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Before engaging, let's get this settled: do you believe that the US economy operates on a zero sum basis?

No it's not zero sum but it can also not be benefiting a ton of people. Which is what I said..

Here's what I don't get about this: Trump's main campaign promise was to raise prices for American consumers (via tariffs) and to harm the lowest wage earners the most (tariffs as sales taxes are regressive).

Going against "business as usual" resulted in higher prices, as predicted and promised.

Nearly everyone here benefited from lower prices afforded by reduced trade barriers. This isn't some obscure hidden fact.

The mistake here is letting the word benefit do all the heavy lifting. You cannot define benefit in a superficial way and expect things to make sense. Notions like "let them eat cake", or trickle-down-economics, also abuse and distort the notion of benefit. "System X benefitted all Americans in a trivial way" smacks of that kind of false reasoning.

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