Who pays for tariffs? You do. Whether an importer raises prices or cuts quality to keep the price the same, the cost lands on the consumer. In Episode 006, recorded after a federal appeals court ruled most of President Trump's tariffs illegal, Nicky P, Luke Tatum and Rob Brayton look at what the ruling could change, why tariff revenue can't fix federal spending, and what you can control while trade policy keeps changing.
“Ultimately the consumer pays for everything.”
Tariffs went on, came off, and went on again all year, and in late August 2025 a federal appeals court ruled most of them illegal. Nicky P opens with the obvious joke: surely this will not be overturned on appeal. Then the conversation gets to the part that affects your budget: whatever the courts decide, who pays?
What We Covered
Just another tax. Luke says we're already paying more at the grocery store and for consumer electronics, so pretending tariffs are something different is a little weird. Rob's take: call it a tariff or a tax, the result is the same. The on-again, off-again announcements leave people unsure what's real, and either way they end up paying.
What the ruling could change. Luke reads from CNBC, citing the Tax Foundation: before the court action, tariffs were set to affect roughly 69% of US goods imports. If they're struck down, that falls to about 16%. That's a big change, if it holds up at the Supreme Court.
The negotiation argument. Nicky makes the case supporters make: tariffs are part of a broader negotiating strategy, especially with the EU, and other countries have to adjust around them. Rob's answer is that everything has knock-on effects. If an importer has to pay 20% more, the cost reaches you in a higher price or a cheaper product at the same price.
“The government spends so much money every single day that I think 33 billion is enough to last like two or three days.”
I'm not the government. Luke uses Liechtenstein as a neutral example of how tariffs ripple through exporters, importers and business owners. Whatever favors the government wins in a trade deal, he points out, it doesn't help him. More revenue for the government isn't the same as a benefit for you.
A spending problem, not a revenue problem. Rob says the real issue is federal spending, and the fix is cutting it to half its size or more, not 5% or 10%. Luke adds that most proposed cuts in Washington are really a smaller increase spread over 10 years. August's record of about $33 billion in tariff revenue sounds huge until you compare it to federal spending. By Luke's estimate, it covers two or three days.
Numbers too big to picture. Luke remembers the old infographic videos that stacked pallets of cash next to the Empire State Building. Nobody can picture a trillion of anything, and he thinks the government counts on that. Nicky calls it the COVID playbook: flash big numbers and let people be scared.
“You can’t put a tariff on land.”
Your sphere of control. You can't set tariff policy, but you can act on what you know. A business owner who sees tariffs coming on steel can buy steel while it's cheaper. That takes capital you can reach quickly, some dry powder, and hard assets. As Luke puts it, you can't put a tariff on land. Rob adds that the average American might take home about $50,000 a year after taxes, so a working couple has around $100,000 flowing through their hands. His family buys a cow from a local farmer each year. The question is how much of that flow you keep and direct into a system you own and control.
Your most valuable asset. Luke points to people who built businesses on social media platforms and lost them overnight when a policy changed. You don't control the platform. You do control your skills, and your ability to earn income is the most valuable thing you have. Rob agrees: your number one asset is yourself.
Key Takeaway
Tariff policy will keep changing, and you don't get a vote on the next version. What you control is your own cash flow and your own skills. Keep some capital ready, put more of what flows through your hands into a system you own and control, and keep building your ability to earn.
Key Moments
[0:00] We're Already Paying More
[2:00] From 69% of Imports to 16%
[3:00] Tariffs as a Negotiating Tool
[5:00] The Consumer Pays for Everything
[9:00] A Spending Problem
[11:00] $33 Billion vs. the Federal Budget
[15:00] Your Sphere of Control
[17:00] Controlling the Flow of Your Income
[19:00] Platform Risk and Your Earning Power
“Your ability to earn income is the most valuable thing that you have.”
Related Episodes
Episode 004: Is the Fed's Dual Mandate Failing America? Jerome Powell, the 2% Inflation Target and the Volcker Era
Episode 005: What Does the Government's 10% Stake in Intel Mean for Taxpayers?
Episode 003: Global Inflation Falls Everywhere But America: When Money Becomes Worthless
Want the full conversation, including the Liechtenstein example and Rob's cow math? Listen to the full episode and grab the free toolkit at PerfectSpiralCapital.com/podcast.
FAQ
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The consumer, in the end. An importer that pays a tariff either raises its prices or cuts costs somewhere else, often by selling a cheaper product at the same price. Either way, as Rob Brayton puts it in Episode 006, the average person loses in that deal.
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In late August 2025, a federal appeals court ruled that most of President Trump's tariffs were illegal. CNBC, citing the Tax Foundation, reported that tariffs were set to cover roughly 69% of US goods imports before the ruling and about 16% if they were struck down. When this episode was recorded, the decision was headed for an appeal to the Supreme Court.
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Not at current levels, Luke Tatum argues. August 2025 set a monthly record of about $33 billion in tariff revenue, which by his estimate covers two or three days of federal spending. Rob Brayton’s view is that the deeper issue is spending, not revenue.
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Focus on what you control. Keep some capital where you can reach it quickly so you can buy before prices rise, hold hard assets, buy in bulk or locally when it makes sense, and keep building your skills, since your ability to earn is your most valuable asset.
Show full transcript
Between The Lies: Episode 006 Transcript
The Court Ruling [0:00]
Nicky P: Most of President Trump's tariffs are illegal US court rules, and this will in no way be immediately overturned when it's inevitably appealed. Welcome to the Between The Lies Podcast, your weekly lesson on how to approach an uncertain world with positivity and balance. I'm Nicky P here with my good friends and money brains.
Luke Tatum and Rob Brayton from Perfect Spiral Capital. Gentlemen, are you ready to pay more?
We're Already Paying More [0:00]
Luke Tatum: Either way. No, I'm not, but I don't think I have a whole lot of choice in the matter. So, you know, here we are and that's a pretty good starting point for the conversation. I'd say, we're already paying more. Various different ways at the grocery store, whenever we're buying anything, consumer electronics, any of that good stuff, we're already paying more and, you know, to pretend that tariffs are some uniquely different thing that don't have anything to do with that is just a little weird.
We have some really, really weird commentary on these topics here lately, but, Rob, what's your first take on that?
Rob Brayton: Yeah, it's just another tax, right? It's no different. Like, whatever we wanna call it, we're still gonna pay more. At the same time, you know, and what we were talking before, one of the things that I think is so crazy about all this is it just feels like a repeat.
Like tariffs were announced and they were repealed, and now they're announced and it just kind of has that same feel, for the average person. So it's like, are these real? Are they not? So, either way we're gonna end up paying something. It's just a matter of where it comes from, I suppose.
Luke Tatum: Yeah. I, you know, I watch a. Tech news show called TechLinked on YouTube, and I think it's Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And for a long time there it was every single episode. It's some change about what tariffs are. It's like, so actually there is a tariff over here. Actually there it's less. And you know, we've been doing this all year.
It's months and months and months of. What are prices gonna be? What are they, you know, who's gonna pay them? Like, it's just, we never stop talking about this. And so I hear you loud and clear. It's like, could we move on? Could we talk about something else? But. Not if they're gonna have a huge change.
From 69% of Imports to 16% [2:00]
Luke Tatum: Right. I mean, according to one of the articles we pulled for this episode, this is the CNBC article. It says before the court action Trump's tariffs were set to affect roughly 69% of US goods imports according to the Tax Foundation. If struck down, they would go down to just 16% of goods coming to the US.
So, I mean, it is a big change. If this actually sticks and it doesn't just get flipped at the Supreme Court,
Nicky P: And I don't think the percentage does, doesn't real credit when you, 'cause I believe it gave us some projected amounts on there as well that were a little bit ludicrous to think of.
Luke Tatum: Right. I mean, you know, the White House, of course is run running victory laps all the time these days about how much in tax revenue is coming in and how, oh, we're gonna replace the income tax and stuff.
And it's like, you know, does anybody know how to use a calculator except me? Am I the only person in the world that knows how to add enough zeros to trillion? You know, like
Nicky P: I was to say, I believe, I believe Trump had said 8 trillion is what we've brought in so far via tariffs.
Luke Tatum: Yeah, something like that, which just, yeah.
Tariffs as a Negotiating Tool [3:00]
Nicky P: So it doesn't even make any sense to me. No. So now obviously from the school of thought that we come from, yes. We have a very narrow view of what tariffs are and how people. How those affect people, which is generally, it's just an extra tax on you. The pushback that I see the makes, and this is also to a degree, why we keep seeing it change.
Why you keep hearing, oh, this and this, and this is because the tariffs do not exist in a vacuum. They're part of, a broader. Well, you can agree with it or disagree. They're part of a broader negotiation strategy that Trump's using with other nations. So, and largely what I've heard is they have actually worked out to great effect, especially in some places like Europe, where we've basically been getting raked over the coals for the entirety of our time dealing with them.
The EU in particular, But while, yes, they are direct, a direct tax on us necessarily, does that affect trade in ways that. We'll say other nations kind of have to find workarounds for, like, they can't just have us not buying goods, so they have to change other things to basically kind of balance out the changes that their own economy is gonna have to go through.
The Consumer Pays for Everything [5:00]
Rob Brayton: Yeah, and I think just like, I mean, tariffs, taxes, whatever we wanna call 'em, everything has a knock on effect in some way, shape or form. So if we think about. Well, you know, company A is gonna be importing this good into the United States. They know they're gonna have to pay now, pay 20% more to get it here, right?
Well, ultimately the consumer pays for everything. So either that cost is gonna be directly translated down the line to us in some way, or the company says, can we cut 20% out of our cost? Make a cheaper product and sell it for the same price either way. Who's losing in that deal? Like the average person is right?
So, I mean, that's part of it that kind of stinks.
Nicky P: That is if you're talking specifically about like the companies themselves making changes. But we're, once again, we're talking about this at the global level when between international policies where like the countries are the ones all making the.
The changes, and they have to see their revenue, you know, bottom line function. So we see them offsetting things in their own way to, I guess I'm gonna say the horrible phrase, balance, trade.
The Liechtenstein Example [6:00]
Luke Tatum: Let's not talk about trade balance. I mean that, okay. So that's, I mean, that's a whole, that's a whole silly.
Thing I guess we do at some point have to talk about it, but I hear what you're saying, right? It's a negotiating tool. It's a, it's a, you know, way to put pressure on this country or whatever, and it's to try to get something else. You know, is this a negotiating tool to get something else out of that same country?
Well, we'll lower our tariffs, but you have to do this right? Because, you know, any country that I say is gonna have a whole bunch of. Associated, you know, gut reactions from the crowd, right? So anybody watching this, okay, if I say Russia, some people are gonna hate me. If I say China, some people are gonna hate me just for bringing up the country, right?
So, let's do the principality of Liechtenstein because I don't think anyone has strong feelings about them, right? So Liechtenstein, let's say, is gonna send goods over here, but then we increase our tariffs. Those manufacturers over in Liechtenstein or wherever, they may not export at all. It may increase their cost of doing business.
They may have to find domestic alternatives or things they may not import as much because there's not as much dollars leaving, you know, entering their country and vice versa. Those kinds of things. There's a whole web of different repercussions that can occur, and that's just at the business owner level, right?
You've got the governments themselves trying to position for favors and all these things too, which I mean. We are not the government. I guess I should say that it's a great opportunity to go into that. Like I'm not in Congress or the House of Representatives. I don't sit in the White House. I'm not the government, right.
Just 'cause I vote or whatever. In fact, I don't. But it doesn't make me a participant. You know, in the, in the government. If the government gets cool favors from La, China or China or Russia or any other country, it doesn't help me. You know, and so I don't necessarily care as a consumer what kind of benefits, maybe we're negotiating and whatnot, but at the end of the day, it's like Trump introduces something.
It gets reversed. Oh, we're gonna lower the tariffs. Oh, we're gonna meet in the middle. Oh, we're gonna do all this different stuff. But what does all that mean? It means revenue for the government. What is the government doing with its revenue these days? Anything that benefits me? No. And so I just have to bring it down to the you and me level and say, I don't care.
I wish they'd cut it out. You know, could they all just take a permanent holiday? So that's my official position.
A Spending Problem [9:00]
Rob Brayton: Yeah, I mean, you're, look, I appreciate where you're coming from with that, Luke. I think that in this situation, you have the president trying to operate from a. You know, obviously the negotiation aspect like you guys were talking about before, I think there's a lot of that posturing, a lot of those things happening.
At the same time. I see this as well, we have a revenue problem, is kind of how the president's kind of thinking about it from a business angle. The biggest issue and the elephant in the room is we have a spending problem. That's the biggest problem that we have at a federal level. If the, if the spending is cut and I'm talking.
Not 5% or 10%. I'm talking like half the size or more. That's what we really need. And then we don't have hardly any of these problems at all. And I think that's the biggest issue is you have a large class of society. Unfortunately, that has become reliant on some of these things from the government in some, in some cases it's not even by their own accord.
It's just that's how things have evolved or it's been maybe manipulation in order to. Have them vote in a certain way so that they, the people in charge can feel like they're doing the right thing for the people. But regardless if we attack one side of it, but don't attack the other side, we're not gonna fix a thing.
It's only gonna get worse for the average person, which again, the whole point of this isn't to be like gloom and doom. The reality is, is like. That's, we have to look at it and these are the ways that we have to look at it. There's two sides, and like anybody who's maybe willing to think outside the box, there is a third side on the coin.
And that that third side is one that's often misunderstood or not looked at. And that's something that we have to be thinking about here is, well, what if we did both things? Maybe we could fix some problems here.
$33 Billion vs. the Federal Budget [11:00]
Luke Tatum: Yeah. I mean, if I can just jump back in, Nick, I just, I feel like. It's so funny that, you know, the White House, Trump, whoever runs the White House, you know, Twitter page and, and whatnot.
We'll post these things all the time about how many billions of dollars of revenue are coming in from these tariffs and as though it's gonna somehow solve the problem, right? So to your point, Rob spending is the problem, like the government has. Such a spending addiction. When you hear about cuts, it's like a proposed 5% cut in increase in spending over the next 10 years.
You know, like some ridiculously protracted and non cut, that is not solving anything. And yet people lose their minds about it. And so. You know, the military spending's outta control. The everything, everything. I could just list every major sector of the government. There's no point in naming names, right?
Because all of it is bloated and it's spending too much. And so if you look at tariff revenues. We just broke another rev, record for monthly tariff revenues. August was like $33 billion in tariff revenue is what they're claiming. And I don't have enough information to dispute that, but we've.
Entertain the idea of cutting the income tax or redu, you know, eliminating the income tax if there's enough tariff revenue. Is that gonna happen with $33 billion? No. No, it's not. The government spends so much money every single day that I think 33 billion is enough to last like two or three days.
Rob Brayton: Yeah, I was just watching a podcast, earlier this week, the last two months. It's a trillion dollars in deficit. 33 billion does nothing. I mean it, that's the problem. It's this massive bloat that we have, that we have to get rid of, and that's deficit spending, right? That's not even the budget itself.
So it's $1 trillion. I mean, these huge numbers are thrown around. It's unbelievable. And most people have no clue. Just how big that is. And I mean, it's so significant that it's hard for us to wrap our minds around when you start putting it into something physical, for example.
Numbers Too Big to Picture [13:00]
Luke Tatum: You remember in the early two thousands when we would have like all these infographic type animation videos that people would share around from, you know, the Heritage Foundation or whoever.
And it'd be like, this is a pallet with a hundred thousand dollars on it, and then the zooms out, and then here's all, here's how much it would take to be a million dollars and here's how much is a billion dollars, you know? And then you have the daily amount of spending from Washington DC and it's like a.
Six Empire State Buildings or some crazy thing. You know, it's like, it. Just beggars belief, you cannot wrap your mind around it. Nobody can like appreciate and think about how big even 1 million is, right? What? You can't think of 1 million of anything. You know, you look out at like all the pine needles in a national forest or something.
You're like, that's a really big amount. You don't think you don't see a million or a billion or whatever You see. That is too many to ever wrap my mind around and that's what we're dealing with here. And I think the government. Takes advantage of that. Right? Well, I don't know how big a trillion dollars is, so I guess it's okay.
It seems like that's how people feel.
Staying Positive [15:00]
Nicky P: Well that's just rehashing the rehashing, the COVID playbook of, hey, let's keep flashing these big numbers. 'cause people don't know how to contextualize them and we'll scare 'em. So let me ask the question. You know, obviously this whole show is about keeping positive and trying to not participate in the negative parts of the economy that we don't wanna participate in.
What does that look like right now? And, you know, are there ways to kind of push back against this thrust?
Your Sphere of Control [15:00]
Luke Tatum: Well, I would say that. You have to, you have to just keep your head on straight. You know, in times like these, like it always goes back to that sphere of control kind of thing, right? Do I have the ability to directly set tariff policy?
Obviously not, you know, nobody on this, on this podcast has that ability and you know, so you have to just say, okay, can't control that CPI is doing whatever tariff policy is doing, whatever. If you know something is coming. Can you capitalize on that knowledge, right? If you know that tariffs are gonna take effect on something that you need, if you're a business owner doing steel, you know, manufacturing, obviously you should buy steel when it's cheaper.
You know there are simple things that you can do in those sorts of scenarios to prepare yourself, but in order to be in a position to do those sorts of things, you need to have capital. You need to have powder dry, so to speak. You need to. Be liquid, be positioned and not have all of your money tied up in, you know, speculative investment, right?
You need to have hard assets. You need to have things you can touch and use. And so, certainly that's how we live our lives. Real estate, things like that are great to just hold value and keep handy and keep available. And that doesn't matter. Like you can't put a tariff on. Land, for example. So that's one thing.
Rob, do you got anything else you would recommend here?
Controlling the Flow of Your Income [17:00]
Rob Brayton: I think you're right on the right, you're going down the right path, right? And one of the things that was kind of coming up to my mind was, what if somebody doesn't have that in place, right? So what can I, what can I do? What's in my control?
Well, first of all, you have control over your income. So. But what are you doing with that income? How much control of the flow of that money that's gonna flow through your system from your money, how much of that are you gonna retain? How much, what are you gonna do with that? Where's that gonna flow to?
You know, the average American makes what, maybe $50,000 after taxes, if they're lucky. In most cases. So, you know, you have two couples working that's a hundred thousand dollars that are gonna flow through your system this year. What do you have in place to start controlling that flow? If, because if you can and you start redirecting that into a system you own and control, you can do exactly like what Luke was just talking about.
You can start to create a situation where you have the powder dry, you can maybe buy your food in bulk. We buy a cow every year, right? We get it from a local farmer. These are things that people can really do that actually help. Create a better system. It just takes, but we all have to act it. It can't be just one or two people.
It's a lot of people operating together. I mean, ultimately speaking, the government is support, supposed to report to us.
Nicky P: Well, in the words of Dave Smith, why don't you walk out to that cop on the street and tell him, Hey, you work for me buddy. See what happens to you.
Rob Brayton: I mean, fair, fair point, right? Monopoly on violence, that's a whole different, topic.
But yes. I think you, but I'm not saying go out and do something illegal necessarily, but I'm saying. We can start to control what we can control. And by doing that, that does give us hope. And I can certainly say even from my own personal situation and others that I've worked with, things are getting better for us and for other people, despite the fact that things are more expensive.
Sure that happens, but
Platform Risk and Your Earning Power [19:00]
Luke Tatum: You know, this. And maybe this is too big of a pivot, but this takes me back too, Rob, to like, over the last 10, 15 years, you know, when people have built a big audience, you know, you build a business or something on a platform, like a social media platform, like a Facebook or something like that.
And then, oh, well, they updated their policies. You can't be on there anymore. You didn't own that. You didn't really control that. You just had a kind of a permission slip to play on the Facebook platform for a while, right? And so it just goes back to that hole. You know your skills, you directly control, right?
You could spend money, some of that, a hundred thousand dollars. In that example you gave, building a new skillset, you know, leveling up some skills you already have, getting some new certifications if you're in tech or something, you know, like different things. It depends on what you're doing, but you, your ability to earn income is the most valuable thing that you have.
And so how are you using it? And are you reinvesting? You know, if you think of yourself, your physical self as a business, I know that's a little weird, but your business yourself can get better every year, every day, every week, you know what have you. How are you doing that? Are you just hoping that nobody changes the government policy on your particular sector, right?
Are you, do, are you an employee? Or are you operating in some of the other cashflow quadrants, right? Do you have some investments? Do you own a business? You know, are you doing anything else? Or are you just clocking in, clocking out and hoping for the best? And so if it's the latter, if you're just clocking in, clocking out, could you change that?
What are you interested in? What can you start to direct some of your cashflow towards, to kind of get out of that trap? You know, the so-called rat race, so. You know, investment or putting money into a, you know, cash flowing policy like we do with our infinite banking concept, you know, ideas and all that.
That's just one piece of the puzzle. You know, we can't help you if you don't change your mind, if you don't change how you're thinking about it.
Your Number One Asset [21:00]
Rob Brayton: Yeah, I, on that front, Luke, I would just say like, rethink your thinking, right? That's something that we have to do in these situations is think differently. And what is our number one asset?
Our number one asset is ourselves. So if we invest, reinvest in ourselves, that that level of return could be exponentially huge if you think differently about the situation. So we have to really challenge ourselves. Like if I can't just say, well, that's the way it is, it should be, well, how? How do I get it?
How do I make it happen? Insulate ourselves. A lot of these happenings and provide real hope for ourselves and our next generations if we do it. And I think that's the thing that excites me the most about what we do is working with people and helping them get into that mindset. And when you see that light bulb turn on for somebody, it is unbelievable.
I mean, it is, it's probably the one of the best feelings I've had in the world. Is some you, someone has changed their life from that point forward because they now are thinking differently. And that is true. That's truly exciting and, and I think that's really what is capable for all of us if we're willing to think differently.
And that's really all what it comes down to.
Luke Tatum: Right there with you. No, I love it. This is, we could talk about mindset stuff all day, but you know, it's so good. It's so good when people actually like, snap out of it and, and get into some other modes of thinking,
Nicky P: Gentlemen, why don't you take us out today?
'cause I think we're all reaching that point where you can only talk about tariffs for so long. What do got for us?
Outro and Free Toolkit [23:00]
Luke Tatum: You know, it's a little bit of a dry topic. Yeah. No. So thanks so much as always for joining us on the Between The Lies Podcast. If you watch this full episode, then you're clearly interested in money.
We've got a free toolkit to help you demystify the future of your money. Lots and lots of free resources in there. So head on over to perfectspiralcapital.com/podcast. Get your free toolkit and we'll see what we can do to help you. Thanks so much for watching.
