Trump raise prices
By While elites continue to talk about trans rights, because a lot of media elites have become very transphobic and love pundit’s fallacies. But actual polling data indicated that concerns about inflation were the biggest factor behind Trump winning in 2024. In a rational universe, this doesn’t make a lot of sense in that Trump’s centerpiece policy ideas — Great Depression-level tariffs and massive debt-funded upper-class tax cuts — were inflationary. But of course, people can convince themselves (and this isn’t just low-information marginal voters) that if you don’t like a Trump policy idea he doesn’t Really Mean It.
But Trump’s policies are in fact inflationary, and the tariffs are causing inflation even before the tax cuts kick in:
Inflation picked up in June, a potential sign that companies are starting to pass tariff costs on to consumers.
Consumer prices rose 2.7% in June from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Tuesday, faster than May’s increase of 2.4%. That was in line with the expectations of economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal.
Core inflation, which exclude volatile food and energy prices, was 2.9%, also in line with forecasts.
Prices of furniture, toys and clothes—items that tend to be sensitive to tariffs—posted larger increases in June. At the same time, car prices unexpectedly fell.
The impact of this will be mitigated because I don’t think we’re going to get the same volume of “I cannot afford the seven dozen eggs it takes to feed my family of five” stories because reporters aren’t mad about something like COVID mitigation measures or Afghanistan. But people still notice higher prices no matter what, and it’s already hurting Trump:
Alas, stuff like “17 million people losing their health insurance” and “the Supreme Court erasing Article I from the Constitution” seems like an awfully, er, high price to pay to teach marginal Trump voters a lesson about voting for the Tariff Man because you’re upset about the cost of consumer goods.
…thanks to Trump people won’t be able to afford the G.I. Joe with the kung-fu grip:
