Of Tariffs, TaxBwana, & Forsythia
Apr. 3rd, 2025 11:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraSo, Trump announced his tariffs.
If you have a 401(K) or an IRA invested in EFTs, you immediately lost another 15% of your net worth.
Quite a few of my TaxBwana clients erroneously assume I am some kind of financial whiz—even the Trumpish ones who believe the current economic shitstorm is some kind of Rapture from which they will ascend in a few short months' time, richer than ever. They constantly pepper me for financial advice.
Of course, TaxBwanas are not allowed to give financial advice, which is a Good Thing because it allows me to maintain my air of inscrutable knowledgeability while not knowing a goddam thing.
Frankly, I don't know what I would do if I had anything resembling real money.
Over a 20-year window, staying in equities is the smartest move—except most of the people peppering me with questions will be dead in 20 years.
Liquidating to cash will make them vulnerable to inflation—which is about to rise dramatically.
And it's too late to buy gold. Gold is presently hovering somewhere near $3,100 an ounce.
###
The tariffs are so-called "reciprocal tariffs" that include duty taxes on uninhabited islands near Antarctica because, you know, those fuckin' penguins...
They're intended to pay for Trump's income tax cuts, I suppose. There is a Mad Tea Party logic to them: If you do the arithmetic, it looks like they took the U.S. trade deficit with every one of its trade partners, divided that sum by the dollar value of each trade partner's exports to the U.S. & slapped the resulting fraction on as a tariff.
This is just bizarre.
For example: Madagascar, one of the poorest countries in Africa, has just been hit with a 47% tariff. That's because Madagascar is one of the few places on the planet where vanilla beans grow. Madagascar can't afford to buy stuff from the U.S., so, of course, they don't, hence trade deficit. Tariffs are gonna drive up the cost of vanilla astronomically—but that's not gonna make anyone in Madagascar buy more American goods.
###
There are some exceptions to this methodology, of course: The 10% tariff on U.K. exports, for example, is clearly a gift and will go down if King Charles III can figure out a way to knight Trump. It clears the way for Britain to become a gateway for EU goods, and as the designated middleman, the U.K.'s economic prospects are bound to bounce higher. Maybe I should be telling all those troubled TaxBwana clients, Invest in DHL Supply Chain and UK FedEx!
Tariffs are kind of the equivalent of sales taxes. Tennessee, for example, may have no state income tax—but it has an across-the-board state sales tax of nearly 10%, and when you add that to county & municipality sales taxes, you get a hefty sum that is equivalent to if not higher than the income taxes charged by a state like New York.
Caesar is gonna get rendered unto one way or another, in other words.
I wish all those idiots—for which read half the population of Wallkill—forever whining about New York State taxes would just fuckin' move to Tennessee. Ass! Door! Slam!
Anyway. I'm not buying anything but food in the foreseeable future. And no food that has vanilla in it!
###
In other news...
Forsythia has started blooming:
In these parts, forsythia is the true harbinger of spring.
###
Yesterday was my last day TaxBwana-ing at St. Joe's in New Paltz. My clients included:
• A lovely and clearly overwhelmed young woman whom the site greeter and the site coordinator, both of whom have been shits to me, complained loudly about before her arrival because she'd been a bit too forceful on the phone.
She was eager to learn the rudiments of financial literacy. "What's a dividend?" she asked. I explained.
She was also the daughter of a Sicilian immigrant, speaks fluent Italian, & has visited the Old Country many times, so we had a long conversation about Palermo.
• A retired airforce veteran who talked to me about the twice he'd been kidnapped by aliens.
• A disgruntled couple about my own age who I had to work hard to charm. I succeeded! By the end of our tax session, they were showing me photos of their dog. But man! I had to work hard.
She had about 50 IQ points on her husband, so naturally, I wanted to travel backwards in time, to the point where they first hooked up, & ask her, What are you doing?
Since they were both old, they were both lawn furniture—as am I, of course! Impossible to ascribe properties like "attractiveness" to.
But I think once upon a time, he was a whole lot more attractive than she was, and thus, she struck a very bad bargain, which has turned her into a sour bitch in her declining years.
###
I have a shitload of stuff to accomplish today. Sigh...
If only there were 36 hours in a day, and 24 of those hours were daylight.
If you have a 401(K) or an IRA invested in EFTs, you immediately lost another 15% of your net worth.
Quite a few of my TaxBwana clients erroneously assume I am some kind of financial whiz—even the Trumpish ones who believe the current economic shitstorm is some kind of Rapture from which they will ascend in a few short months' time, richer than ever. They constantly pepper me for financial advice.
Of course, TaxBwanas are not allowed to give financial advice, which is a Good Thing because it allows me to maintain my air of inscrutable knowledgeability while not knowing a goddam thing.
Frankly, I don't know what I would do if I had anything resembling real money.
Over a 20-year window, staying in equities is the smartest move—except most of the people peppering me with questions will be dead in 20 years.
Liquidating to cash will make them vulnerable to inflation—which is about to rise dramatically.
And it's too late to buy gold. Gold is presently hovering somewhere near $3,100 an ounce.
###
The tariffs are so-called "reciprocal tariffs" that include duty taxes on uninhabited islands near Antarctica because, you know, those fuckin' penguins...
They're intended to pay for Trump's income tax cuts, I suppose. There is a Mad Tea Party logic to them: If you do the arithmetic, it looks like they took the U.S. trade deficit with every one of its trade partners, divided that sum by the dollar value of each trade partner's exports to the U.S. & slapped the resulting fraction on as a tariff.
This is just bizarre.
For example: Madagascar, one of the poorest countries in Africa, has just been hit with a 47% tariff. That's because Madagascar is one of the few places on the planet where vanilla beans grow. Madagascar can't afford to buy stuff from the U.S., so, of course, they don't, hence trade deficit. Tariffs are gonna drive up the cost of vanilla astronomically—but that's not gonna make anyone in Madagascar buy more American goods.
###
There are some exceptions to this methodology, of course: The 10% tariff on U.K. exports, for example, is clearly a gift and will go down if King Charles III can figure out a way to knight Trump. It clears the way for Britain to become a gateway for EU goods, and as the designated middleman, the U.K.'s economic prospects are bound to bounce higher. Maybe I should be telling all those troubled TaxBwana clients, Invest in DHL Supply Chain and UK FedEx!
Tariffs are kind of the equivalent of sales taxes. Tennessee, for example, may have no state income tax—but it has an across-the-board state sales tax of nearly 10%, and when you add that to county & municipality sales taxes, you get a hefty sum that is equivalent to if not higher than the income taxes charged by a state like New York.
Caesar is gonna get rendered unto one way or another, in other words.
I wish all those idiots—for which read half the population of Wallkill—forever whining about New York State taxes would just fuckin' move to Tennessee. Ass! Door! Slam!
Anyway. I'm not buying anything but food in the foreseeable future. And no food that has vanilla in it!
###
In other news...
Forsythia has started blooming:
In these parts, forsythia is the true harbinger of spring.
###
Yesterday was my last day TaxBwana-ing at St. Joe's in New Paltz. My clients included:
• A lovely and clearly overwhelmed young woman whom the site greeter and the site coordinator, both of whom have been shits to me, complained loudly about before her arrival because she'd been a bit too forceful on the phone.
She was eager to learn the rudiments of financial literacy. "What's a dividend?" she asked. I explained.
She was also the daughter of a Sicilian immigrant, speaks fluent Italian, & has visited the Old Country many times, so we had a long conversation about Palermo.
• A retired airforce veteran who talked to me about the twice he'd been kidnapped by aliens.
• A disgruntled couple about my own age who I had to work hard to charm. I succeeded! By the end of our tax session, they were showing me photos of their dog. But man! I had to work hard.
She had about 50 IQ points on her husband, so naturally, I wanted to travel backwards in time, to the point where they first hooked up, & ask her, What are you doing?
Since they were both old, they were both lawn furniture—as am I, of course! Impossible to ascribe properties like "attractiveness" to.
But I think once upon a time, he was a whole lot more attractive than she was, and thus, she struck a very bad bargain, which has turned her into a sour bitch in her declining years.
###
I have a shitload of stuff to accomplish today. Sigh...
If only there were 36 hours in a day, and 24 of those hours were daylight.
no subject
Date: 2025-04-03 03:32 pm (UTC)And here at Old People Central, they still don't seem to understand that it ISN"T Christmas (as I heard in the laundry room on election day).
no subject
Date: 2025-04-03 03:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-05 07:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-05 12:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-03 04:15 pm (UTC)LOL. Ah, I thought the 10 percent was because our PM has been making soothing "No taxes, no regulation" noises to the tech giants, but your explanation makes much more sense.
If only there were 36 hours in a day, and 24 of those hours were daylight...
Noooo. The days are way too long as it is.
no subject
Date: 2025-04-03 11:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-03 11:21 pm (UTC)What details did the Air Force guy give about his abductions?
no subject
Date: 2025-04-03 11:43 pm (UTC)What details did the Air Force guy give about his abductions?
The usual ones. The aliens were bug-eyed humanoids with wrinkly grey skin. There were machines emitting eerie green light. He's convinced he was abducted twice: once as a kid and once as an adult. He really seems to believe it! I have to say, he was a bit off in other ways, so I'm not sure I believe it. 😀
no subject
Date: 2025-04-05 09:50 am (UTC)I'm sure the promise of a knighthood or something similar for Trump is something the King will be urged to consider if possible. I suspect it would make the King unpopular, but he has been unpopular before, Diana, Camilla etc. It might even be likened to his mother's shaking hands with Martin McGuinness formerly (they leaned on that word a lot)of the IRA, good for the realm and all that. But the kingdom adored his mother. He is not so loved.