Thread by @unseen1_unseen

Let's say you and other businesses sell hamburgers. Let's suppose you and you competition sell the hamburger for $10.00. The price includes all the fixings. All of you make a good enough profit on the burgers to stay in business. You notice your customers order onions on...

..just about every burger. You aren't really concerned by this fact since the price covers onions and your competition has the same costs since their customers order onions also. However, time passes and you discover the customers across town don't order onions at all.

You figure it up and decide you can increase you profit by .50 (or 5%) per burger by selling in the free onion area of town. Things are going great. You are raking in the non onion profits. Your competitors also notice this and start selling in the non-onion area.

Everyone's happy. Burger makers are happy & burger eaters are happy. Then an onion salesman comes to the free onion area and gets the customers to try onions on their burger. Curse that onion man the burger sellers cry. The burger eaters in free onion land like the onion's taste.

You can't charge more for the onions unless all burger markers increase the price since it's already factored into the price(fixings included don't you remember😉). You have to eat the cost as they eat the onions.

Your profits falls by 5%. You are still making a profit just not as big of a profit. It's not like you are going to stop selling. You might invest in a new store in previously free onion land to reduce transport costs and recapture some of that lost profit. Maybe.

Life moves on. U continue to sell burgers with onions, making a profit. The customers are happy with their onion burgers &onion man is happy with a new revenue stream. More onion farmers & suppliers have jobs. the burger economy didn't crash & burger eaters aren't paying more.

Now replace onions with tariffs and onion man with 🍊 man. Of course it's not a perfect analogy but it gets the idea across, hopefully.

Enjoy your burgers.