Precisely! As you say: "... when we hamstring ourselves from competing with environmental and social policies." free trade is ended.

First, ignoring the sleight.
Second, spot on. It was drinking buddy talk.

but the government will NEVER give up taxing the same $$$
100 times.

Play the game better? Thank BANKERS wrote the Federal Reserve Bill. Hardly call that playing the game better.
It was RIGGING the game from the start.

Well, I'm happy that you spent enjoyable time with someone. But the harsh reality is that your 'arguments are clueless & pointless"

Either you failed to understand the point of the "Prebate or Negative Income Tax (NIT)" which is to cancel the effects of the stiff tax rate for the lowest earners.

The point is that ALL new goods are taxable. If there are no categories, then there are no places to hide in loopholes.

There are no 'new houses' that can be bought for $1. And when the carpenter buys the lumber, since he is buying a raw material, all he has to do is provide his tax number to the lumber yard and the purchase is not taxed. There is ONE and only one taxable transaction, that is when the new house is sold to the first buyer.

To keep it simple I'm going to say the house will cost $100k for the builder to make his profit. The builder will have to collect $125k to cover the tax and remit $25k to the New IRS.

Now imagine the buyer decided to sell after a single year. He knows a comp house can be bought for $102k from the builder, but the comp will still cost $127,500 with tax, so the price he can ask allows him to recover the tax outlay he made.

What you didn't understand is that a house is not really 'consumed' the was a hamburger is. It retains value even when some of its price was due to the tax.

The same principle applies for ANYTHING that someone might sell as used. If it retains value, the seller WILL include some portion of the taxes paid to acquire the item new in the resale price, whether it's a house a car, boal, or an old waffle iron for $0.25 at a tag sale.

The pint I'm making is that none of the secondary market transactions are any of the government's business, and my way on interpreting the FairTax helps keep it that way.

Would you require the babysitter to report her income as taxable? It's a service and nothing was consumed. If not then why would you insist that college professors services be taxed, or a lawyer's or a hair stylists?

FWIW: I don't like bankers either, but they don't write the rules, the legislature does.. Bankers are just grown-up Dungeons & Dragons geeks that are very good at following and interpreting the rules to their own advantage. Don't take it personally. Just learn to play the game better.

My BFF and I spent many evenings "sipping" and talking about this. First, unprepared/uncooked food should not be taxed.

But the only New Goods are taxed, creates crazy incentives. Buy a new house for $1 and sell to the seller $100K in "Used Coins" for $1. Or Rent the house to a fictitious character (or otherwise) for 30 days. Sell the house as used. (Probably why you considered for consumption only).

Thanks for chiming in. We could easily do better.
But it starts with putting the Ponzi Bankers in Prison, stripping their family's of their ill-gotten wealth.
And using an incorruptible form of money government cannot control the printing of.

Our country was formed with the Government giving you 40 acres and a Mule.
We need to get back to that. Because now they take your .4 acres and prevent you from having a mule, making your own food, or bartering without paying taxes on the "value".
Under the threat of prison.

I've been a proponent of the Fair Tax since Neal Boortz was plugging it on his radio show.

I'd take it even farther than those people do. New Goods for Consumption ONLY!!! No taxes on services at all, just goods.

Another great example!

"Both. Everyone knows that the tarifs are paid by the consumer." Yes, but there's a catch-22 here. The consumer loses when the cost of goods increase because of a tariff, but the consumer loses even more when the jobs are shipped to a foreign country leaving the consumer with very limited income and is rendered unable to buy much tariff or not. Producing consumers are a positive, too many non-producing consumers get us into trouble.

Ohhhh, that too! The EPA and DEI tax on American production can get pretty steep. I think there's a "lawyer tax" built in there someplace, too. And do I need to mention the IRS?

All taxes, tariffs and expenses are ultimately paid by the consumer. It's the "price" of anything. And it is paid directly or indirectly.

Who pays for the gasoline tax for truckers? (the consumers).

TBH, I would prefer a Fair Tax/Consumption tax and ZERO income tax for my personal income.

You should encourage me to save, and work.
The current tax model encourages me to stop making money once the government basic gets 1/2 of my nominal income towards the end of the year.

The problem is when other tariffs LOCK US OUT of their markets. So their consumers only pay more for OUR products. Causing us to lose the sales.

Or "better" when they tell the dug companies "we will ONLY let you sell them here, if you lower them by 90% of what stupid americans are paying" Causing the drug companies to charge US even more.

Yes, very good point. Over zealous unions also come to mind as they price American labor out of the market. One would think any foreign country wouldn't need tariffs on American goods if we keep shooting ourselves in the foot, but it seems they still use them because in spite of "self flagellation" America can still out run them.

++1

+1

oooh, goooooood point!
The DEI Environmentalist are the next to be dealt with!

Both. Everyone knows that the tarifs are paid by the consumer. But their power to alter perception, giving them unprecedented power, like the bluntest of instruments, the battering ram. How? Because the tariff tips the playing field.

Not all of us grew up with access to perfectly level playing fields. When the terrain sloped, one team had a natural advantage. As kids out only solution was to switch directions. Even in sports today, they still apply this correction.

Since the 1990s when Dumbocrat Bill Clinton cranted China and other "less developed countries" "MFN" status, they've used it to exploit our markets. We gave away the terrain advantage.

Mr Trump's tariffs are tipping the field part-way back to level.

I know, right now, it seems that tariffs are the entire agenda, I've been reading between the lines and see that they are not. We're making up for lost time and money hopefully planning the steps we need to get back to fair competition.

I can see at the end of that process a remaining reciprocal tariff of 1 or 2% on items any pair of entities produce.

We need to figure this out now so that we can educate future generations properly. These times are ending and we must preserve time tested principles so that Mankind (consciously introspective Human beings) Continue and prospers.

Free trade does not work when we hamstring ourselves with environmental and social policies. If we think those are really important, we should take Milton Friedman's approach to involuntary servitude, and tariff appropriately.

Separately, I view the whole Trump tariff approach as aggressive saber rattling. It is described directly in his book, and it is working.

Free trade DOESN'T work when we hamstring ourselves from competing with environmental and social policies.

Both bargaining chip and blunt instrument. Seems to be working better than even I expected!

Free trade only works if there is exactly that: Free trade. As soon as a country manipulates trade in some way, presumably to benefit itself, there is no free trade so further adherence to it is merely wishful thinking. If trade manipulation was such a losers gambit then it wouldn't be used so successfully against the US by so many other countries in the world. Trade wars have costs and making all sides pay them makes a balance and hopefully ends them.