There Are No Tariffs on Coffee. Care to Guess Why?

FEE ^ | March 10, 2017 | Donald J. Boudreaux

[central_va]

To tell you the truth I do not think many "renowned" economists know much about history at all. None seem to know the US Constitution codifies tariffs and duties as a vehicle for the Feds to raise revenues.

There are three major hoaxes in the modern world:

Free Trade is good for everyone.

The theory of evolution is "settled" science.

Global warming(climate change) is an existential threat to man-kind.

[Baynative]

When the coffee craze began Bob Newhart - Walter Raliegh call to England

[central_va]

Domestic producers of expensive stuff should either have to get the cost down or find something else to do. It should not be an option to go to Congress for legislative relief.

Another Freeper that has never read the Constitution.

The US Constitution gives the Federal Govt every right to tax imports for any reason they deem necessary either to raise revenue or protect domestic industry, or both.

[Baynative]

BLACK RIFLE COFFEE - a company started by vets, run by vets, employing vets, and contributing to both veteran and active duty warriors.

[bigtoona]

Exactly! At the birth of our nation, I believe tariffs were the only method of funding the federal government. Maybe they are not a bad idea after all.

[central_va]

Tariffs make goods more expensive for a while, until domestic competition steps up and lowers the prices.

Fixed.

[central_va]

The japs were two years behind in radar and sonar technology. That killed them.

[central_va]

Agriculture is not industry. They are different birds all together.

There are three ways to create wealth mine it, grow it, or make it. The three are different and confusing the issues of one with the other two is disingenuous, that is why Free Traitors™ do it all the time!

[central_va]

Maybe the preamble to the first law every passed and signed by Pres. Washington will help.

"Whereas it is necessary for that support of government, for the discharge of the debts of the United States, and the encouragement and protection of manufactures, that duties be laid on goods, wares and merchandise:"[1]

Income taxes are evil. Composition taxes are less evil.

[saleman]

I would bet that there are farm subsidies that domestic coffee farmers take advantage of.

[GladesGuru]

Trust me on this, coffee from that bean should be consumed by Liberals, and only Liberals.

How to describe it . . . .

Essence of nasty comes to mind.

YMMV

[JPJones]

I don’t see millions of US Coffee growers losing their jobs...

[JPJones]

“Get rid of corporate taxes and income taxes and go back to tariffs and sales taxes. “

This MUST be our talking point.

Otherwise we’ll end up with income taxes, corporate taxes AND tariffs and VAT’s.

[JPJones]

“If the purpose of tariffs is to protect American industry, then why don’t we have tariffs on anything produced in the US?”

In the 80’s Reagan slapped a 100% tariff on Japanese motorcycles, saved Harley-Davidson, then the tariffs were lifted.

Just wait until China starts exporting motorcycles, and cars...

[<1/1,000,000th%]

An article on sugar would be more interesting.

[JPJones]

“Exactly! At the birth of our nation, I believe tariffs were the only method of funding the federal government. Maybe they are not a bad idea after all.”

Yup.

[RedWulf]

> Free trade had come close to destroying Russians ability to produce their own food thus opening the nation up to the possibility of being starved to death by an outside power. >> >>Ain't irony great? >> Not really. The Holodomor was purely a Communist operation of the type that Communists always launch on people who do well for themselves. Leftist would starve every farmer to death in America too just to reduce their ability to vote Conservative. Today lots of people like to attribute the horrors of Communist Russia to the Russian people when in reality Communism does the same damn mass murder where ever it pops up. Hitler's plan for beating Russia was to starve them to death by taking the Ukraine. However didn't count on the USA's amazing ability to feed all of Russia for the entire war.

[RedWulf]

>The japs were two years behind in radar and sonar technology. That killed them.

Nope. What killed them was their inability to replace their losses. Even if we’d lost at midway Japan would have been fallen around the same time.

[RedWulf]

>Could someone who knows about tariffs, please answer these questions:
>If the purpose of tariffs is to raise revenue, then why don’t we have tariffs on everything applied equally?

We haven’t had tariffs for funding since the income tax.

>If the purpose of tariffs is to protect American industry, then why don’t we have tariffs on anything produced in the US?

Huh? They’re designed to increase American industry not to protect those industry from local competition.

>To me, a hodgepodge of tariffs at different rates looks far more like politicians rewarding favored industries (contributors) and punishing enemies.

All political policies are as you describe it. The question is whether that political corruption serves our over all interests or not and in the case of restoring our manufacturing base it surly does.

[morphing libertarian]

maybe adjust tariff is by country based upon their trade policies toward us.