Trump’s tariffs won’t cost Americans anything, and Jeffrey Epstein had no clients and killed himself. From David Haggith at thedailydoom.com:
In my weekend Deeper Dive, I showed where the government’s inflation data on Friday fell far short of the truth; so, you are right in thinking more has been eating away at you than the government reported. Then I provided information to paying subscribers from manufacturers and others about tariff pass-throughs that will soon take much larger bites out of American wallets in the months ahead, which I’ll enhance now with an addendum from one of today’s headlines:
Companies Have Shielded Buyers From Tariffs. But Not for Long….
Companies had passed along about 37 percent of new tariffs to consumers [under-reported by the government], forced 9 percent onto their suppliers and absorbed 51 percent through August, according to Goldman Sachs.
That means, of course, 51% remains to be shoved through. It also verifies that foreign entities are not even paying a tenth of the cost of tariffs.
[The 37%] is a big hit to shoppers’ wallets, enough to reverse inflation’s fall. But it is milder than it would have been if companies were charging consumers as much as they had at the same point in the last burst of tariffs during President Trump’s first term.
Mostly that is because the tariffs are much higher and more widespread than in 2018, making them too difficult for consumers to digest all at once….
Companies want to keep prices low. But they know investors will not accept narrower profit margins for long, so they have to figure out how to make up for tariff costs….
Autoliv, which supplies parts to carmakers, said it had recovered about 75 percent of its tariff costs and expected to make up for all of them by the end of the year….
Companies that have held off on price increases are signaling that they intend to institute them down the road — especially as ever more tariffs are imposed….
Prices have already risen particularly swiftly in categories like home furnishings and recreational goods because so many of those products come from China. New furniture tariffs will force costs even higher….
“We anticipate the tariff change to result in broad price increases for furniture in the U.S., dampen consumer demand and compressed industry margins in the short term for suppliers, manufacturers and retailers,” Derek Schmidt, Flexsteel’s chief executive, told investors….
“The supplier and the intermediaries have also been clear whenever we talk to them that their intent is ultimately to get back to prior margins….”
Tariffs passed through to consumers gradually could keep inflation elevated for a longer period….
In other words, the bulk of the tariffs will be passing through every time companies find a moment when they can add them to the price, even if incrementally.
