a symptom of extreme TDS
Sure. But without an actual granular comparison of items and incomes, it doesn’t make much sense. You start having to lean into Fair at the expense of Even to make it make sense. Fair vs. Even is an emotional appeal.
Like a tariff on German sports cars would mean virtually nothing to people making less than the national average. But it can yield a great deal of money (maybe not in modern gov. terms) and would only primarily effect people of above average income. Is that fair? Does it help make things Even?
A local restaurant owner recently very publicly blamed tariffs for the cost increase of her restaurant, with its impending closure looming on the horizon if she didn’t.
Here’s the thing though. She didn’t know that food products are exempt from the current trade agreements.
Nor did she know that there were existing trade agreements.
She then went on to blame her suppliers for misinforming her. Also a problem since she doesn’t use any exotic luxury ingredients imported from Mexico.
The tariffs are by and large a left origin boogeyman, preying on people that aren’t aware of the free trade agreements that currently exist, just as they are unaware of the fact that they have been in play from the beginning.
In the jargon of Economics “progressive” and “regressive” are just definitions to sort out and group different types of taxation.
They’re not value judgements, and the words don’t mean “good” or “bad.”
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Sowell is really smart and a great researcher. But you can’t have a textbook on Economics without graphs!
Also, he lives in San Fransisco of all places!
He’s a former Marxist, to boot!
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I wonder how this would actually turn it for a lot of red states. Texas and Florida specifically. Trump calls for ‘new’ census that doesn’t count people with no legal status : NPR
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Probably a loss of seats in those states but a net gain overall for Republicans, especially with playing the Democrat game of gerrymandering and especially if the Supreme Court rules against race-based districting.
I don’t have any hard data to back this up, but Maine still seems to be attracting migrants from other states. New migrant housing is still under construction. It makes sense to flee to sanctuary states, especially if you’re up to no good and don’t like it when the government imposes harsh penalties for your activities and refers you to ICE for deportation.
Strike 3!
Somewhat off topic, but fuck the EPA.
These unelected uneducated fucks dictating policy say the emissions from my truck are bad for the environment.
Meanwhile the government:
Dont worry, guys. This one doesnt have guns - it only carries the nukes for us.
I’m deleting EGR as soon as i get out of this fucking communist state.
Yeah, I see that in economic terms, but in common parlance it seems to mean regressive = bad. Progressive = good.
Personally I see regressive = bad. Progressive= also bad.
I’m not a robinhood type, and I don’t see apples to spaceship comparisons as anything other than fun house math.
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You should see what they did to the cost of forestry equipment!
I’m all for throwing chomos through chippers, but thats cuz I don’t have to buy one! Woooo! We’re talking $100k and up 
just for the capacity to get rid of the ones ICE are taking into custody.
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What does this mean?
Yes! There you go, both types of taxes are Bad! That’s the whole rationale behind the critisism of tariffs.
It’s the system that forces your engine to suck its own unburnt fuel and 400°+ exhaust fumes back into it’s turbo, significantly reducing power output, fuel efficiency, and engine lifespan.
Government vehicles dont need this system, but civillians do, and its a federal offense to tamper with it under EPA ruling.
Cali requires yearly “smog checks” where they dont even check your exhaust, they just visually check if the system has been tampered with.
Inflation is the most regressive tax of our lifetimes.
I would also view crime as a tax on the poor when the government doesn’t do anything about the hellscape conditions that developed under its watch. No change in policy, just more of the same DEI scams. Our county prosecutor has like a 2000 case backlog and we somehow can’t incentivize public defenders to work for the government, so they let out all kinds of violent, dangerous people to roam society. It all works out advantageously for Democrats, as it drives opposition out of the district, solidifying their hold on power. Needles everywhere, the park and especially the library being homeless shelters, and a violent, secretive public school system that people are also fleeing is a cost that can’t be calculated like a government balance sheet or GDP value.
And Maine paid to have this done to themselves with tax dollars.
Dang.
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And as the tariffs increase, inflation grows!
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With vacuum actuated EGR systems (older systems), what you say is true / mostly true. With electronically controlled EGR systems (newer systems), generally fuel efficiency is improved. Power is generally reduced, but in a good way. With an electronically controlled EGR, when you get on the accelerator (generally over 70% throttle), the EGR will be closed (with the older vacuum systems, getting on the throttle caused high vacuum and the EGR would be fully open). You will not recirculate exhaust gasses when you are accelerating hard with newer engines. When loads are low, you will have lower power, but it’s power you don’t need at the moment, and the trade off is better fuel economy. Why is this? Exhaust gas is an inert gas. The inert gas takes up space in the cylinder effectively lowering the displacement of your engine. The engine can then run lower fuel without running lean and potentially causing knock / detonation.
Even the new systems do cause the engine to get dirtier on the intake side. Especially for direct injection engines it is negative. If you have port or dual injection, it isn’t as big of a deal, as fuel flowing over the valves keeps them pretty clean.
As to the reduced engine life claim, I am not convinced, I am not saying you are wrong, it just doesn’t make sense to me. Soot is generally at the largest 10 microns in diameter. The smallest clearances are significantly larger than that. Oil filters generally can’t filter out less than 25-30 micron.
I think there are pros and cons. Diesels seem to have more cons than petrol engines, which I didn’t get into.
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Every person i know whose egr deleted has 3-4mpg increase and 5-10% horsepower gain, depending on what tune they run. Reddit shows hundreds, if not thousands, of reports saying the same.
You don’t see how 400° air intake is bad for the engine?
Your source sounds like they have never owned a diesel engine, but has read about them an awful lot.
Prices may increase, but that’s not the same thing as inflation. Inflation is driven by government spending, i.e. printing of money out of thin air. If a tornado takes out a major supplier, it isn’t inflation when the price of the widget they supplied becomes much higher due to scarcity.
That’s why RAM was so expensive back in the mid 90’s. A fire at an epoxy manufacturer in Japan caused the price of RAM to double for a period because without it, they couldn’t make the chips. That’s totally different than inflation. Nowadays RAM is much less expensive and much more capable. 4 megabytes in 1995 was like $100 in 1995 dollars. Today you get 32 gigabytes, 8000 times more RAM, for $78, even with all of the inflation we’ve experienced since 1995.
Inflation impacts the price of all goods. Tariffs affect the price of what’s tariffed upon importing and then all the way down the supply chain. We’ll see how it works out compared to COVID spending.
I don’t want to hear it. I’m keeping my 2014 5.7L Tundra.
After post-corona demand based inflation and war related production inflation US annual inflation rate seems to be at 2,7%. That’s not bad, considering 2% is generally the goal.
This is where we disagree. Most economists don’t see inflation as just a monetary/goverment based thing. Friedman did, but he was a neoliberal anyway.
Encyclopedia Britannica has a decent short article about the subject: Inflation | Definition, Theories, & Facts | Britannica Money
Ps. Edited the link
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