Originally published at: Biggest US Retailers Use $5 Billion in Trump Tariff Refunds to Appease Investors - TPM – Talking Points Memo
This week saw some of the country’s largest retailers report their quarterly earnings and the impact of some several billion dollars in tariff refunds on their bottom lines. After the Supreme Court struck down tariffs President Donald Trump levied under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, Trump’s administration was ordered to repay, with…
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I don’t think anyone is surprised.
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It’s difficult to see this whole tariffs thing as nothing but a combination of T***p channeling is narcissistic need to “dominate” what he perceives as insufficiently prostrate countries for his greater glory and, probably more so: to deliver unearned profits to corporations and his friends at the (literal) expense of US citizens. You can almost hear Bessent et al. laughing about all of this from the start.
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We the consumers paid the MFin tariffs and the rich get the refunds. They got our money twice, and we get dick.
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Remember, shareholder value is all that matters! GOP and Uncle Milton. (The other one)
Share buybacks and one time dividends!
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The infuriatingly smug Scott Bessant had the chutzpah to claim he was on the side of the people.
"Bessent, speaking to reporters outside the White House, said the refunds amounted to “corporate welfare” and dismissed calls to send the money to consumers.
“The American people had the money in the U.S. Treasury, and we were forced to give it back,” he said Thursday. "
Sure, having money in the U.S. Treasury is just like having money in my bank account. I just want to punch his face every time I’m forced to see it.
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More simply, if you cut out the middleman, they took money from consumers (you know the folks shopping at Walmart and Target) and gave it the shareholder class. Pretty much everyone shop at Walmart and Target, so for Simplicity and every American spent the amount. So then everyone paid the same share of the tariff burden. The wealthiest 1% of American own about half of all equity shares. So this means they will get half of what these companies push back to shareholder. The 90-99 percentile own 35% of equites. You get the idea. This is just distribution of wealth upward with no addition value at all to those that it is coming from.
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No, Bessent, there has been to giving it back. That would mean you are giving it back to the people who gave it to you. American consumers had the money in their pocket. You took it, and put it into the treasury for a bit, now it is being sent back to corporation, who gave it their large affluent shareholder.
I mean talk about cons.
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I am about 99.9% certain that was the plan from the beginning. The tariffs fleeced the rubes and the refunds went to their buddies. Planned by Trump and Bessent, executed quite well.
It is the only thing Trump is actually good at - fleecing the 99%.
And just as a reminder - EVERY GD RepubliQan claimed the tariffs were paid by China, Germany, Japan, Canada,…… ALL Lying.
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Fascism masked as Capitalism doing its thing. But socialism! Oh my god Dem Socialists are threatening your right to get rear-ended!
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