[MichaelCorleone]

Christmas is all about the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

It is far too commercialized anyway, so it shouldn’t matter either way.

Besides, if there is not enough money to go around, go out and make more - yes, you can still do that in today’s America. What a concept!

[butlerweave]

Coal for Dems , Oh wait the Dems have banned Coal

[VeniVidiVici]

As if the Democrats really care about Christmas.

[stinkerpot65]

Democrats are lying scum.

[Rio]

Everybody freaking out when the negotiations are just getting started.

Art of the Deal

[rktman]

WUT? Srsly? We get told continually that OF IT is the ruin of everything. Right? Sounds like winning to me.

[semimojo]

This is an exceptionally disingenuous article. The author is knowingly trying to deceive you.

From the article:

"The reason Trump’s tariffs don’t have much (if any) observable effect on consumer prices is that the tariff rate is not applied to the product’s retail price, wholesale price, nor even its import price. Instead, tariffs are levied on the first sale price—the price paid to foreign vendors by American companies or their middlemen."

The author's lying. Most import duties are levied on the invoice cost from the supplier, not the "first sale price" as claimed.

Only certain transactions qualify for first sale price tariffs and the examples cited by the author later clearly don't qualify.

In fact, the most recent figures I could find said less than 3% of US imports qualified for first sale price tariffs.

"American stores buy their toasters from Chinese manufacturers. But because of China’s (intentionally) convoluted regulatory framework, they often buy them via middlemen located in Hong Kong, Singapore, or Taiwan. These middlemen charge somewhere in the neighborhood of $14 per toaster.

And of course these middlemen don’t work for free: they buy the toasters directly from Chinese factories for $7 per toaster. This is the first sale price, and tariffs are calculated on this figure. Thus the hypothetical 10 percent tariff charged on a Black & Decker toaster that retails for $60 works out to just 70 cents."

The author would have you believe that a manufacturer produces a product for $7 and then pays a middleman almost 300% of the cost just to ship it to the US.

Remember, if the middleman adds any significant value the transaction isn't eligible for first sale price tariffs so the 300% markup isn't adding any value.

The good news is I think most FReepers can see through this deception.