Tariffs are Bad for US Consumers - Here's Why

Donald Trump wants to "punish" China by putting a tariff on things imported from China.

The problem is that the tariff is not paid by China, but actually paid by the person importing the goods who then passes the cost on to the consumer.

Here are the details.

Tariffs were designed to protect US manufacturers from cheaper imports of similar items. They are intended to discourage trade by raising the cost of importing the items.

Here's an example stolen from You Tube, you have a tee-shirt printing business, and you want to buy blank tee-shirts to print on. China is a good source of inexpensive tee-shirts, so you order them from there. Let's say the price is $10 each. The Chinese manufacturer processes your order of 100 shirts and puts it on a cargo ship bound for the United States. So your initial cost is $1000.

One your boat comes in, to actually get your tee-shirts you have to cover the cost of any import tariff. Let's call it 10%. So your cost is now $1100 or $11 a shirt. What do you do? Raise your price. That shirt your were going to sell for $15 is now $17.

So what happens when some politician decides to "stick-it" to China by having a 100% tariff?

The theory is that it should hurt China because there's less trading with China (this could happen), but without a US manufacturer of blank tee-shirts you're forced to import them from somewhere. Your original $1000 order just turned into $2000 or $20 a shirt which you then sell said shirt for $25 to $30.

Who ultimately pays the price for the tariff? The US consumer. Tariffs raise consumer prices. This is how they were designed. They are both bad and good, but not good if you don't have a US manufacturer to protect.

We're also learning that this is also negatively affecting employees of import companies. The import companies are now buying up as much inventory as they can (before Trump takes power) which leaves no cash left over for any holiday bonuses.

Information source: ChatGPT

A New Trump Presidency - What Now America?

 

So 51% of Americans have chosen Trump over Kamala Harris, which is a stunning choice.

What happens next is known only to him and I don't even think he knows what he'll do.

He has gotten his wish. To stay out of jail. His work is done and he may as well delegate the job of being president to others and go golfing. I think he liked to play at being president, but as anyone who has done the job or been near one, the job is very difficult and Mr T was never that interested in the details.

One factor is that he is 78, exhausted and showing signs of illness.

Also his disinhibition has grown dramatically, but he's always been one to blow smoke and he's encouraged to do so by the people around him.

 So is he serious about his campaign promises? Historically, not really, but he's in a vengeful space so we'll see what plays out.

He promised to 

• jail his enemies
• deport all the undocumented workers
• put tariffs on any thing from China and other places
• give a tax break to the wealthy
• "take care of" women

Jail his enemies

One hopes he just talking out his ass as we do have laws here and it would be very difficult for him to up and arrest someone for no reason. We do need to watch out for this as that would be a doorway to fascism.

I, for one, am giving lots of money to the ACLU.

Deport all the undocumented workers

This is provably impossible. There are 11 to 12 million undocumented workers and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) employs approximately 22,000 personnel with only a portion dedicated to deportation with also 24,000 Border Patrol agents stationed along the southwest border. An actual deportation of a person is a multi-step process that involves many people. If he even mandates that this happen it will be bad news for a few thousand but the reality of the current process is highly limiting. Now this doesn't stop Steven Miller from chasing people across the border with an AR-15, but even that can only go so far.

There's another reality that never gets mentioned and we need to talk about it right now.

If all the undocumented farm workers go away, we will starve. This is hugely serious, and the repercussions are terrifying.

Put tariffs on any thing from China and other places

I'm hoping that Elon Musk explains to Trump what a horribly bad idea this is.

A tariff on imported goods just raises the price of that item. It is a sales tax on the buyer, not the seller. If people are unhappy about prices they really will be unhappy about paying even more for stuff.

Give a tax break to the wealthy

This will depend on who ends up with control of the house (still up in the air at the time of this writing.) The house controls the purse strings.

"Take care of" women

As has been pointed out by commentators. This is seriously poking at the sleeping giant. Last time Thump was elected there were massive protests and more will be on the way. I have also been giving to Planned Parenthood.

How to get an InyoKern Sierra Wilderness Permit Reservation

How to get an InyoKern Sierra Wilderness Permit Reservation

Post COVID, getting permit reservations began to get much harder as hiking and

backpacking became more popular.

In 2024, the difficulty of getting a Kearsarge Pass reservation was impacted by the popular

West side Cedar Grove / Road's End entrance on Highway 140 being closed for repairs.

Highway 140 will be open by then, but you can't get a permit reservation for it and that

doesn't stop people from deciding to use Kearsarge Pass to get to the Rae Lakes via

Glen Pass.

Permit reservations are now done on recreation.gov.

The very first thing you should do on recreation.gov is to create an account.

You'll need it to make any permit or camping reservations.

Now go to Permit, and scroll down to Inyo National Forest - Wilderness Permits.

It's a good idea to "Favorite" this as it makes getting to this spot much faster.

There's a lot of good information on this page, but once you're dong reading it, choose

"Explore Available Permits"

Tell it where you are a commercial outfitter or not.

Then you have to say you want an Overnight trip, when you want to go, and how many people

are going.

Permits are reservable up to 6 months in advance and for the popular trails you should be

planning that far in advance. Example in Feb 11, you should be trying to reserve for a trip that

starts Aug 11.

Permits are available at 7am, and you should be on your computer ready and waiting at

6:55am. Popular trailheads will fill in 10 min.

Now you will see a long list of entry points (trailheads). It's a good idea to spend a lot of time

here. If you click on a trailhead name you can get a lot of basic information, like a one line

opinion of how difficult the trail and access is.

For the long and hard-to-follow Baxter Pass trail you will see:

"Baxter Pass trail is steep and rugged. Starting near Oak Creek, the trail climbs more

than 6,000 feet to the Sierra Crest at Baxter Pass. It pays to start early in the day for

this high elevation pass.

It’s approximately eight miles to the top of the pass where the trail goes into Kings

Canyon National Park, a total of 13 miles to the John Muir Trail junction. "

The "W" that all of the 60% of the reservable spots have been taken - see after the popular

Cottonwood Lakes trailhead in the image.

"W" is an older term that means "Walkup" and you used to need to walk up to the office to see

if there are spaces. These days, it means that the remaining 40% of the permits are released

2 weeks before the date. You might still be able to "walkup" to the window, but it's not

recommended.

"Non-quota" means the trail has no quota and you should call to make a reservation 2 weeks

before your trip.

So right at 7am you want it to refresh the display. Do NOT click reload or you'll have to reenter

the top information. Instead you can just click "Prev X days" and then optionally click

"Next X days." OR you can just change the date a little. (I find clicking easier).

If things are working (and they sometimes don't), the number of available permits will display.

For example, Kearsarge Trail allows 36 people. Click on the number and then click "Book Now"

at the bottom. For very popular trailheads, expect this to fail often and you have to keep trying.

It will feel like a virtual brawl.

If you succeed it will give you 15 min to complete your reservation. If you clicked on a number

that you didn't mean to, then just click the check mark and it will go away.

For popular trailheads, the number available can go to "W" very quickly.

The 15 min limit thing is why it's a good idea to keep refreshing the display as some will change

their minds in the middle of a reservation for various reasons.

If you succeed at making a permit reservation, it will then go into your Reservations list on

recreation.gov. You will also get a conformation email and you will, of course, see a bill on your

credit card. Now is a good time to go out to a celebratory breakfast.

A note on iPad use. The iPad or iPhones display behave just like the computer displays, you

have to make the display refresh. In my experience, they don't auto-update like most iPad

displays do.

Note. Before you go out to breakfast and while you're still on recreation.gov, you should make

a camping reservation. Places like Yosemite will let you stay at one of their backpacker's

camps. InyoKern and others don't have that so you'll have to find a campground for the night

before your permit starts. You can also find campgrounds on recreation.gov.

Kelly Moore Paints Shutdown - Nooooo

The painting giant Kelly-Moore Paints has just suddenly shut down all of it's stores nationwide.

My first clue was I went to their Alameda store trying to buy paint for our new bathroom and found a fully stocked store completely shut with no sign of life. I went by the Oakland store on International and that was also closed up tight.

Suspecting something bad and not wanting to squint at a phone or travel further, I went home and googled it on my computer desktop. Holy primer batman. They closed everything.

Massive loses from continuing asbestos litigation from the 1980s. Apparently they used asbestos in some of their products then.

This is really distressing as my entire house is Kelly Moore through two painters. I even got to use my painter's discount there. I know the names of all of the colors and fortunately still have a bunch left in the garage.

I had even picked out colors yesterday for our new powder room on their still functioning web site which is weird.

Refs:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/kelly-moore-paints-to-close-all-its-stores-nationwide/ar-AA1mTmTh

https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2024/01/12/kelly-moore-paint-store-retail-bankrupt-economy-job-layoff-real-estate/

RIP for Colonial Grey, Mythology (a maroon), Mallard Green