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Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything

wsj.com

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Re: Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything

#51

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

throwawayqqq11 wrote: post #38
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> basic economic theory makes some really bad assumptions. It assumes everyone has the information they need, and sellers can instantaneously change prices in response to changes in demand or cost of production This…is not true. What theory are you referring to?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_economicus Its a long time known flaw in economics. Im sure there are better models but i still agree with GP, the scientific field of economics is still a joke on par with psychology.

There's nothing in this article about an assumption of perfect information or of instantaneous price changes.

Re: Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything

#53

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

declan_roberts wrote: post #52

[flagged]

I don't understand the point of this comment. If you consider the most important target to be China, so important that it's worth a 10,000% tariff unless certain demands are met, shouldn't you be furious that the tariffs the source article describes on copper and India and Turkey are distracting from the important things?

Re: Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything

#54

Post by underlipton »

I kind of welcome this. Corporations panicking and being afraid to raise prices too much, and perhaps having to take a loss because they're essentially giving away product, is the LEAST that could happen to them after their naked and abusive COVID-era gouging.

EDIT: You had years of corporate stimulus and ZIRP expanding M2, but the inflation floodgates only opened after a paltry return of a small fraction of the real wage losses the middle class and lower sustained over that period? Live by the macro grift, die by the macro grift. And I wrote-in Bernie both times.

Re: Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything

#55

Post by mystraline »

ronsor wrote: post #41
ashton314 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like there's a year at the end; might be to facilitate suckurity requirements such as yearly password rotation.

Some places do 3 months! It's amazing

PasswordAugust2025!

Re: Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything

#56

Post by downrightmike »

CorrectHorseBat wrote: post #15
unnamed76ri wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know if you can factually back up your claims but I applaud your proper use of decimate. It is a rare thing. One might even say it happens less than 10% of the time.

It's not proper use, it's archaic use. Do you also claim bread is meat? A cat is a deer?

I split the hair where chickens were men

Re: Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything

#58

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

jameslk wrote: post #26

> Repricing, though, isn’t as easy as changing a tag—in part because suppliers and big-box stores are engaged in an epic tussle over who will pay what. > Retailers, including Lowe’s and Home Depot, buy Thompson Traders’ wares and set the retail price themselves. And they have been reluctant to pay Thompson Traders more. It seems like this sort of scenario would benefit from some kind of risk protection, like insuranc…

I don't think it's an insurable risk. If you were trying to underwrite some "adverse effects of government regulation" policy in 2024, would a surprise 50% tariff on Indian exports have even entered your calculation?

Re: Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything

#59

Post by habinero »

declan_roberts wrote: post #52

[flagged]

Putting aside the idea that American companies can hold their own and China doesn't pay the tariffs, it really wasn't necessary to tank the entire economy and kick off a depression to do this.

I guess they can't steal IP if we have no IP to steal, so there is that.

Re: Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything

#60

Post by ManuelKiessling »

declan_roberts wrote: post #52

[flagged]

That’s kind of the sad thing with this tariffs stuff, isn’t it? That it can actually be a sharp and effective weapon to set some things straight that badly need to be set straight, but this whole execution feels… suboptimal.
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