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SardonicSwan t1_iv0zj38 wrote

Reply to comment by Unusuallyneat in Author reminds Americans that Samuel Adams was a revolutionary before he was a beer by DaveOJ12

How do you define "everyday people"? Because they were just regular merchants who earned money from transporting tea and selling it, the smugglers just earned extra. The new policy made it so they earned a lot less while the price of tea per person didn't change much.

If you had to pay $5 for a box of tea that lasted you a month instead of, say, $7, you really wouldn't care that much (this example uses modern values of money).

But, if you just transported thousands of boxes of tea that you bought for $3, and the tax takes $1, then the profit of $3 just turned into $1. Meanwhile, the people who imposed those taxes and forced the prices to be lower are actually making even more profit than you for the same price. It makes sense that you'd be pissed.

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LFCsota t1_iv12f1t wrote

You seem to miss the part where their profit margin was high because they were illegally transporting ( not paying import and export taxes on shipping) and selling it for cheaper then businesses who legally acquired it and followed the rules.

You really telling me I'm supposed to be upset the smugglers profit margins went down?

You even baked in a situation where the government gets more in taxes then the business owner did to make your point while ignoring the fact these people were making money because they weren't paying taxes at all.

What about the business owners who did things above board and finally could sell their product at a competitive rate instead of being undercut by smugglers? Shall we not feel for them? They are actually acting in a manner that is a part of society and the social contract.

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SardonicSwan t1_iv1nmem wrote

Okay, I read more about smugglers because I didn't think they were all that prevalent. They were. About 60% of tea drunk in Britain was smuggled, and about 80% in America. My bad.

While I could argue that it's basically the same except it's traders who smuggled tea, that would make my original point kind of irrelevant. So yes, the smugglers were pissed, but that is more of a side note.

The main outrage actually was the way they were being taxed. Smuggling tea meant smuggling it out of Britain and not paying taxes. With the Tea Act, they were now forced to pay taxes directly to Britain. This meant they recognized Britain's right to tax, which means all sorts of things that England could do to America, but in return, they got nothing.

Normally, taxes go to the government, which will, in turn, benefit the taxpayer (like protection, programs, and of course representation in government). But pretty much none of the benefit was in America (there was an ocean after all), so they were essentially just stealing money from them.

It was fine before because the tea was taxed in Britain when it was being exported, but now Britain was taxing Americans directly.

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LFCsota t1_iv1q9x0 wrote

Wow what a hard hitting factual defense of your bullshit comments trying to defend the rich.

Like OP said, it lowered the cost for most people but resulted in less profit to those who controlled the supply because merchants could legally aquire it for cheaper instead of using smugglers.

I really hate having discussions with folks like you because you even said OP was correct yet you have to go on and on to back track and make it look like your stupid statement was correct too.

We all know about no taxation without representation and we didn't need you to rephrase something we all get beat into us in school.

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