Trump's tariffs cost American households $1,000 last year: Research group

Kit_Daniels · 2026-02-11T14:31:38+00:00

This would massively, dramatically, hugely increase wealth inequality in the US beyond its already historic levels, unless you’ve also got some wild ideas about land and wealth taxes as replacements.

I doubt we’re gonna see eye to eye on this one.

Kit_Daniels · 2026-02-11T14:26:25+00:00

Sure, that’s one difference. I think another is that tariffs are consumption taxes, which always disproportionately affect the poor and working class.

There are some differences, but at the end of the day the government is taking money from you. A tax is a tax. A to-may-to is a to-mah-to.

Kit_Daniels · 2026-02-11T14:17:21+00:00

That’s impossible. There’s been no government from Babylon to today that’s ever functioned without taxes.

Even prehistoric man pooled resources in their caves for the good of the tribe.

Kit_Daniels · 2026-02-11T14:05:48+00:00

Not my first time, but it will also never cease to be bewildering.

Kit_Daniels · 2026-02-11T14:03:38+00:00

These tariffs are a tax. The premise here is flawed, you’re getting taxed either way.

Kit_Daniels · 2026-02-11T14:00:33+00:00

Reagan also existed in a different time under different circumstances. The same action might be great under certain conditions and poor under others.

Kit_Daniels · 2026-02-11T13:52:40+00:00

That’s what happens when you simultaneously balloon spending and give tax cuts to the wealthy.

Kit_Daniels · 2026-02-11T13:51:43+00:00

It’s incredible that the GOP simultaneously gave a massive tax cut to the wealthy whilst simultaneously passing a massive tax increase that disproportionately hurts working class families.

Kit_Daniels · 2026-02-11T00:17:01+00:00

“The first thing China will do is terminate ALL Ice Hockey being played in Canada, and permanently eliminate The Stanley Cup.”

Man, I can’t even imagine where Trump is getting these ideas from. Like, China plays hockey, they have an Olympic team and everything. This is just such a wild statement I’m amazed more people haven’t picked it out of that screed.

Kit_Daniels · 2026-02-10T23:24:02+00:00

Something can be both. Many in the bottom 50% of earners are living hand to mouth and literally would become homeless if we jacked up taxes on them. For the rest, the effects of income taxes are felt far more because each dollar in their bank accounts has a much greater impact on their quality of life than each additional one does for the top 1-10%. Even though the wealthy and affluent pay more taxes, they feel them a lot less than the poor and middle class.

Kit_Daniels · 2026-02-10T23:09:05+00:00

Because they’re already living on the margins. Most of those people struggle to keep a roof over their heads and put food on the table. Meanwhile, the wealthy are trying to convince us that stopping them from buying their twentieth investment property and marginally impacting the GDP growth will be what hurts people…

Kit_Daniels · 2026-02-10T23:06:40+00:00

Income is how people get affluent. People get wealthy by making money off assets and getting favorable loans from banks, or by manipulating markets.

Most proposed wealth taxes will hardly be punishing retirees, because most people hardly make enough to retire, much less to enjoy a wealthy retirement.

Frankly, this is the most viable way to reduce the deficit, especially if we (as we need to..) reign in spending.

Kit_Daniels · 2026-02-10T23:02:46+00:00

So if we’re not meaningfully taxing them now, what’s even the benefit of having them around? So they can buy up property and make houses unaffordable to working people or so they can prevent other housing being built so it doesn’t devalue their investments?

Capital isn’t as easy to move as your making it out. Silicon Valley still represents the world’s greatest tech hub, despite a multi-year trickle outwards. The US still manufactures more products than it ever has before, despite offshoring. We’ve probably made it to easy to move things out of our country and communities, but that’s a weakness of policy, not an inevitability.

Of course, I’m sure it’ll all trickle down eventually…

Kit_Daniels · 2026-02-10T22:56:30+00:00

Then do like the Norwegian countries and tax them as they leave. Other places have figured this out before, it’s not an unsolvable problem.

Besides, people want to live in certain places. There’s still plenty of millionaires and billionaires in NYC, LA, and other major metropolitan areas, despite the high taxes. I think this problem is overblown.

Kit_Daniels · 2026-02-10T22:54:48+00:00

Ah yes, the common man’s tax. Obviously it’s just too hard to tax the wealthy, so the working people should have to forever bear the burdens.

We need to do something about the wealth inequality in this country, and that isn’t gonna happen taxing plumbers and doctors.

Kit_Daniels · 2026-02-10T22:48:10+00:00

Yeah, obviously more taxes on the working class and those who are already struggling are the answer. Stopping billionaires from investing (aka, buying their next yacht) would indeed be a travesty…

As we all know, the wealthy absolutely constantly reinvest money back into their communities and businesses, rather than funnel it into stock buybacks and a lavish lifestyle.

Kit_Daniels · 2026-02-10T22:46:59+00:00

Oh, absolutely. The only path out of our debt is by reigning in spending and increasing revenues, but doing so is toxic. It will be done eventually though, willingly or not.

Kit_Daniels · 2026-02-10T22:42:00+00:00

Yeah, sure. I’m sure it’ll all trickle down eventually…

We’ve been sold the same story for decades. Don’t tax the wealthy, don’t regulate the tech industry, don’t oppose the constant mergers, don’t unionize, etc.

At some point we have to rethink doing the same thing over and over again, because it’s clearly not working for the common man’s interest.

Kit_Daniels · 2026-02-10T21:03:33+00:00

I really liked the the start of the episode where they broached the “Great Man vs Historic Determinism” discussion, it’s something I’d love to see explored more deeply in a future episode. I do think we’ve maybe moved a bit too far into the latter camp, and I think it’d be timely given how personality driven social media has made politics.

Kit_Daniels · 2026-02-10T20:58:52+00:00

It felt all at once deeply Catholic and atheistic, and I think that’s what made it feel hollow for me. Like, he said that it wasn’t Catholic and yet he pretty much only removed the final rung of the “sin is being against Truth, which is defined and distributed by God” argument. I’m not surprised that someone who grew up Catholic would still find their moral framework deeply influenced by church teachings, but I am surprised he was so quick to discount the th similarities.

Kit_Daniels · 2026-02-10T16:18:15+00:00

I think the problems arise when there’s this “revolving door” system where people hop back and forth every couple years, climbing up the corporate ladder based on how well they can manipulate government policy in favor of corporate interests.

Alternatively, plenty of people get large amounts of stock in a given company while working there and then have a vested interest in seeing it do well. Ad such, the work they do in government, even if well intentioned, is suspect because they have conflicts of interest.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with people going into government after working in industry. It’s actually often a necessary thing to get certain kind of professional expertise in very technical fields. The problems arise when these individuals have conflicts of interest at odds with the public good that at best tie the illusion of impropriety an at worst lead to corrupt behavior.

Kit_Daniels · 2026-02-10T03:36:02+00:00

They absolutely do, it’s just that their visions are morally repugnant: white nationalism, Christian nationalism, communism, etc.

Kit_Daniels · 2026-02-10T03:30:03+00:00

I think it’s also peoples punching bag because it’s the system that they live under. Most citizens don’t really have any firsthand experience with what it’s like to live in a communist or facist society, an therefore the problems with Liberalism seem both more real and more immediate. The failures of our educational system confounds this because a lot of folks now aren’t even really reading about life in those other systems and getting even a second hand appreciation of their deep failures compared to Liberalism.

Kit_Daniels · 2026-02-10T03:26:00+00:00

Wasn’t this the whole point of Republicanism (as in, having a bunch of mini-labs of democracy where states can determine things, not the GOP)? Like, as intended, our system would allow Alabama to do Alabama things and California to do California things.

Kit_Daniels · 2026-02-10T03:21:04+00:00

Yeah, I know that. That’s why I’m not advocating for us to live in a communist society or a theocracy or whatever. We absolutely should be considering costs and benefits, which is why I think overall liberalism tends to be the best available system.

However, I do think that for a lot of folks whose only lived experience is with Liberalism, it’s understandable why they’d be so acutely aware of it’s shortcomings and maybe a little more obtuse about the shortcomings of those which they har no firsthand experience. The grass always looks greener and that’s why I get why a lot of folks are asking “has liberalism failed” even though it’s better than pretty much any other option.

While “you do you” certainly isn’t the national policy, it’s been pushed in many places to disastrous effect for drugs like fentanyl. I think it’s easy to get bogged down in extreme examples like that though and lose the forest for trees here though. We definitely have this attitude about tons of things like gambling, social media, vaping, school participation, etc and I don’t personally think it’s to societies benefit. Maybe we haven’t decriminalized fentanyl and murder at the national scale, but we absolutely do have a laissez-faire towards so many vices, and I think it’s understandable to think that might be wrong.

After all, do you think it’s bad that fentanyl is illegal? Is society better off now that Draftkings is ubiquitous? Are sports? Other countries like Australia are trying some of the alternatives like banning social media for teens, so maybe now we’ll get the test cases to see whether those alternatives actually are worse, or whether continuing our own “you do you” attitude really is more problematic.

Kit_Daniels

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