RIPTA Rider Reader

A weekly column you can read on the bus — or anywhere in the world.

There are some questions that become more embarrassing to ask the longer you wait to ask them, like “What is your name again?” or “What is a tariff?”

Speaking to Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! this week, UMass economics professor Richard Wolff explained:

“A tariff is a tax…it used to be called an ‘import duty.’ All it means is when something comes into the United States that was produced outside and is brought in to be sold, it has to pay a tax literally as it crosses our border into our country.

[The tariff] is paid by the American company that brings it in, which may pass it on the the consumer — usually what happens — and the tax goes to Uncle Sam, it goes to Washington.”

Here is something tangentially related to tariffs from the Spalding website:

“The NBA Game Ball is made of leather that comes exclusively from the Horween Leather Company in Chicago. Horween is one of the oldest leather tanneries in the United States and receives shipments of 3,000 cowhides a week, which go through a…