WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy was supposed to start the year with a bang, fueled by an unusually large jump in tax refunds from President Donald Trump’s tax cut legislation. Yet spiking gas prices are on track to eat up those refunds, leaving most Americans with little extra to spend.
“Next spring is projected to be the largest tax refund season of all time,” Trump said in a prime-time speech in December that was intended to address voters’ concerns about the economy and stubbornly high prices.
But that was before the Iran war, which began Feb. 28. Oil and gas prices have soared since then, with the nationwide average price of gas reaching $3.94 Sunday, up more than a dollar from just a month earlier.
Can’t wait for the same people who put “I did that” stickers with Biden at gas pumps to do the same with Trump. They will, right? because they apply their outrage of resource prices consistently, right? Riiiiiight???
Careful, at the rate we’re going they’d declare those stickers to be terrorism.
Well it’s okay: the illegal tariff refunds are coming. RIght? RIght?
They are. To the companies that offset them onto customers.
For a while, quite a few companies didn’t want to lose customers so just ate the tariffs, hoping they’d go away quickly. The longer tariffs go on, the more companies will universally pass costs to consumers - so inflation from tariffs actually lag the tariffs a bit
I’m skeptical. Can you give an example of a company that hasn’t raised its prices? Pretty sure everything has gone up.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/us-businesses-consumers-shoulder-bulk-tariff-cost-burden-goldman-sachs-finds If you don’t want.to give fox a click, “Goldman Sachs economists estimated that as of August, U.S. businesses were absorbing a net 51% of tariff costs, while American consumers were shouldering 37% of the burden. They also estimated that 9% of the cost was paid by foreign exporters, and about 3% was attributed to potential tariff evasion.”
Companies that had stock saved up rather than JITing their domestic production, didn’t want to scAre customers, so in first 6months or so of tariffs, only 37% of the increase was paid by American consumers, if it was all passed through, that number would be around 90%. I think moog made noise about not raising prices for awhile? A lot of companies split the difference. My point is that Trump has no credibility so there’s a lag for all this nonsense and things will get worse
That makes more sense - I was thinking you meant they absorbed all the costs, and that definitely wasn’t true.
I can see the shape of their plan - absorb costs for a while and slowly offload the costs they were absorbing onto consumers, so if by August they were absorbing 51% and then maybe by May it’d be 25% and then by next August it’d be almost nothing. They wouldn’t want to spook customers with an immediate price spike, after all.
Oh this must explain why prices went down so much after covid, right?
I think the touted tax benefits have been wholly eaten by national debt servicing, core inflation of goods, and unchecked corporations jacking up prices. Each individually, so we’ll need 3-4 times more “savings.”
Or a competent government who understands the economy and cares about people
So now the rich and powerful will step in to intervene, ri-
HAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA NOPE!
Sharpen your forks and knives, folks! Them shillionaires are lookin’ tastier by the day.
The bigger problem is that, with oil needed to produce and transport EVERYTHING, we’re all going to be hit hard by this. I’m glad I spent the last year filling up my pantry, because food is going to become even more cost-prohibitive if Donald doesn’t declare victory and stop this shit.
(Unlikely, since they’re begging for $200 billion to keep his stupid war going.)
Diesel is almost $8 a gallon in Southern California today, btw.
if Donald doesn’t declare victory and stop this shit.
LOL, at this point he’s dragged us into the “find out” stage. Even if he capitulates, there’s no reason Iran has to stop.
It’s at almost $11 here in northern Europe (€2,7 pr liter).
Oof. Sorry to hear it.
