• 10 Posts
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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: March 7th, 2024

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  • Interesting thing is that when the tariffs were installed and businesses sued for collection to be deferred until after their legality was determined, the government argued that it would be difficult for them to recover monies not paid and trivial for them to automatically issue refunds since they’d have all the data in their systems.

    So the tariffs were ruled illegal, and the government immediately pivoted to, “Well, actually, it’s going to be really hard for us to process the data and figure out how much we owe to whom, can’t we just keep it?” When told No, they then said, “Well, we’re not going to figure it out, you have to do it!”

    So now all the businesses who got impacted have to go through all their records and figure out which good la were subjected to which tariffs (since not all the tariffs were ruled illegal), how much they paid in tariffs, then submit their data with all the backup documentation for government approval.

    The government is tearing the entire thing kind of like manufacturers who offer a rebate: they make it clunky and inefficient and loaded with caveats and terms, and they know they’ll be able to keep a bunch of money because some people won’t bother, or won’t have the papers, or will be too busy and miss a deadline, etc.

    But anyway, I thought it was cute how they immediately pivoted from “it’ll be trivial for us to refund” to “ackshually, this is really hard, you do it!”











  • The article only talks about the war with Iran. But Ukraine has taken out more of Russia’s processing facilities and Russia has announced that they’re no longer going to export [?gas ?petroleum? can’t remember offhand]. Whatever it is, the loss of the additional fuel is also going to drive up the cost of fuel.

    It’s also going to drive to the cost of food - not only in transporting seed and fertilizer to the farm, tractors and combines on the farms, and trucks away from the farms, but also because gas and oil and their byproducts are critical components of several types of fertilizer. Food insecure nations are going to be struggling, and even nations who are comparatively food stable will see rising prices.