Who are the Tarriffs Helping???

I don't know enough about Japan to actually understand why they do what the y do. They crowd many times more people in a given geographical area than we do here in the US, but I suppose they just don't have as much land and s till have lots of people.

We have the opposite problem. A coworker from Europe commented on how much open space we have and that was within 60 to 100 miles of Washington DC wh ich is fairly well populated compared to much of the country. Europe has m uch less open space so trains work pretty well. Lots of things that depend on density work well in Europe and not so much here.

Rick C.

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I think that is Trump's problem. He doesn't think like people who have fri ends because he doesn't really have so many. So of course he would not gov ern like he wanted to be friendly with other countries. It's all about str ong arming everyone on the block without regard to the day when you need th em.

This worked well for Trump because he could always find other chumps to do business with. When it comes to countries we are stuck with the few friend s we started with. Hopefully they will forgive us when Trump is out in a c ouple of years.

I used to say he is only President, how much harm can he do? I guess Trump showed me to open my mouth!

Rick C.

Huh? We are free to choose exams as long as we pay for them you mean?

Rick C.

What's not clear about that? Obviously you're not always free to choose something if someone else pays for it.

Yeah, that's rather the point. An insurance based health plan only works for those who have insurance or funds to pay for it. If you don't have one of those you don't get the choice of having or not having exams. Your only choice is to not have exams.

Not much of a choice it is?

So if 90% of the population has 100% choice, is that the same as 100% of the population having a 90% choice?

Rick C.

If you have no regulations how do you trust your food, water, or air?

What about UL regulations to create safe electrical equipment - have you SEEN the dangerous unregulated stuff sold on Amazon that comes from China, etc.?

We all know what an unregulated society looks like - China, India, pop to mind first. Is that what you want? Do you really BELIEVE that companies will all put the needs of their customers ahead of profits?

Complain about ineffective regulations or ones that need to be updated, but without regulations your life (and your children) would probably be a lot less healthy and probably shorter.

John :-#(#

On Sunday, October 28, 2018 at 11:54:32 AM UTC-4, snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com w rote:

ives that are hard to get these days. I've noticed that a number of parts indicate "tariff applied". Can someone explain to me how these tariffs are helping the US be competitive when it results in our costs being higher an d our profit margins being thinner? We can talk about raising prices, but when competing in markets where only we are paying tariffs all this does it to put us at a disadvantage.

s who are impacted even aware this is happening?

The tariffs go to the Gov. It's an import tax.

George H.

:

ssives that are hard to get these days. I've noticed that a number of part s indicate "tariff applied". Can someone explain to me how these tariffs a re helping the US be competitive when it results in our costs being higher and our profit margins being thinner? We can talk about raising prices, bu t when competing in markets where only we are paying tariffs all this does it to put us at a disadvantage.

ors who are impacted even aware this is happening?

y imposes the taxes (tariffs) for US recipients.

Oh boy is that true? boB was saying something similar.

George H.

They also impose the German 19% import VAT and customs if any and take them from my credit card, so that there is not much ado with the German customs.

cheers, Gerhard

ssives that are hard to get these days. I've noticed that a number of part s indicate "tariff applied". Can someone explain to me how these tariffs a re helping the US be competitive when it results in our costs being higher and our profit margins being thinner? We can talk about raising prices, bu t when competing in markets where only we are paying tariffs all this does it to put us at a disadvantage.

ors who are impacted even aware this is happening?

I'm confused. Didn't Trump just reduce income taxes? So this is how they are making it back? Seems bass ackwards somehow. But certainly it is good politics, let everyone pat him on the back for lowering taxes then sneak i n a new tax in the name of patriotism!

Yeah, I guess that works... for him.

Rick C.

ote:

passives that are hard to get these days. I've noticed that a number of pa rts indicate "tariff applied". Can someone explain to me how these tariffs are helping the US be competitive when it results in our costs being highe r and our profit margins being thinner? We can talk about raising prices, but when competing in markets where only we are paying tariffs all this doe s it to put us at a disadvantage.

ndors who are impacted even aware this is happening?

only imposes the taxes (tariffs) for US recipients.

I don't recall the exact number, but I think it was somewhere around 12 or

15 per cent that people will start making serious efforts to dodge sales ta x which is essentially what VAT is. It just gets paid by each entity on th e value they add to a product on its way to the store rather than at the en d like a sales tax.

It seems like 19% is big enough it would hurt.

Rick C.

Here in BC our previous 'Liberal' (a bunch of conservatives pretending to be liberals) government tried the same trick - they reduced or froze income tax, but robbed BC Hydro, BC Ferries, and ICBC (Insurance for automobiles) of a couple of billion to balance the provinces books. This wasn't done behind closed doors, people knew of it at the time but did nothing.

Now BC Hydro has no money to repair the electrical infrastructure so is raising rates, BC Ferries is having trouble with repairing infrastructure so is raising rates and ICBC is unable to meet its insurance obligations so is (you guessed it)...

These rate hikes hit the lower income people disproportionately, but middle income or better generally 'win'.

Did I mention that the latest election brought in the New Democrats who tend to be blue collar and lower income support based?

John :-#)#

Yes, I am serious - my point is that this /is/ the way Trump speaks and thinks, so there is no way (from the quotation alone) to tell if it is a real interview, or a parody.

Agreed entirely.

Not /my/ country...

(My old country is weakening itself quite happily with Brexit. Bunch of muppets.)

This company isn't feeling more competitive.

I recall in 2008 John McCain referred to "Barack the Redistributor" or wealth. Now Trump is the redistributor of business prosperity. He decides which industries prosper and which suffer.

And the question is, "For what?" I don't recall anyone other than Trump saying our trade agreements were broken.

Rick C.

The cost of getting things from China is likely still lower, including the tariffs, than when producing it locally.

The point was that the argument about saving money with socialism is invalid. We get more preventive tests than people with National Socialist Health Care do.

No but it's the same as people having what they earned and being free and independent, and when they must be dependent it's the same as being dependent on civil society instead of being dependent on central authority.

And your numbers are way off too. A lot more than 10% lost the insurance they had because of Obama. Meanwhile, in Canada for example, a lot more than 10% of the population has to wait longer for an MRI than a dog at the vet does.

That can hardly be the problem. Workers can be trained. The problem will be "who is going to do it for a $2/hour salary".

Which happens a bit earlier in the US than it does in other advanced industrial countries.

US health expenditures seem to be budgeted on the basis of the individual's capacity to pay. Universal health care means that they budget on cost-effectiveness of the treatment available to everybody.

Not exactly true. You have more because most health insurance programs will pay for them, and the people carrying out the tests exploit this to maximise their turnover.

In so far as early detection allows cheap and effective treatment, this makes money for the health insurer that pays for it - the patient will survive until they get a disease that is cheaper to treat, mostly because it kills them rapidly.

The US medical system doesn't seem to be motivated to recognise or treat obsesity - clearly there isn't any money to be made in dealing with that.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney

There is an optimal level of testing. Nothing in US medicine is aimed at getting the right level of testing. It's all about testing as many people as you can where you can get paid for those tests.

More tests are great for the bottom line of the people getting paid to run the tests. They aren't good for the people getting tested if the people getting tested end up being over-treated for "problems" that are false positives from the testing process.

But they got other insurance, which didn't have the defects of the health insurance policies that got invalidated by the Obamacare bill.

US health insurnace coverage went up from 85% to 91%, not down.

The dog at the vet gets an MRI scan if the owner can pay for it, and is willing to spend the money.

There's more of queue for human-sized MRI machines (which are bigger) in places where everybody who needs a scan can eventually get a scan.

Tom Del Rosso can't think clearly, and I sometimes wonder whether he can think at all.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney