@dermoth @Lana

----EDITED----

Ok. I'm a teacher. So let me break this down for you into very very simple ideas and numbers.

Let's say Donnie takes over a popular sandwich shop. The shop sells $10 sandwiches. It's a very good sandwich shop. The shop continues to sell a lot of sandwiches. In fact, Simone buys a sandwich from Donnie every single day. In a week, Simone has spent $70 buying sandwiches from Donnie.

@dermoth

Now let's say Simone is selling her car. Donnie, the owner of the sandwich shop, wants a car. Simone decides to sell Donnie her car for the very very reasonable price of $700.

So here's the situation at the end of a week. Donnie has sold Simone $70 worth of goods. Simone has received $70 worth of sandwiches. In return, Simone has sold Donnie $700 worth of goods, and Donnie has received $700 worth of car.

@Lana

@dermoth

Any reasonable, rational person would look at that situation and say "that's a fair exchange". Both parties paid an amount of money equal to the value of the goods they now own.

But Donnie is not a rational person. What he has decided this means is that Simone have somehow cheated him out of $630, because $700-$70=$630. Does this make sense? Fuck no.

@Lana

@dermoth

Donnie has a trade deficit because Donnie chose to spend more money. In fact, Donnie went all over town, buying lots of things from lots of people, and creating trade deficits with all of them.

If anything, Donnie got the better part of the week's deals because Donnie's household has generational wealth, and greater disposable income, to make economically advantageous choices and purchase more items for convenience and pleasure.

@Lana

@dermoth

(edited) But it gets even worse. Then, because Donnie's a-brain is filled with maggots, he further declares that since $630 divided by $700 is 0.90, that MUST mean Simone, the seller of the car, has imposed a sandwich tariff of 90% on Donnie. Donnie insists that everyone around town has also cheated him through sandwich tariffs, and they've all stifled all his sales.

Does THIS make a lick of sense either? Also fuck no.

@Lana

@dermoth

(edited) But wait, you're going to love this. Donnie's "solution" to this is to decree that going forward, all cars that Donnie buys from Simone will be marked up a "reciprocal' 90%, from 700 to 1,330. And he'll pocket the fee.

And, everyone else in town is also going to get hit with extra fees on anything they sell to Donnie. He brags this will make him very rich.

Does THIS make any goddamn sense either? Jesus fucking Christ on a pogo stick no it fucking does not.

@Lana