Tariffs are great for the middle class, says Ira Zlotowitz of GParency

Here's why I think that the tariffs are here to stay and will be amazing for the middle class and the overall economy in the United States. So to really unpack a couple of things, I spent the last few weeks speaking to some of the wealthiest influential people within banking, real estate, and general business. And the one common thread across the board, I started off many calls with, "What do you think of the Trump show?" And I gazed all types of reactions. The most common thread across the board which I found very interesting is that almost everyone agreed with what is happening. They disagree to the pace of how fast they disagree is like a ball in the China closet. They disagree with the style but clearly everyone agrees that the path we were currently on and I'm not going political class um um path just from the last you know last presidency just overall the direction of the company country is heading it can't continue this way. If you also realize that everyone that was ever running for president the last several terms have always been talking about the same types of things about gut out the fraud in the government and and tariffs and all these types of things. But it really when you deal with politics and you deal with the whole entire country and so many people have different opinions. Think about just within our own communities when when someone gets up and someone wants to make a comment and then it affects one area of the community and and how it affecting a broader community and going to the next community it starts getting complicated. Same thing happens over here. You're dealing with the whole entire world. You're dealing with a whole people play risk. You're talking about this is not risk. This is a real world game. So it needed somebody like Donald Trump to come into office after everything he went through including unfortunately the getting shot where he said this is it. I finally have the country's approval and I'm going to do it. The biggest real change that he's doing now than any other president was able to do is he's playing the long game. Someone once told me China has an advantage. They could play the 500 year a year game. They could plan a strategy 100 years out. A publicly traded company typically gets judged quarter by quarter. The president and all the politics with how things run, he has to really make sure to not more than a four-year plan because in four years who's going to take over office, but he's not making any decisions for the short term. And in order to do this, like you said in a recent um that Donald Trump said in a recent interview, it's it's middle of the surgery. Of course, the patients going to be hurt. Of course, the stock market is going to drop. But let me tell you what I think is really going on and from the feedback that I got is that the tariffs are here to stay. The reason why the tariffs have to be here to stay is because if they weren't here to stay, no one's going to invest in the United States to build factories here, build manufacturing if they believe that, oh, it's just a game up and down. Will the same percent of tariffs stay that everyone agrees it's going to it's going to level out at some level. But clearly the government that the tariffs here to stay and it's going to bring more companies into the United States. You also have to realize about the long game. You have to realize about I know I talk about AI, but the next frontier that's bigger than AI is really going to be robotics. robotics already in think about your car a Tesla is a robotic right it's a car that's able to you can have cars driving by themselves you have in factories there's robotics it's very very tough in a corporation to get rid of employees and replace them with robotics because then you have the unions and just in general you're laying people off replacing them new businesses as they grow they could implement robotics because they're not firing anybody they're just hired at a slower pace I once met this read this book amazing perspective regarding Amazon Amazon is getting this amazing, you know, you know, when they were in the growth mode, how how many employees they're hiring and how how they're growing. But someone said realize that every time they hire like 20 people, there's some number like that, 200 people are getting fired from comp from from um retail stores throughout the country. So it looks great on the way up. The reason why manufacturing went overseas, the primary reason the primary reason why people outsource labor overseas is for cost is the cost are cheaper and you don't have to deal with the unions. Now when they're with robotics and AI and automation what's happening is these factories able to come in a to avoid the tariffs but number two we're able to argue to them and say listen long you'll be able to run much more efficient of factories here it robotics is the same cost to to operate robotics here and it operates in a different country and that difference in the tariffs and that difference in the labor cost and how much labor you're going to have could be a win. So some people look at it like you see AOC and Bernie Sanders talking about how the rich are going to get so much richer and the poor are going to get poor. There's no more middle class. I disagree. I happen to think that for the first time the ultra ultra rich are going to run into a problem cuz the ultra rich up until automation and AI and robotics once you had a company the size you have it's some of the largest corporations and the tech companies. Look what happened at Google. People thought they can't no one could unseat Google. along comes along comes chat open AI chatbt and all these other AI tools that are coming out and all of a sudden this it starts becoming a threat to them things could change their moat as they call it the moat is the thing that protects them that that's their competitive advantage used to get wider and wider now it's shrinking because right now if an individual wants to open up a company a c group of people get together really savvy and are using the latest of tech they could accomplish so much more so few people accomplishing more so you you talk about supercharging people with within AI and within robotics, they could do a lot more. So now, what do I think is going to happen going forward? Think about Amazon. Amazon opened up and Amazon allowed so many millionaires to open to to start having their own businesses. How many people do we know that are have Amazon business? They make a ton of money in Amazon business for the same exact direction you're going to have now. people that gonna be able to open up larger businesses and different sized businesses that until now were very tough to be able to open just a few people because they had that they they they had this problem of labor of higher labor costs but now with with I think the direction we talk about AI how AI can affect the jobs overall and it's going to affect 80% of jobs not just not just that the 80% of people can lose a job and disappear but many of those people can start opening up their own companies and we have a lot more businesses opening up in the United States and there's a lot a fractional you know the whole fractional or the the gig economy we call it Uber drivers and Uber Eats you're going to have a lot more just like you have outsourced CFOs you get a lot more of those outsource CFOs and a lot outsource seues and every way throughout the whole the whole stack so bringing back to the topic here the tariffs are going to cause a lot more things to be developed and built in the United States many people talk about within the Jewish community when they talk about that the the that that how we are community and family bound is that we support our own what does that mean we try to do business with within ourselves. We have a a family member or a cousin or somebody that within the community opens up a business, we try to use them. And many religions and and cultures do the same thing for themselves. What happened to the United States is that the United States had their business and everyone operated and bought stuff in the United States. Then became a global economy. They went buying everything all over the world. Now with the tariffs and more manufacturing in the United States, they're going to bring a lot more back into the United States. So with this coming into the United States, this is going to be a major benefit for the the general economy of people spending more money here and keeping their revenues here. Number two, it's going to be the benefit with AI, automation, and robotics for more people to open up regular average Joe, so to speak, to open up a company. And that those companies will be able to thrive. In corporate America, they say that, you know, everyone's a replaceable part at some level. Every single employee is a replaceable part. An attorney is also replaceable but at a higher level than someone just sweeping the floors, right? But however, the person that the owner relies on, that person makes more than the typical person because the owner has a business has to rely on that person. When you have one big corporation, how many people are being relied on from the top down? It trickles down. By the time it gets two or three degrees, everyone else is really a lowle like truly replaceable part. When you have a ton of companies opening within those businesses, the top few people are important to the business. much more important proportionally than they would have been in the previous job that they had. Those people are earning more. That is the middle class. So all these benefits will benefit the middle class. They talk about Trump wants to have an idea to potentially eliminate taxes for anyone making less than $150,000. That's always going to be a boon for the middle class. So take this all into perspective. And I want to add another line from general business. When a company is having a problem with with with profits, there's two ways to fix those problems. Number one is focus on revenue. How could the company do more sales? keep the expenses the way they are, do more sales. Number two is how could they cut expenses? I think what's going on over here simultaneous in the country is they have the doge effect. And again, people have a different appreciation for how and why they're going about it. And obviously, you know, you always talk about the people that are are screaming the most and the people that benefit from it. But leave the politics aside. They're focusing on the fat that's in the system that that every business, every corporation over time ends up having a certain level of fat and you have to hit the reset button. That's really what Doge is doing. Doge also is not taking the normal approach but saying oh how can I cut 10% of expenses in the top they're starting with a white piece of paper and they're saying is this department how many people today I needed to run this department 37 and now there's 180 it looks like they got rid of 143 people wow they're cutting down no it's the other way they only needed the 37 in some areas they're not going to cut as much because they're really looking from the ground up but they're they're focusing on the cutting of the expenses at the flip side of the coin what Donald Trump is trying to do both at the same time says not only they want to cut expenses. I want to go ahead and increase the revenue. How can we go ahead and keep more revenue, more business in the United States, keep cycling that in the country plus with the revenue that comes in from the tariffs and putting this all together? He the other reason why he's doing this all so fast is because we are all humans. And we all compare our current we all compare our current situation that we're dealing with to to um to yesterday compared to the day before the day before. So he would rather go ahead and say how many things can I accomplish and do and pull off that band-aid so to speak within my first 30 60 90 180 days get the bad news behind us and then begin the healing towards that long term. So yes did the stock market totally cradle last week. Yes. Some people think it's going to pop right back. Personally, I don't think it's going to pop right back because there many there were very few companies drove the market and now I think there's be a lot more businesses opening up as I said before and I just think it's a whole new world we're coming into that it's not the same rules of engagement. If you have the tariffs more rebuilding back in the United States, you have automation, you have AI, and you have the robotics all at the same exact time, I think we're in for a much better place for the average person as opposed to the the path we were heading in the p in the past. And I would love to hear your perspective on this. This is just one person's view and based on research that I did, but I would love to hear your perspective now that you hear all the different pieces put together at once.