I'm skeptical. Tariffs affect the cost of business same-day. If we were going to see a change in consumer prices id expect to see an inkling of a change 12 months in. I'm open to being wrong but claims that tariffs are destroying the American consumer feel like gas lighting given the CPI data.
leptons|17 days ago
How? The day the tariff goes into effect is after vast amounts of on-shore stock has already landed, purchased for a far lower price. The purchases done on the day the tariffs took effect and after are costing more, but have not landed yet. So no, it's practically never a "same-day" effect.
>claims that tariffs are destroying the American consumer feel like gas lighting
If you live in the US, and don't notice the price of everything has been steadily increasing last year, and continues to increase this year, then I don't know what to tell you but that you're arguing in bad faith.
yadaeno|17 days ago
Tariffs took effect in February 2025. We saw CPI go up 2.7% in 2025 and 2.5%/4 in Q1 2026 so I'm skeptical of the inventory lag theory. Maybe we're stressing some other part of the economy and gearing up for catastrophic failure, but I don't see that in the economic data.
> If you live in the US
I live in the US. Gas prices spiked in 2024 and prices went up, gas prices went down and CPI leveled off, tariffs started in 2025 and CPI remains stable. Maybe tariffs are cutting into some drop shipper's profits but I'm definitely not paying for it.