patrick.net

Patrick says

Here’s how it works in real life: If a Chinese plasma TV costs $1,000 and there’s a 10% tariff, the U.S. government collects $100. Walmart tells the Chinese supplier, “We’re not eating that cost. Cut your price to $900 or we’ll stop buying.” So the Chinese factory promptly cuts its price to stay in business.

The result is that the U.S. Treasury gets paid, Chinese exporters take the loss, and American consumers barely notice. ...

How does the Treasury collect $100 on a tariff that isn't paid because Amazon never bought that TV for $1,000?

And if they pay $900 for that TV don't they still pay a $90 tariff?

Answer: new lower $900 price plus tariff is $990 for that TV.

Dude needs to explain it better than he did.

https://open.substack.com/pub/quoththeraven/p/your-discomfort-means-its-working

And as I said at the beginning of the article, it has been one day. One goddamn day.


The shock of this event will eventually begin to wear off, and we will achieve a new level of homeostasis—just maybe with financial asset prices lower. Future volatility may come from a cascading deleveraging in the financial world, and I don’t see this as a negative either. Does Fartcoin still have a bid? Yes? Well then, all the excess that should have been carried out has not been carried out yet. And who knows—maybe at about the same time the lower and middle class starts to get their financial footing, stocks will actually return to somewhat of a reasonable valuation so that John Q. Public can get a chance to take a bite of the apple.

I know what this sign means!

It is used in many countries. It means, "American tariffs are fucking us soon!"

I’ve noticed that people who literally want a tax on cow farts are very upset about these tariffs.

The people who overpaid for a ridiculous Tesla also complain.

AmericanKulak says

Ford strikes while the Iron is hot.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/ford-motor-company-offer-employee-pricing-all-u-s-shoppers-handshake-deal-every-american

Caredge interviewed a couple of wired in dealers today. This doesn't mean prices will drop and not go up, just that we'll get the employee price whatever that ends up being.

Maybe the best they can do though?

DeportLibtards says

Looks like meme guy’s got a a new coffee mug.

That drivel about Jonny Q Public not buying stonks, because they are "expensive" is reatrded AF.
62% of the public owns stonks. And if history is any guide regular people buy less stonks after a major crash, not more. Some stayed on the sidelines for 5-6 years after the great liberation of 2008.

But I can see some billionaires with insider info about how Afghanistan-like the tariff rolout was going to be shorting the shit out of stonks.

The one thing Liberation Day hasn't liberated us from is all the globalist bullshit being posted now about 'free trade' and 'Smoot-Halley'.

Rustbelt bros are really bummed they won’t be able to visit the Bordeaux wine regions of France this year.



"It ain't much. But it's Europe."

RWSGFY says

But if your paycheck is the same, your 401k is in the toilet and the prices are up 10-30% the consumer sentiment will go to shit and we'll have the recession, layoffs and all the jazz while Fed won't be able to cut rates because inflation is still too high.

Or we just don't buy from foreign countries and they lower their price. Outside of a few agricultural products, almost everything can be done here in the US. A car company like BMW will either stop selling cars here or lower their prices, as Americans won't buy them anymore.

Never understood this assumption that this would raise prices here. We just don't buy it and put it on our shelves or wherever. Might see some imported products go short or disappear, who cares? Think about what one REALLY needs on a day to day basis. We've been getting screwed as the world largest market.

For the 401k part I'd be waiting anyway to see if Trump does more tax cuts if you're close to retirement age. If you saved properly the dividends should cut the current paper losses to a minimal amount and it will rebound anyway.

Tucker interviews Scott Bessent



https://x.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1908204378613248067

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/the-first-seal-friday-april-4-2025

Most of the other FAANG+ companies announced plans to soon spend multiple billions in the US. Amazon, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle, Softbank, and Meta— together they announced last week over a trillion dollars in new domestic investment.

So … Trump’s tariff plan started working well before he announced it on Liberation Day. The FAANG+ tech leaders were already moving back toward more familiar shores. The hit would have been much worse if these moves weren’t already on the record. ...

Now pay close attention. It’s impossible to overestimate the mind-blowing possibilities. Despite media’s fake claims, Trump has obviously wargamed this out for a long time, his four years in the wilderness. So … now he’s holding all the cards, what will he ask the world’s countries for? The possibilities are endless and potentially world-changing. Suddenly, he holds all the world’s leaders in the palm of his hand— including, or especially, the countries who helped his deep state enemies further RussiaGate and Crossfire Hurricane. ...

At some point, people will start asking the obvious question: Why didn’t any other U.S. President ever try this before? But this wasn’t something the President dreamed up over breakfast in Trump Tower’s penthouse. It wasn’t easy. This was a brilliant sequence of legal maneuvers, traceable all the way back to his first act as President: declaring a state of economic emergency on January 20th.

It took a dozen moves — each one snapping into place like tumblers in a lock — to reach this moment. Without Congress’s shocking, history-defying compliance, it would never have got off the ground. And now, as of this week, Trump — and Trump alone — holds the world in the palm of his hand.

If the goal to make everything in the US what is the point of NOT giving our own businesses time to prepare, build plants and train people, but instead imposing obscenely high tariffs immediately, risking price increases, layoffs and market crash? Whatever manufacturing invesrment is announced today will be up in runnning early NEXT year at best. The whole thing reeks of stupid. It's like burning your house to cook a steak.

https://x.com/589bull10000/status/1908530416778158421

The Theoretical Basis for Trump’s Tariffs

The theoretical basis for the Liberation Day tariffs can be found in the book Balanced Trade: Ending the Unbearable Cost of America’s Trade Deficits. Written in 2014 by three economic professors, Jesse Richman, Howard Richman, and Ryamond Richman, the book challenges the orthodox theory that free trade is always beneficial and argues for an alternate policy they call balanced trade.

Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs are are calucalted with the exact same formula as the Richmans’ scaled tariffs.

In fact, if you read Trump’s executive order, it reads as if it was written by the Richmans - or at ;east by someone with a copy of their book on their desk as they typed the executive order. If you compare Trump’s executive order to pages 8-11 of Balanced Trade you’ll see it for yourself. Rarely in the history of presidential policy has a scholars policy formulation been so precisely followed.

The only difference is that Trump has also included a national strategic tariff of 10% as a baseline. Trump trade policy is simply Ian Fletcher’s Free Trade Doesn’t Work combined with the Richmans’ Balanced Trade.

https://treeofwoe.substack.com/p/balanced-trade

Notice who wrote the forward?



https://treeofwoe.substack.com/p/against-free-trade

DeportLibtards says

Not necessarily a good thing if it means US jobs will go to Argentina instead of China.

Patrick says

Not necessarily a good thing if it means US jobs will go to Argentina instead of China.

No tariffs. Cost of shipping is probably half the cost and cuts out the Panama Canal. Not sure how it's not a win? Lowers prices. We need to focus on this hemisphere. Fuck Europe and China. If they want to sell here, remove your tariffs. That's the whole point.

Bring inflation on goods down or we just won't buy them. Hurts them more than us. I can go without half the shit I buy and already. Started before Trump got into office. Demographics are not good throughout the world. Need to be self sufficient. If Trump can get Canada and Mexico in line the rest of Central and South America will follow.

DeportLibtards says

https://x.com/589bull10000/status/1908530416778158421

I would like the focus to be on promoting US manufacturing and fair and balanced trade.

Why would we want to do any business with Communist countries, including China?

Patrick says

At some point, people will start asking the obvious question: Why didn’t any other U.S. President ever try this before? But this wasn’t something the President dreamed up over breakfast in Trump Tower’s penthouse. It wasn’t easy. This was a brilliant sequence of legal maneuvers, traceable all the way back to his first act as President: declaring a state of economic emergency on January 20th.

He's undoing the purposeful damages caused since Reagan by every administration Globalista to unwind, undermine, corrupt, demoralize and destroy the Republic (or what's left of it), our Constitution and our economy. That means the doings of Bush's, Clintons, and Obama (and Rockefeller Club of Rome/CIA crowd).

Our institutions that were based on public trust that they worked for us rather than against us have been turned against us (FDA, NIH, CDC, Medical Schools, Universities, DHS, FEMA, FBI, DARPA etc. etc.) to kill us with vaccines, drugs, diseases, food poisons, imposed starvation and bioweapons and use our doctors as fifth column against us.

Our courts and bar attorneys are depraved institutions dealing for foreign corporate interests (aka Inns of Court), our 'tax' institution aka IRS is a foreign corporation operating to keep us in perpetual Babylonian debt. The FED has always been a foreign banking cartel. If they can't vampirize us, the RIIA, Chatham House, Tavistock, and the Vatican will instead pit themselves as Satanic mortal enemies.

The elections have been so seriously corrupted that entire states are now in the communist hamper.

It's a big job to reverse this stuff, and it won't happen overnight. Of course, we have the color revolution stuff coming to the fore with the cooperation of the treasonous bloated ticks and mosquitos installed by captured elections.

The hopium is they won't (even with the Soros printing press) money trick us into Civil War again, nor WWIII and another massive Satanic human sacrifice and account holder harvest according to the ancient customary cycles.

The enemies and demons are now known and well demarcated. However is our resolve? Fortunately, the speed of information has dulled their propaganda and exposed them as adamant and dedicated liars. They will still have subscribers amongst the useful idiots, mentally deranged, and perverts, whom they will continue to brainwash and finance.

Patrick says

Not necessarily a good thing if it means US jobs will go to Argentina instead of China.

I kind of think that's the point. If we are going to import everything anyway, import it from not China.
Free trade with everyone except China, and make sure everyone you have an agreement with trarrifs the crap out of China.

zzyzzx says

If we are going to import everything anyway, import it from not China.

That was the idea during his first term: force companies to move manufacturing out of China to reduce dependency on the main strategic adversary. But now it somehow morfed into "0 deficit with everybody everywhere", which is a completely different animal (and could be impossible).

And the fucking "formula" they used completely ignores the services which we sell a shitload.

https://open.substack.com/pub/public/p/batya-ungar-sargon-trump-is-waging

DeportLibtards says

Notice who wrote the forward?

Luttwak is great. Smart guy. Not only a Cold War Operative, but his "Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire" is great. He has one for the (Western) Roman Empire as well.

DeportLibtards says

The one thing Liberation Day hasn't liberated us from is all the globalist bullshit being posted now about 'free trade' and 'Smoot-Halley'.

Ah yes, the Smoot-Hawley lie. The Tariff that didn't even get voted on until after the stock market crash and didn't take effect until 1931, and was mostly promulgated in REACTION to Tariffs being considered by France and the UK.

BTW, the British had to dump free trade in the 1910s due to debt from 50 years of Free Trade, they couldn't finance both the war and finance trade deficits simultaneously with Fugitive Traitor policies.

OIL DROPS $10 to ~$60

We're back to Trump era Oil Prices.

How is the yuan falling?

I support President Trump for taking long overdue action to bring back the American industrial base.

In all the discussions, I have not seen one aspect addressed:

The US exports currency. As long as the USD is used as a reserve currency, there will still be a need for the US to supply US dollars. What other way to do this is there besides running a trade deficit?

yawaraf says

I support President Trump for taking long overdue action to bring back the American industrial base.

In all the discussions, I have not seen one aspect addressed:

The US exports currency. As long as the USD is used as a reserve currency, there will still be a need for the US to supply US dollars. What other way to do this is there besides running a trade deficit?

That is what is known as the Triffin Dilemma: How can the US run continuing deficits to fund the rest of the world dollar-based economy without ultimately destroying itself?

yawaraf says

The US exports currency. As long as the USD is used as a reserve currency, there will still be a need for the US to supply US dollars. What other way to do this is there besides running a trade deficit?

That's the rest of the world's problem.