The majority of the sweeping tariffs Donald Trump imposed during his second term face one final litmus test that will determine whether he can continue to levy them – and also whether businesses are eligible for massive refunds.
That potentially dramatic turn in the tariff saga comes after a federal appeals court ruled on Friday that Trump unlawfully leaned on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose across-the-board duties on countries.
Trump had used those powers to push import tax rates as high as 50% on India and Brazil – and as high as 145% on China earlier this year.
Not only will the consumers never see a dime of any of the money if it’s refunded, the companies aren’t going to lower prices because you’ve already absorbed the price shock.
Right. Everything today is about softening you up. They say, we will kill you—and you panic—then they roll it back to just losing an arm, and you’re happy about it.
Like a frog in boiling water.
Is that how frogs are cooked? Like a lobsters?
It’s a common myth that frogs will stay in boiling water if the water is heated slowly enough. They can sense heat and will most definitely attempt to escape.
Not if you put a lid on!
No, they’ll still attempt to escape.
The heavy lid of tariffs 😬
The original test had frogs brains removed. A brainless frog will not jump out of water when the temperature is slowly increased. If you increase the temperature quickly though, even a brainless frog will react to temperature change out of raw reflex.
I haven’t even heard that as a common myth. Lobsters, yes. We are lobsters. Frogs? Perhaps very obese frogs
It’s a misunderstanding of an old experiment where frogs were lobotomized before being exposed to the slowly rising temperature of the water.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog
Fascinating. People are sick though.
It’s far more of a metaphor than it is an actual cooking technique
Trying to get a frog to stay where you want it is difficult regardless of water temperature.
Frogs don’t actually work like that but humans might.
This is called “price anchoring” when used in business. They throw out an outrageously high number to start and then follow it up with something less to make it seem like a good deal when that was really the price they wanted all along.
Alas, a lot people have already lost an arm and a leg and there’s still no end in sight.
If they’ve lost an arm and a leg that means they have another arm and a leg to lose! Capitalism! ;)
Ianal, I really hope there is some sort of class action that can be done to force companies to pass that back to consumers.
It should be easy enough to pass through to all the electronic pay methods.
Or force markup items to all be put on massive sale until an equal amount has been sold to make up the sales at markup.
There are no perfect solutions, some people will still make out like bandits.
But jfc, just releasing billions to these companies will only benefit the C-Level and maybe some shareholders, the people already benefiting, not the ones feeling the pain.
A class action just passes the money from one elite class (corporations) to another (class action lawyers). Consumers will get a virtual prepaid debit card for $1.97 in 5 years that can’t be spent anywhere because it can’t be used online and it costs $5 to have them mail you a physical card
Should get out guillotines
100% this. Most I’ve ever seen out of a class action is somehwere between $5-$300. That’s after you produce a mountain of receipts and paperwork. Only lawyers get rich.
You could always hire a lawyer of your own and sue the company directly. That’s what someone did to have it become a class action lawsuit. The person who brought the original suit gets a big payout, and the people who did not generally get a much smaller piece of the pie.
Yeah I feel like this was already expected or part of some master plan. The companies didn’t lose because they passed it on to the consumer and then they’re gonna get money on top of it.
See: the gas price jump in 2008-ish