doge-overstates...
[1]: https://www.npr.org/2025/03/01/nx-s1-5313853/doge-savings-re...
[2]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/02/19/here-are...
[3]: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/doge/doge-days-musk-trump-t...
[4]: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/11/judge-orders...
https://chatgpt.com/share/67eebae2-df3c-800b-aba9-6e36c04810...
I liked Sowell's book, "Wealth, Poverty and Politics". Can you recommend one of Piketty's books?
> raw materials - which often have to be sourced elsewhere
Is that necessarily true? The US has abundant natural resources. Tesla could be mining lithium a few hundred miles away from their factory instead of importing it...
I'd say start with Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty. Its a great read, if a bit thick (its a very large tome indeed and very information dense)
>Is that necessarily true? The US has abundant natural resources. Tesla could be mining lithium a few hundred miles away from their factory instead of importing it...
Its about access, cost, amount, etc. One company getting lithium is a rounding error. The entire market for lithium is bigger than Tesla and even electric cars. Then there is the entire question of how fast you can get the lithium online. Its not like most (if any) of the businesses reliant on lithium - which again, more than just auto makers certainly - take in raw lithium and produce something with it. It is typically pre-processed depending on its use. So that needs to come online too. Also, is there enough of the US workforce that can get this material online quickly? We're talking years before something comes online in sufficient quantity to be meaningful, let alone replace other sources.
Then you have to ask how much of the given resource do we even have? Whats the quality? Not all lithium deposits are the same, after all.
And many more questions I am not likely thinking about, and this is only in regard to lithium. Think about the raw materials for everything in our lives - gold, silver, uranium, iron etc. and you'll find in more cases than not its simply unfeasible to start mining & processing it in the US, you will have to import it.
Your idea of what this takes is, frankly, a bit too simplistic to be realistic or useful until it answers all of these kinds of questions.
First off, capital flight is not a good argument against high wealth taxes, it's an argument for more controls to prevent people from doing this, so they are forced to reinvest in business.
The wealth tax was in for a meager 2 years, and the richest in the country started calling it "anti-business" even though they were transparently refusing to reinvest that money in their company. Anti-business is shorthand for "We can't hire the 1 high-earner executive we want to play golf with instead of the 100 lower level employees that would actually help the economy."
Instead, they kept THEIR salaries and ate that tax cost, and told their employees they would suffer during these times. It was a coordinated effort to discredit something that was meant to create more jobs. Much like when Saudi Arabia artificially restricted oil until after the 2020 election. And the administration had no controls on this.
So yes, high taxes on the rich by themselves are worthless, but that doesn't mean those policies coupled with tighter controls aren't essential for wealth inequality.
Of course, conservative news is going to talk about this in the context of debt, and claim because the amount raised did not match the debt (moronic) that it was clearly a bad idea to tax the rich, when the real takeaway is there needs to be more controls and a bigger spotlight on how these scumbags jerk the system around. At the end of the day, they are trying to keep their yachts and their massive, unnecessary mortgages, and will fight tooth and nail to do so, and anyone falling for news stories about "oh it didn't work in 2 years, my boss said I was going to take a salary cut" is helping that agenda and nothing else.
>Mr Piketty’s second criticism touches on Mr Hollande’s tax policy. For years the French economist has argued for a more progressive tax system, which would merge both income tax, currently paid by only half of French households, and the “contribution sociale généralisée”, a non-progressive social charge paid by all. This too was one of Mr Hollande’s campaign promises. Yet the president has shelved any plans to overhaul the tax structure, preferring instead simply to increase taxes on the middle-classes and the rich.
[0]: https://www.economist.com/europe/2015/01/02/pikettys-snub
Have you ever tried to purchase electronics in Brazil? I don't know if that increased demand for domestic goods is necessarily a good thing...
Interestingly, Lua came out of Brazil for these reasons...
But domestic producers will surely increase their prices to match their foreign competitors’ tariffed prices.
How are those things related? Are poor people bribing politicians to increase taxes?
US homes tend not to be built with Japanese techniques.
(He actually was interviewed yesterday and he was very much not a fan of the tariffs.)
As usual, libertarianism is used as a justification for corporate fascism, mercantilism, taxes on the poor… basically the Republican agenda. Funny how that works.