Rising costs of everything........

[mcdawg22]

Except TVs. TVs are too 17’ing cheap. I propose a 40% tariff on TVs. It’s insane you can get a 75 inch 4K TV for under $500. Eggs are too damn high, but TVs are too damn low!!

 

[DesotoCountyDawg]

I feel for you @PBRME Trucking has gotten the shaft in the last 3 years. My uncle had to get out and it wasn’t pretty.

Farming sucks right now too. All the inputs, equipment, and parts have gone up every year and the commodity prices have gone down significantly. It’s rough.

 

[horshack.sixpack]

Yep. It largely doesnt seem to matter what he claims, or what he says, or what he calls people, who he associates with, who he threatens, or how few of his promises he even tries to implement.

He can implement destructive policy(and based on actual history, they are just that) and the results wont hurt him.
He can fail to implement destructive policy and claim that it was just a bluff to get whatever less extreme thing is actually happening and he will be both praised and the lack of fulfilling a promise wont hurt him.

Its a win win for sure.

The biggest issues are two fold:

1) He lies about literally everything. That can be good, if he says something you just hate or know will be terrible for the country, he likely won't do it, at least not for any legitimate reason. That can be bad, if he says something you love, he likely isn't serious about that either. But the second issue is the dangerous one.

2) There has never been a more self-centered, narcissist in charge of this country. What he will do is whatever he thinks will bring him the most money and power. You can count on him being completely self-serving in literally everything he does with no regard for anyone else or anything else, country included. For that reason, he is dangerous and will have to be held in check by every check and balance offered up in our constitution.

 

[mcdawg22]

Bottled water is more expensive than gasoline. Alot of state and federal taxes go into the costs of a gallon of gas, but it still cost a lot more to produce a gallon of gas than filter a bottle of water.

Bottled water is the funniest **** in the world to me. People complain about paying $4 a gallon to make a 3000 pound vehicle move 26 miles but don’t bat an eye paying $6 a gallon for something I can get for literal pennies.

 

[DesotoCountyDawg]

Bottled water is the funniest **** in the world to me. People complain about paying $4 a gallon to make a 3000 pound vehicle move 26 miles but don’t bat an eye paying $6 a gallon for something I can get for literal pennies.

Getting a bottled water is one thing but buying the expensive bottled water is the other. If I need a bottle water I’m finding the cheapest one in the store and not this stupid alkaline all natural spring water from the streams in a pristine forest.

 

[TrueMaroonGrind]

The current state of everything sucks. Started my trucking company in 2011. From 2011 until 2020 things were going great. I wasn’t getting rich, but money wasn’t a concern. 5 years later line haul rates are worse than they were pre-COVID, and the cost of insurance has increased 240%.

I’m starting a 2nd full time job tonight to pay home expenses. This way I can keep all the money my company makes in the company, and try to dig myself out of the hole I’ve put my self in since 2022. I was just trying to hold out until this **** show industry turns around. Held out as long as I can.

Really sorry man. Rates are not friendly to smaller trucking companies right now and haven’t been in a couple years. It may be time for a change. A good friend of mine switched careers completely from trucking to law enforcement because they stopped making money.

 

[Perd Hapley]

Tariffs are literally the worst. It does no good to put tariffs on goods that we don’t make here in the first place. Protecting an industry you have here is one thing but he wants to do across the board tariffs on everything and he wants to do it with China, Mexico, and Canada. All it does is spark the other countries to protect themselves and put tariffs on the US exports in retaliation and all it does in the end is make everything more expensive for everyone else and also lose market share with other countries that we compete with in the export market. It’s an absolute disaster.

A funny story on just how pointless the tarrifs are. In my industry (which is like pretty much all others in this regard), we get lots of material and supplies from Mexico. A few particular suppliers are in the Monterrey area. This happened twice, with two different components, from 2 different sources in Monterrey. The election happens. About 2 weeks later, we get frantic calls from these suppliers telling us that our Purchasing department is hammering them to change the Logistics pick-up point for their parts ASAP.

Previously, items would be made at factory in Mexico, then shipped to a cross-dock location in Nuevo Laredo, right across the border from Laredo, TX. Then, our company’s truck would pick them up there, and bring them to either another cross-dock hub on the US side, or directly to our company’s various locations. The change point was the first 2 steps are the same, but the supplier then had to add a 3rd route to get the parts across the border to a different warehouse in Laredo, TX. This new warehouse was then registered with a new supplier code, and they became - on paper - the official manufacturer of the part (even though its just a pick-up point). Pretty good chance that the goods never even enter heated and cooled space. They just drop the trailer, shunt truck moves the trailer somewhere on the yard near the warehouse, then another truck shows up to grab it from the yard. Bam….that’s how easy it is to stamp “Made in the USA” on something that was never even physically touched by an American citizen. There are dozens of other similar loopholes to this.

So, what actually happens is that goods don’t only get more expensive, but those costs don’t actually do anything to create jobs in the US at all. Just adds administrative red tape that gets passed on to the customer. Brick and mortar manufacturing of anything at large scale is going to continue on the one way street out of the US. And whatever leaves is never coming back. Never.

 

[skipperDawg]

This all I have for now

I don't have time to dig in anymore, at least not like I did in 2020 when I was sitting on my áss all the time. I really enjoy the subject and studied heavily on Milton Friedman and Volker when I was in B-School back in 09-10'.

I really wanted to do a deep dive on the asset inflation we had already seen since 2009. The manipulation of inflation numbers through things like OER and hedonic adjustments had kept it out of CPI. And most importantly, I was ringing the alarm about the massive inflation coming. I forgot the dude's username but he was very pro MMT and called me an inflationista etc.

So around this same time is when I started pumping real estate. Buy it all while you can sorta deal. Labor costs never go backwards. The lumber/building materials super cycle has just hit. We were at the bottom of a 10-12 year interest rate cycle that we may never see the likes of again. Regulation artificially adds to the cost to build every year. And the demographics were/are lining up horribly for manual labor to grow at the rate we need. I stand by that housing will never be as cheap as it was in 2020-21 again unless we are fighting our neighbors with sticks to eat their cats and dogs in a post apocalyptic scenario.

Anyhow, a lot of the problems started in 2009-10 when the banks got a lot of cheap money so things we finance like real estate and cars were already inflating before COVID. Then in March of 2020, with DJT in office, not Biden mind you... We told people to stay home and gave out 6-7 trillion dollars in enhanced unemployment, PPP, stimulus rounds 1&2, mortgage forbearance, student loan forbearance, and 2-3% interest rate mortgages. Biden takes the blame for inflation and he definitely threw kerosene on the fire with $3 trillion of his own handouts... But this was a campfire that Obama/Bush started in 2008-9 and Trump chunked $7 trillion worth of dried pallets on in 2020.

Anyhow, I was going to start a series of discussions in August of 2020, but nobody played along. I was a proponent of raising taxes at that time. We flooded the economy with too much money and needed to get it out of the system and higher taxes was the only way to do it with the benefit of curbing our growing deficit. Because unlike inflation, we can raise and lower taxes with some paper and ink. Inflation is a tax on the American people that is extremely difficult to stop once it starts and politicians almost always try to fix it by adding to the deficit, thus creating more inflation and increase national debt.

August 2020 Inflation Post

I still haven't wrapped my head around all the game theory of tariffs. Prices will rise overnight on American consumers, but there will be no more money supply out there. Headline CPI will increase and savings will decrease, but unless the tariffs are paired with tax cuts or spending increases, the deficit should lower as well.

I doubt we are capable of increasing domestic production at any significant level anytime soon so the onshoring of jobs would be minimal. Overall I hope tariffs are mainly being used as a trade negotiation tool and aren't implemented in a sweeping fashion. To what level they are, I think you don't necessarily cause true inflation, but will force consumers to buy less of certain items and dip further into personal savings. With true inflation, everything will go up in price and tariffs don't do that. So I don't see them as much inflationary, but they could possibly become recessionary as consumers become more austere and potential trade wars force layoffs from American businesses.

G’damn man you have gained a deeper respect from me (no monetary value included.)
You can either dazzle with brilliance or
Baffle with bull sh*t.
I’d love to come up and have one of them good bourbons and just talk about life , (after i detoured through Nevada for medicinal purposes)
Would be epic conversion

 

[mcdawg22]

Getting a bottled water is one thing but buying the expensive bottled water is the other. If I need a bottle water I’m finding the cheapest one in the store and not this stupid alkaline all natural spring water from the streams in a pristine forest.

I guess I can’t really say anything, I don’t drink water that stud rusts pipes I stick to alcohol.

 

[Darryl Steight]

So someone tell me where I’m not understanding this common liberal complaint:

Tariffs are going to make imported goods more expensive. Thus, imported goods may be closer in price to domestic goods. General public then just decides to focus on domestic goods. This in turn keeps money in the US and hopefully creates more jobs here in the US. Will we as consumers end up paying more for a product? Yes, but it will benefit the entire nation more and possibly create other benefits for us whether directly or indirectly.

We also hurt our enemy (China) by reducing how much money we give them for cheap goods (especially the knock-offs they make that infringe on patents they ignore).

Where am I wrong?

Glfr longass post and neverending argument incoming. Godspeed to you sir**

 

[Darryl Steight]

The biggest issues are two fold:

1) He lies about literally everything. That can be good, if he says something you just hate or know will be terrible for the country, he likely won't do it, at least not for any legitimate reason. That can be bad, if he says something you love, he likely isn't serious about that either. But the second issue is the dangerous one.

2) There has never been a more self-centered, narcissist in charge of this country. What he will do is whatever he thinks will bring him the most money and power. You can count on him being completely self-serving in literally everything he does with no regard for anyone else or anything else, country included. For that reason, he is dangerous and will have to be held in check by every check and balance offered up in our constitution.

 

[Lucky Dawg]

A funny story on just how pointless the tarrifs are. In my industry (which is like pretty much all others in this regard), we get lots of material and supplies from Mexico. A few particular suppliers are in the Monterrey area. This happened twice, with two different components, from 2 different sources in Monterrey. The election happens. About 2 weeks later, we get frantic calls from these suppliers telling us that our Purchasing department is hammering them to change the Logistics pick-up point for their parts ASAP.

Previously, items would be made at factory in Mexico, then shipped to a cross-dock location in Nuevo Laredo, right across the border from Laredo, TX. Then, our company’s truck would pick them up there, and bring them to either another cross-dock hub on the US side, or directly to our company’s various locations. The change point was the first 2 steps are the same, but the supplier then had to add a 3rd route to get the parts across the border to a different warehouse in Laredo, TX. This new warehouse was then registered with a new supplier code, and they became - on paper - the official manufacturer of the part (even though its just a pick-up point). Pretty good chance that the goods never even enter heated and cooled space. They just drop the trailer, shunt truck moves the trailer somewhere on the yard near the warehouse, then another truck shows up to grab it from the yard. Bam….that’s how easy it is to stamp “Made in the USA” on something that was never even physically touched by an American citizen. There are dozens of other similar loopholes to this.

So, what actually happens is that goods don’t only get more expensive, but those costs don’t actually do anything to create jobs in the US at all. Just adds administrative red tape that gets passed on to the customer. Brick and mortar manufacturing of anything at large scale is going to continue on the one way street out of the US. And whatever leaves is never coming back. Never.

With all due respect, what you’ve described isn’t a loophole in the tariff system, it’s fraud. At the most simplistic level, country of origin is determined by “substantial transformation” along with a myriad of other rules, regulations, and court rulings. Zero percent chance that transaction would survive a CBP audit.

 

[mstateglfr]

Glfr longass post and neverending argument incoming. Godspeed to you sir**

 

[DesotoCountyDawg]

Glfr longass post and neverending argument incoming. Godspeed to you sir**

 

[Darryl Steight]

Touche' - I didn't scroll down far enough.

I just knew he was lobbing it inside and you were going to Cam Matthews knees-up alleyoop dunk that sh*t lol

 

[Mobile Bay]

Up through the 80s:
-Many families lived in a 1600sf ranch style home with 3br/2ba, not unusual for 6 or more family members
-No parent would have dreamed of everyone in the family have a $75/month cell phone
-Paying $5 daily for a cup of coffee was inconceivable
-Wasn't unusual for a family to have only one or two cars - and those were simple, inexpensive cars, no $100k SUVs
-Many folks didn't have cable
-Many homes had one TV
-Eating out was luxury - maybe once a week and that was fast food or a diner
-Vacations, if any, were simple and usually a long weekend
-Families packed a lunch when traveling
-Spending 100s of dollars/month on youth sports was unheard of
-Although young folks today think most moms back then didn't work, most of them did
-Many folks didn't have credit cards and those who did were wary of using them

I could go on and on. The reasons prices keep increasing is because people keep paying the prices. It would be easy to control, stop the frivolous spending. We've reached a point where this no longer "delayed gratification."

My neighborhood was built in 1946. No house had AC. No washing machines, dryers, and dishwashers. Average size, 800 square feet 2br 1 ba. Over time many, but not all were expanded to 1100-1200 square feet and those amenities were added. Kids sports were football in the park and it was vicious, or fishing/swimming in the bayou. TV was not invented yet. More than one car was absurd.

 

[retire the banner]

It’s incredible how everything got significantly more expensive and out of control from 2021-2024. But the only thing I’ve read on this thread is Trump is a bad, mean man!!

 

[TrueMaroonGrind]

With all due respect, what you’ve described isn’t a loophole in the tariff system, it’s fraud. At the most simplistic level, country of origin is determined by “substantial transformation” along with a myriad of other rules, regulations, and court rulings. Zero percent chance that transaction would survive a CBP audit.

It is tax fraud. There are tons of companies doing this in countries neighboring China already due to existing tariffs. They ship an already manufactured product to Vietnam repackage it and ship to the US. It’s very illegal but hard to prove and enforce.

What Perd described is much more enforceable since it’s happening in the US.

 

[BoDawg.sixpack]

The truth is, a substantial portion of the middle class can't control their spending. For the layman, it starts with a ridiculous college tuition and ends with putting off saving for retirement. In between is Netflix, Uber Eats, lots of smoked brisket, Super Shakes, some fancy exercise equipment, mulitple cell phones you didn't need and some vacations your wife talked you into etc. The end.

 

[ETK99]

Pizza seems to be cheaper now than 30 years ago

 

[615dawg]

It’s incredible how everything got significantly more expensive and out of control from 2021-2024. But the only thing I’ve read on this thread is Trump is a bad, mean man!!

I voted for him three times but his economic reaction to COVID is the main reason things went out of control from 2021-24. Biden's policies did not help, but PPP and the stimulus checks were a disaster for keeping inflation down.

My guess is that about half of PPP wasn't needed and half the rest was outright fraud. Billions wasted. You can argue what would have happened if PPP and the stimulus didn't happen and I would argue that short term pain would have made us better off in the long run.

As the chart above shows, M2 is out of hand. There is going to be a reckoning.

 

[mstateglfr]

It’s incredible how everything got significantly more expensive and out of control from 2021-2024. But the only thing I’ve read on this thread is Trump is a bad, mean man!!

It's only seems incredible if you are unable or unwilling to read or listen to any of the readily available information which documents and explains the multiple factors that contributed to inflation.

 

[ETK99]

Inflation is being gamed. So is the entire economy.

 

[FormerBully]

I get that we live in bigger houses, have an internet-connected supercomputer in our pockets, and drive cars that rival spaceships. But I don't 17 with Door Dash.

Door Dash is the biggest scam known to man. Just a waste of money.

 

[Choctaw Dawg]

Having kids that are at or nearing college aged has opened my eyes to something that has changed dramatically over the past generation (25-30 years).

When I moved into Cresswell Hall in the mid-90s, a selling point for that building was that they had just got central air conditioning. Rice Hall, the women's dorm, still had window units. And don't get me started about McKee and Sessums. But the common timeline for living in Starkville usually went like this.

Dorm for freshman year, maybe sophomore.
Apartment or Greek living

As a sophomore, I moved into a $500/month (total) apartment at Cedar Cove on Louisville. The night my roommate and I moved in, Keffer McGee drowned in the pool. It wasn't anything special, but it was common. Sure there were more expensive options, but not too bad. The most expensive apartments in Starkville were 4BR that were priced per room, but under $1000 total.

Collegiate apartment life has gotten out of control. And dorms are better than they have ever been, but all so expensive. The luxury apartment scene in Starkville with granite countertops, stainless appliances and a resort pool changes your perspective. In a lot of cases, students have better housing arrangements in college than they grew up in.

So when its time to get in the real world, they have an inflated view of themselves and what they deserve. Starter home? **** - we need a home on the lake in Reunion. And that's expensive. Its part of the brain drain issue that our state faces - grads are leaving for ATL, DFW, BNA where they can make $70k instead of $45k. Never mind that it costs more to live in these cities, its the vibe that matters.

I saw a receipt that was trending yesterday on X. Someone ordered one burrito, a side of guac and chips and a Mexican Coke from Chipotle and after delivery and tip, it was $68. Thats a hell of a convenience markup. Add in daily coffee, a $15 lunch at Subway and life is expensive in a hurry. Kids make it more expensive. My niece is pregnant and has a $1500 stroller on her registry and is discussing giving birth in something called a luxury baby suite. She's a school teacher.

Social media isn't helping. But there's big business in LA/NYC/Miami/Vegas of renting out luxury homes and automobiles, letting influencers film themselves in "their home, driving their Lambo." But closer to home, its someone taking a nicer vacation, driving a nicer vehicle, or wearing nicer clothes. I live in Madison. It's not Highland Park, Prosper or even Franklin, but it is still a wealthy area. There is so much debt keeping up with the lifestyles. If you are a young male, the best advice I can give you is to marry well. Not well-off. Well. Having a wife that is not into Louis Vuitton, 6 trips a year to 30A, Junior League everything is a cheat code. I have friends that do well but can't keep up and its destroying their life. The divorce rate in Madison has to be 3x the rest of the state.

Society's expectations of a normal middle class life have gotten out of hand. We want it because we think we deserve it. Now get off my lawn.

Great indicator of highlighted above: If you meet a woman and her parents are well off and her mother doesn't work, RUN.

 

[615dawg]

It's only seems incredible if you are unable or unwilling to read or listen to any of the readily available information which documents and explains the multiple factors that contributed to inflation.

It's the same damn thing that caused us to have Penn State defending a pedophile coach. No one can admit when their team is wrong.

Economically from January, 2017 - February 2020, Trump did a lot of things right. From March 2020 through the end of his term, he put us on an economic spiral that will get out of control. Biden came in and pushed it a little more in the wrong direction before pulling back but not enough.

We need 12% mortgages and an unemployment rate near 8% before this gets fixed. It would take about six months to fix the economy. But no one is willing to rip the bandaid off so we continue to bleed out slowly.

 

[ronpolk]

You don't have to buy a whole bitcoin. Many people stack sats by converting $10 per day.

For example, a person who started converting $10 per day five years ago would have converted $18,270 into 0.75928941 BTC, valued today at $78,702.68.

I understand the case for bitcoin as an investment but a lot of people try to tout bitcoin as a hedge to inflation… I don’t understand that at all. I don’t know what you’re supposed to do with bitcoin. At the end of the day, you can sell it to get dollars (and certainly possible more dollars than you paid for it) but if the dollar crashes is bitcoin any good?

 

[ETK99]

It's the same damn thing that caused us to have Penn State defending a pedophile coach. No one can admit when their team is wrong.

Economically from January, 2017 - February 2020, Trump did a lot of things right. From March 2020 through the end of his term, he put us on an economic spiral that will get out of control. Biden came in and pushed it a little more in the wrong direction before pulling back but not enough.

We need 12% mortgages and an unemployment rate near 8% before this gets fixed. It would take about six months to fix the economy. But no one is willing to rip the bandaid off so we continue to bleed out slowly.

Uh, no, we don't need 12% rates and 8% unemployment Jimmy Carter

 

[615dawg]

Great indicator of highlighted above: If you meet a woman and her parents are well off and her mother doesn't work, RUN.

Like I said, it's a cheat code. The only luxuries she needs is a summer vacation and a Costco membership.

 

[615dawg]

Uh, no, we don't need 12% rates Jimmy Carter

There are other ways to fix M2, but there are no faster ways. It's 6 months of pain now or a decade of depression.

 

[turkish]

I'm 45 and I can remember when bottled water just didn't really exist en masse.

People laugh but its part of the problem the OP is trying to address. Yes, life gotten more expensive, but the average person expects more out of life.

This is so true and, IMO, doesn’t get nearly enough emphasis in these types of discussions. I wish we could do a comparison of the things people spend money on regularly now vs 30 years ago. We are in a period of decadence and frivolity. The fact that nobody notices it just supports the theory.

 

[turkish]

Door Dash is the biggest scam known to man. Just a waste of money.

As predatory on the weak minded as pay day loans and casinas.

 

[retire the banner]

It's only seems incredible if you are unable or unwilling to read or listen to any of the readily available information which documents and explains the multiple factors that contributed to inflation.

Trump bad! Biden good!

 

[615dawg]

This is so true and, IMO, doesn’t get nearly enough emphasis in these types of discussions. I wish we could do a comparison of the things people spend money on regularly now vs 30 years ago. We are in a period of decadence and frivolity. The fact that nobody notices it just supports the theory.

Some moron talked the world into thinking discussing politics, religion or money is taboo and here we are not able to have a civil discussion. It's almost like it was planned.

I've never missed a meal because I couldn't afford it, but there have been months where the ends didn't quite meet. Those days are thankfully gone, but I have empathy for those truly struggling. But more times than not, it's a spending problem.

 

[mstateglfr]

Trump bad! Biden good!

I have posted countless criticisms of Biden related to how his Administration handled economic messaging, inflation messaging, and economic policy.



You are really struggling here. You seem to struggle with issues that don't have a simple black/white good/bad a/b binary narrative where one side is the obvious correct path.

 

[TrueMaroonGrind]

This is so true and, IMO, doesn’t get nearly enough emphasis in these types of discussions. I wish we could do a comparison of the things people spend money on regularly now vs 30 years ago. We are in a period of decadence and frivolity. The fact that nobody notices it just supports the theory.

We are swimming in luxuries and everyone thinks they are entitled to it all without putting in the effort to earn it. Owning a new 3,500 sqft house, two brand new SUVs, new Apple Watches and iPhones for the fam, uber eats every week, multiple jet set vacations per year is the bare minimum a lot of people will accept.

They’ll get it with massive debt and then complain about the COL and expect the government to fix it. Cmon man. I do feel for truly poor people, but most of America needs a lesson in saying no I don’t need that. Not more money to spend.

 

[ckDOG]

So someone tell me where I’m not understanding this common liberal complaint:

Tariffs are going to make imported goods more expensive. Thus, imported goods may be closer in price to domestic goods. General public then just decides to focus on domestic goods. This in turn keeps money in the US and hopefully creates more jobs here in the US. Will we as consumers end up paying more for a product? Yes, but it will benefit the entire nation more and possibly create other benefits for us whether directly or indirectly.

We also hurt our enemy (China) by reducing how much money we give them for cheap goods (especially the knock-offs they make that infringe on patents they ignore).

Where am I wrong?

This is all well and good in a vacuum where the consumer has buffer income and patience. The American consumer has neither (see last 4 years of mostly rightful complaints/stress). We should stay away from broad tariffs with no real thought given to it or plan to onshore production.

Sledge hammer tariffs, which I fear is where we are headed if push comes to shove, will hammer the middle class and below. Targeted tariffs and onshoring plans, especially with supply chain related to daily essentials and national security, should absolutely happen.

 

[ETK99]

There are other ways to fix M2, but there are no faster ways. It's 6 months of pain now or a decade of depression.

The average rate is about 8% over that last about 40 years. Going to historical highs would do more damage than good. Same as going crazy throwing money around.

 

[WilCoDawg]

I don't disagree with you about targeted tariffs to level the playing field for domestic producers in specific industries where our US producers are disadvantaged by laws that make domestic production more expensive. I am talking about broad based tariffs on everything imported from China, or Mexico, particularly, items where there is limited US production now. Consider pharmaceuticals, aren't most medicines produced in China now? What happens if a 20% tariff is tacked on meds from China - that will directly hit the pocket book of your average American, and most Americans have to take their meds.

Is that not more incentive to manufacture drugs here? Relying on enemy number 1 to do that for us when they’ve proven they can’t be trusted is not a good recipe.
And maybe Mexican tariffs will incentivize companies to bring back manufacturing to the US.

 

[WilCoDawg]

Here are some thoughts:
1. Things are still often less expensive if imported even with tariffs
2. American companies often use imports to make their products which makes the American price rise.
3. But most of all Companies usually can’t just up and build a facility even if we wanted to start buying it in America. It takes time , CapEx and many times they can’t find workers.

N

Understood. I guess I have high hopes that this will incentivize companies to do that though.