Economics

688 readers

153 users here now

founded 2 years ago

117

Warren Buffett: Tariffs are ‘an act of war’ (www.cnn.com)

submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

9 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Summary

Warren Buffett criticized tariffs as “an act of war,” warning they function as a tax on goods and raise consumer prices.

His comments follow Trump’s decision to impose 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico and raise tariffs on China from 10% to 20%, escalating trade tensions. Economists warn tariffs could worsen inflation and harm U.S. consumers.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick dismissed Buffett’s concerns and falsely claimed tariffs could replace the IRS.

Buffett has long opposed tariffs, citing historical economic damage, including their role in worsening the Great Depression.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 38 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick dismissed Buffett’s concerns and falsely claimed tariffs could replace the IRS.

Whoaaa, that is a whopper of a sidenote.

Like... WTF. They really do want any excuse for the mega rich to not pay taxes.

EDIT:

In an interview on The Situation Room on Monday with CNN’s Pamela Brown, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick dismissed Buffett’s comments about tariffs as “silly.”

Lutnick said tariffs could replace the need for the Internal Revenue Service, which he incorrectly said was created when the US entered World War I.

“The United States of America before 1913 only had tariffs, and then we created — when we entered World War I, we all had to pitch in, and we created, of course, the brilliantly named Internal Revenue Service,” Lutnick said.

Um... That is false, but parsing the grain of truth from that statement (IRS was established shortly before WWI), the world economy is, uh, nothing like it was in 1913. It's like saying "Well, we had Radium Jock straps in 1930," without considering why we don't have them now.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

Some doc in France developed a cure for this kinda shit back in the late 1700s.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Fun fact the design is in the public domain now

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

it can also replace the IRS btw 😆

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

You might want to read a bit more of history to find out what happened to the guys who actually used them.