Protectionists want 745% tariffs on mattresses. Prepare to pay much more despite having the highest prices in the world already.
Protectionists Go to the Mattresses
The Wall Street Journal reports Protectionists Go to the Mattresses
Protectionists in Washington and their union friends never rest. Their latest demand? Tariffs as high as 745% on imported mattresses. Getting a good night’s sleep is hard enough. Now prepare to pay more for one.
Ten domestic mattress manufacturers along with the Teamsters and United Steelworkers last summer asked the Biden Administration to impose antidumping duties on imports from a dozen countries including Italy, Poland, Spain and Taiwan. They claim these countries are selling mattresses in the U.S. at below their “normal value”—in other words, undercutting them on price.
Their Senate bedfellows Sherrod Brown, J.D. Vance and Eric Schmidt this week wrote to the Commerce Department and International Trade Commission that “illegally dumped and subsidized mattress imports continue to harm domestic manufacturers, making it difficult for these companies to succeed and putting American jobs at risk.”
Commerce in May 2021 imposed steep tariffs on imports from Turkey (20.03%), Thailand (37.48%), Malaysia (42.92%), Cambodia (52.41%), Serbia (112.11%) and Vietnam (668.38%). Mattress prices subsequently surged. A TikTok video recently went viral of a mattress shopper kvetching that prices had increased by 40% in a little over two years.
Yet domestic manufacturers want the Administration to extend tariffs to more countries. Commerce in February proposed antidumping duties on a dozen countries including Mexico (41.29%), Bosnia and Herzegovina (217.38%), Italy (257.06%), Poland (330.71%), Philippines (538.23%), Taiwan (624.50%), and Slovenia (744.81%).
Tik-Tok Mattress Prices
Here is a link to the Tik-Tok video mentioned by the Journal.
“Now that same mattress is $249, it’s $70 more or 40% more than it was in November 2021,” she explained. “This is just another example of why it is so expensive to be an adult and 2024.”
The BLS did not have an index just for mattresses, so my lead chart contains the closest indexes.
Annual Inflation Rate Last 8 Presidents
Voters seem angry about inflation despite economists telling us how great things are. A few pictures explain.
For discussion, please see What’s the Inflation Rate Under Biden vs 7 Previous Presidents?
Young Voters Bail on Biden
On March 7, I commented Polls Show Biden is Losing Black, Hispanic, and Young Voters to Trump
Q: Why is Biden losing black voters and young voters?
A:Those are the groups most likely to rent. In general, those are the groups most impacted by inflation whether you count home prices or not.
Biden Wants EVs so Badly That He Will Quadruple Tariffs on Them
Yesterday, I noted Biden Wants EVs so Badly That He Will Quadruple Tariffs on Them
Today we see requests for 745% tariffs on mattresses. Bear in mind there are only 12,000 mattress-making jobs in the US. To save those jobs, expect the price of mattresses to quadruple.
Update: This Tweet Just Came In
“If you sold three or four beds a day and your average ticket is $1,000, that’s a $4,000-dollar day, times 365. All of a sudden you’ve got more than a million-dollar business there,” Sam Woods, Senior Vice President of Sales for Mattress Firm, told WBEZ.
According to a report from PsychologyToday, a mall location may only need to sell 20 mattresses a month to cover its rent.
Can’t Sleep?
Please consider the possibility that it’s nightmares over Bidenomics rather than your mattress.
In China I slept on a bed with a plywood board for a mattress with a bamboo mat
Won’t matter young people. When the mail in ballots all come in, you know, from the paid mules, fraudelent ballots, etc etc, the liberals will win and continue to attempt to destroy this country.
If it becomes too expensive to live in the US, where’s the best place to move?
Smoot-Hawley 2 may become a piecemeal quilt of tariffs that will fit this mattress.
Let’s produce all goods and services in China. Imagine how wealthy we’d all be.
Of course, the working class would have no jobs, but hey, we could all buy cheap shyte until we, too, were also unemployed.
In the end it will be about land and the ability to defend it. The poictians don’t get it. The Japanese high command did not invade because of 150 Americans with 300 million guns.You can be left and you can be right, but you need to be accurate.
Speaking of accuracy, wasn’t your “150 Americans with 300 million guns” inaccurate?
Admiral Yamamoto knew what Colorado Accountant meant, so there’s that.
Or far more likely he understood that you can’t occupy a 3 million square mile country with the population from a 145 thousand square mile country.
I wasn’t aware that the Japanes invaded the U.S. When did that happen? They did bomb the heck out of Peary Harbor.
Don’t forget the secret compartment for gold eagles!
If anyone has gone camping, you know that sleeping does not require a bed or mattress; just a foam pad.
Only your opinion man
What’s the foam pad for?
$2800 quote for a 50 gallon water heater install in Boise Idaho. Paid $1200 to have the same Rheem water heater installed in 2015.
Oh well, cold showers are next.
I had an 80 gallon electric water heater installed in 2021 for $2,200. Nothing is cheap anymore.
Come on. I just checked Home Depot site and a 50 gallon Rheem (most expensive) is $999 and many are under that but then again if you need to have it installed, the labor will kill you.
It’s like I’ve been saying, labor! labor! labor! Too many plumbers, electricians, trades people retiring and no one wants to do those jobs anymore. Heck plumbers are probably making more money doing TikTok videos than actual plumbing.
“It’s turtles all the way down and inflation all the way up!”
Labor has been the bulk of the cost of these sorts of repairs for a long time, and yes, it’s gonna get worse, alot worse. My advice to anymore is to learn how to complete some home/car maintenace/repairs yourself.
Most plumbers use either copper Pro-press fittings or Pex piping these days. The former requires a $1,000+ crimping tool unless you go with the cheaper manual crimper, but I haven’t seen any plumbers in my area use the manual version. Very few are willing to sweat a joint anymore (at least in my experience). It’s to time consuming, and it requires experience to get good at.
I recently had the backsplash in my kitchen replaced. Total cost was $5,400 of which $450 was materials. Took 2 guys 3 days. 92% of the cost of the job was labor…..
Gas pipe connection. In/out water pipe connections. Exhaust flue. Good to go.
You can get 30% tax rebate that knocks it down under 2k.
Actually an easy job to do yourself with just basic plumbing skills Save at least half that amount
Get a gas fired tankless heater. We’ve got a Rheem. 10 years old. works fine. But you do have to periodically clean the injectors with emery paper and I’ve also had to replace the limestone filter rocks once.
That won’t work if you don’t have gas service. 😉
There are also electric tankless water heaters.
The misses parents have both (gas and electric tankless heaters) in their home. They swear by them.
“$2800 quote for a 50 gallon water heater install in Boise Idaho. Paid $1200 to have the same Rheem water heater installed in 2015.”
An exact analogy of Argentina a generation or two ago.
And yes, cold showers were next.
Then no showers.
As well as no houses to put showers, nor water heaters, in. As well as no copper left for cables to bring power to the decaying water heaters still left.
Then, increasingly no food. Nor anything else.
America will be NO different. Obviously so. Since, as someone who; quaint as that may seem from our DumbAge vantage point; was not an idiot once noted: Doing the exact same thing yet expecting a different result……..
Ah mattresses. One of my favorite table topics.
I am a post WWII baby and am rather old. Because of my advanced age I remember quite well the days before the financialization of the US. When I was around twenty, a very good mattress could be had for less than $50. People did not have credit cards and most businesses would only extend credit to people at the higher income end. Most people, myself included, had to buy a mattress on layaway. We could purchase a mattress on a store credit called layaway. The buyer put a percentage of the purchase price down on the desired item and made weekly or monthly payments until the full purchase price was made to the vendor. Then we could take the mattress home.
Credit was very difficult to get and I remember that my wife and I had to appear at the bank, dressed very smartly, with proof of our credit worthiness to obtain both home and car loans. It was an arduous process.
Then in my middle age came credit cards. Usury laws were abandoned nationally and everyone could buy whatever they desired without a waiting period at all. Usury laws were an obstacle to the moneylenders btw. It was fabulous! The vendors thought so too and realized they could jack up the price of everything! Mattresses went from the $50 range to ten times that and greater! People could take the mattress home the same day! Wonderful!
We have surrendered our fate to the money lenders. BTW, a very nice house of 2500 square feet could be had for about $25k in my day. My house, of that vintage, goes for about $800k today. Credit is absolutely fabulous!!!
Credit causes inflation. Nobody mentions this. If a house always had to be paid for in cash then prices never would have gone up relative to incomes. Same goes for a car.
College.
Nothing wrong with being a money lender. You are not required to borrow money.
If you don’t like the interest rate don’t borrow and do without.
Mattress? You mean you guys don’t sleep on stacks of hundred dollar bills three feet high?
Seriously though, I guess I’m going to have to research the mattress industrial complex and position for profit.
Thanks for the heads up Mish, this wasn’t even on my radar.
…$….$
Digging deep for grievances….
Then again, the Japanese sleep on a futon on top of a tatami woven straw mat on the floor.
I have a couple of mattresses if anyone needs one or two.
Just as I was wondering what’s keeping me awake at night: world war, mad low-IQ “elites”, inflation futures, housing-to-the-moon, potential illness, the mattress didn’t make the list. Now, I have to re-evaluate.
When prices go up, consumers look for substitutes.
Just order a local made one by The Original Mattress Factory. They’re good one’s.
Wow, prices have come down 5%. That’s something.