Trump passed tons of new tariffs. He did this to stimulate the economy (which is great with me being currently unemployed — hey, consider getting a paid subscription), but some people (apparently a lot of people who own stocks) are like, “No! Lots of new taxes are not going to stimulate the economy! It’s going to do the opposite thing — the bad thing!”
But Trump has a plan to make our economy great again. So how can tariffs stimulate the economy? Well, here is how:
How Tariffs Can Stimulate Our Economy
Tariffs cause all imports to go up in price.
Locally made goods also go up in price, as they either rely on material from imports or imported equipment.
This increase in price leads more people to invest in local manufacturing.
Factories everywhere! We all get factory jobs making shoes.
We miss office jobs, though, and yearn for the good old days of standing around the water cooler talking about TV shows we watched.
If we stop making shoes to talk about the latest episode of Reacher, though, the mean foreman will hit us with a stick! “More shoes!” he yells.
I bet if I got that stick, I could show the foreman. But he’s always watching. You pause for a moment from making shoes, POW! with the stick!
I know, I just need a distraction. I’ll just toss a shoe into one of the machine’s gears.
It worked! The foreman is all, “Why aren’t you making shoes?” But as he looks at the problem with the machine, I grab his stick. Now I have the power!"
“Stop being a bad foreman!” I yell as I hit him with a stick. Taste of his own medicine!
Now I lead every out of the factory to get back our office jobs. I can’t wait to sit in a cubicle in front of a computer and type stuff.
We get to the offices, though, and they’re all empty. The computers are running themselves.
“It’s all gone,” I hear a familiar voice say. I turn and see it’s the foreman. He explains that AI replaced us at all the office jobs.
It turns out the foreman wasn’t evil at all; he was just trying to protect us from the knowledge that the world we knew is gone forever.
But there is one thing left that AI can’t do: Make shoes.
We head back to the factory and make shoes. It’s a special day, though, which means we get pizza. We have thirty minutes to eat it and then back to making shoes.
And that’s how, in the best-case scenario, tariffs can stimulate the economy. It will be exciting to see how it pans out.
I think I'll choose to make pizzas instead.