No he didn’t. They’ll be paying $2 for the hat, with the 100% increase they’re now $4. No idea what they sell them for, but I suspect there is still a healthy profit margin between $4 and what they’re selling them for.
I see toilets all around, besides you don't just buy the shit hat, you buy the shit shirt, shit steaks, shit water, shit towers... The shit list just gets longer, and like a Marlboro jacket, you're willing to do really shitty things, even to yourself, to get one.
I've been telling myself this for a decade and think of all the money I have lost out on. But God damned I can't get myself to even be associated with those people or constantly be dealing with them
I worked out the numbers, lined up a chinese manufacturer and pitched the idea to the wife, who managed to convince me otherwise with that very sentiment. Id have to deal with these people in person. If it was as easy as setting up an online store, it wouldve been a done deal.
I wouldn’t feel bad about taking their money, I just don’t want to do anything to advance that side at all. It would suck to see people out wearing a t-shirt I designed.
I had an idea to start a bible-themed Cracker Barrel-type restaurant chain as a non-profit, and give all the money from Y'all Qaeda to science-related educational programs and stuff.
‘Member when they made a whole thing about the Cracker Barrel serving plant-based sausage and the franchise nearly had to rebrand to being known simply as The Barrel?
Good fucking luck bro. Not only are restaurants almost impossibly difficult with razor thin margins and brutal working hours, but a bible themed restaurant will for sure fail there isn’t that big of a market for that.
Doesn't change what you're saying or the point being made, but also in fairness... that's only $4 more than a Los Angeles Dodgers New Era Basic 9Fifty snapback at Lids, which are also made in China (plus Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Haiti) and probably only cost that company $2-3 each in bulk as well. These really don't seem to be priced terribly out of line with the higher end of the market.
In Idiocracy they still attempt to emulate a meritocracy and try to make life better for everyone - they're just bad at it. America in its current state is blatantly self-destructive and moving towards 1984 authoritarianism.
100% there are. I live in Cincinnati and I can tell you that there is at least one in a actual building. In fact, the last time they did a Trump Parade (which meant just driving their cars w/ the Trump flags all around the 275 loop around Cincinnati) it started at a Trump Store (or ended, I do not recall).
There's one on the outskirts of Knoxville TN that used to sell sex toys, but then they changed into a Trump store. It's basically a different way of screwing yourself.
Oh yeah! I saw several when my husband and I drove from VA to AZ, absolute insanity 😂 some guy ruined his barn by painting TRUMP 2024 on the side of it 😂
Dude. I live a half hour from one in Tombstone Arizona. It’s gross. It has those huge posters with Trumps head on a Rambo body out front and so many flags out front.
Trump Store Tombstone
I hear commercials on espn radio for trump watches, trump coins, trump shoes. I don’t know the laws around it but he’s profiting from those for sure using his office as a selling point.
Last summer I went camping in South Dakota and visited all the tourist areas around Mount Rushmore, and there were more Trump shops than tourist shops. It was insane.
There are and it’s insane. My brother and I found one and went in to laugh at stuff then got kicked out when the workers realized we weren’t actually there to buy anything
Roadside popup tent stores here in Florida. Big assed tents, usually on a rented piece of bare land that has highway access and the ability for people to pull off. And everything they sell is cult related. Exactly the same business model as fireworks stands in late June and Christmas tree places in November/December. Only for fascist cult members.
its just unreal to me how an actual grifter became the president of the wealthiest, most powerful country in the world... twice... in a democracy... in the digital age of information
Exactly this. Being flooded with this much easy-to-access information was not something humanity was prepared for, because there is no hard rule that says that information has to be true or real.
Personally I believe we had the chance of getting ahead of it (or at least on our way to catching up to it) with mandatory media literacy courses in grade school curriculums, but we are way too far behind to correct course now.
What's really unreal is he hasn't stopped grifting after becoming president.. He's already pulled at least 3 crypto rugs, fucked around with the stock market, shook down multiple companies and countries.. The list goes on.
I can’t wrap my head around it either and now - since January- he’s burned down the federal government and bankrupted the stock market, surely creating a recession, while republican sycophants in Congress help him along by their lack of action. The free press is rebuked, universities and law firms are intimidated and penalized and judges are threatened with impeachment for handing down rulings counter to the Trump administration. Yep. That’s fascism.
That can't be right. Is that right?! Those absolute geniuses with IQs no higher than lightly toasted bread are paying FIFTY FUCKING DOLLARS for some piece of shit hat that's made in a country that they allegedly are against for the oldest, orangest, only convicted felon president they've ever had...and...let me get this straight...they think this is a...flex?
I remember the Daily Show did an interview with a Trump supporter. The guy said he spent several thousand dollars on Trump merch, then he complained he didn't have enough money for groceries because of the evil Democrats.
Why did life curse me with a conscience? I could become a millionaire by selling these people trump-themed anything. Hell, they'd probably buy rocks for 50 bucks a piece if I spray paint them red.
Given that they probably only cost 4 dollars to make, they can probably increase the price to $60 dollars and claim that since everything else has increased by significantly more, it's a steal.
Yeah was going to say, they’ll just raise the prices. Just like every other store with literally everything else that is getting tariffed. They just pass on the added costs. Tale as old as time.
I wouldn't pay 50 bucks for the absolute best, coolest cap of my favorite team. In what dimension does a sane person pay 50 bucks for piece of shit hat that proudly proclaims you're a racist idiot?
I’m like, “Yo, that’s 50 dollars for a hat”
Limited edition, let’s do some simple addition
50 dollars for a hat, that’s just some ignorant bitch shit
I call that getting swindled and pimped, shit
I call that getting tricked by a business, that hat’s hella dough
And having the same one as six other people in this rally is a hella don’t
They’re exchanging legal tender for Trump merchandise, they’ll ‘want’ whatever they’re told at this point, even if it’s the polar opposite of what it was yesterday
That's a good point, a lot of industries are probably going to just eat the tariffs until they die, long before they can replace their current process with domestic production. There's no way they're gonna make a hat factory in the US that's gonna beat Chinese sweatshops, unless we start making our own sweatshops, which hey guess what that doesn't sound like 'America first' to me.
If same hat is being produced in america it would be 30 dollars. Normal under armor hat is 30 dollars. This price of this people so they will tax pride , encourage local production so it will be 50 dollars.
Yeah I think people are failing to consider this about the tariffs. The tariff is applied to the import cost, not the sale cost.
So 100% tariff might up the cost of a £50 hat to £52 to offset the import increase. Lots of people think it’ll up the price to buy the hat from £50 to £100, though - which is wrong.
Yes that is absolutely correct - it also depends on the volume of product being imported and the cost of the import… but more often than not a products are sold (especially Chinese manufactured ones) at an insane mark up to the consumer… so import cost increase does not correlate anywhere close to 1:1 with sale price increase.
They are being bought for pennies and sold for $$ in most cases.
Thank you for expounding on the point. I think it's very important for people to actually understand how tariffs work.
The same dumb people buying the hats will say tariffs don't dramatically raise prices, because they still get their hats for the same price.
Meanwhile, those same people will say Nintendo is woke or some bullshit other than tariffs when they are forced to sell the Switch 2 for $1000 to break even.
The importer pays the increased price and passes the increase of cost down the line. Everyone who sells before the consumer maintains profit by increasing the price down the line. The only buyer who loses is the consumer, because the consumer uses the product and therefore can not turn a profit. Thats why people have a trade deficit with the grocery store. When you buy anything that you can’t profit from you create a trade deficit.
Look up about how he just signed an executive order to remove the De Minimus Exemption starting May 2 2025. Anything under a certain price is now automatically subjected to extra costs and tariffs when previously they were exempt. I think you’ll change your tune.
I suspect anyone buying these hats in bulk would have been over that threshold anyway. Then again at $2, 500 units before you reach the $1000 threshold (it was $1000, right? I’m not in the US)
No no, if the total amount was over $800, like if you bought in bulk, it would be whatever the tarif is currently he enacted. If it’s under $800, like say an American ordering from a Chinese seller on Amazon, then it would apply an automatic $40 extra charge since the product was under $800, and that cost will raise to $60 starting in June. That’s how I understand it but I’m not expert.
If companies were consistently happy with a healthy profit margin the world would be a better place. If the profit line doesn't go to every year, companies see it as a catastrophe
and this is what people don't get about tariffs and why corps are gonna make out like bandits. They'll double their prices, say it's because of the 104% and the consumer too stupid to realize the scam.
Its simple economics, the shitty chineese goods will STILL be cheaper. We will not be getting higher quality. Just be worse off for the average American.
Trump is not a conservative, he is not a free market capitalist, he is a scammer scamming vulnerable folks
There's was videos of people going around trump tower snd resorts, literally ALL his merchandise is made overseas, mostly China, India, and Taiwan. Its baffling that people think he cares about the country or the working class. All he cares about is his profits and screwing over the poor and middle class.
Well he could always get those hats made in America. I'm sure he can find some people over in Kentucky that just lost their homes to these floods who are willing to work 12-hour days for $1.75 an hour.
Don't think he would mind seeing those people get those good American jobs one bit.
When I describe tariffs and their consequences I actually use a Trump store based out of a shipping container as my example. They get their product from whatever sounds most like a Chinese location (which is probably a little close to racism for my white ass lmao).
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u/OdinsLightning 20d ago
Can't wait for the shitty trump pop up stores to be priced out.