Amazon considered, then rescinded, price tags that show tariff impact.
White House Says Amazon Tariff Pricing Would Be ‘Political and Hostile’
Reporter: It was reported this morning that amazon will soon display a little number next to the price of each product that shows how much the Trump tariffs are adding to the cost of each product. Isn’t that a perfect crystal clear demonstration that it is the American consumer, and not China that is going to have to pau for these policies.
The question was to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent but White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt brushed him aside to deflect the question.
Leavitt: I just got off the phone with the president about this announcement. This is a hostile and political act by Amazon. Why didn’t Amazon do this when the Biden Administration hike inflation to the highest level in 40 years?
Hostile Political Act
Amusingly, it is now considered political act to tell the truth. Go figure.
And it gets straight to the heart of the matter as to who pays tariffs.
Rather than answer the question, the administration blames Amazon.
Amazon Backs Down
Unfortunately, Amazon Rules Out Displaying Import Charges After White House Criticism
The e-commerce giant said Tuesday it had considered displaying how much import charges would increase prices on its ultracheap shopping website Haul, but said the idea “was never approved and is not going to happen.”
Amazon also said it hadn’t considered the idea for the main Amazon site and no changes have been implemented on any Amazon properties.
Yet the company’s response was too late to avoid criticism from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt that sent its shares down in early morning trading.
“This is a hostile and political act by Amazon,” Leavitt told reporters. “Why didn’t Amazon do this when the Biden administration hiked inflation to the highest level in 40 years.”
The back and forth arose after Punchbowl News earlier reported that Amazon was going to show how much tariffs were adding to the price of products.
Amazon considered displaying import charges ahead of the Trump administration’s planned change starting May 2 to a popular tariff exemption, known as de minimis, for small shipments from China, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Every company should do what Amazon proposed to show what big liars the administration is.
As for why Amazon did not do this under Biden, did Biden stupidly put 145 percent tariffs on China?
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If China paid the tariffs not US consumers and businesses, there would not have been record trade deficits front-running the tariffs.
The administration is a pack of economically illiterate liars.
Not Sure how GDPNow estimated gold today. There is no breakdown on the advance report.
If it threw the entire trade deficit as regular imports, its GDP estimate is probably too low. But it could go the other way.
“…As for why Amazon did not do this under Biden, did Biden stupidly put 145 percent tariffs on China?…”
No, but we know how close Hunter Biden was to China. And, I daresay, Bezos/Amazon took good care of the Democrap Party, until it became obvious that Biden/Harris were going to lose.
By the way, any serious analysis of Amazon’s retailing practices reveals a bias for low-cost foreign-made goods. You can see it simply by looking at Amazon’s Recommendations. Arguably, the bias might result from customer surveys/purchases, but I suspect foreign goods provide a much larger profit margin for Amazon.
If I buy stuff from Mexico using Amazon.com website it has always clearly shown import tariffs charged. The tariffs are based on product of origin. So what Amazon was proposing was no different than what it does already..
Tariffs are essentially anti-competitive, as are taxes and subsidies. The real question is how to create and participate in a free market when you have little or no competitive advantage (and you are already living beyond your means).
Competition drives innovation and cost saving, so lower prices, greater quantities, and better/new products/services. You win when you have a competitive advantage–except when it comes as a government-induced plan to reallocate resources to the less-competitive.
While we think mostly of the private-productive sector, the public sector is little different–just another taxing/subsidizing enterprise, sucking up and wasting resources. At some point, it implodes.
IMHO, that’s what we are now witnessing.
When I first came to the US, New England was a major producer of shoes. BY the time I die, I fully expect China to be the major producer of aircraft, military, space, tech, medical…. oh, and education.
Instead of putting the price impact of tariffs on Amazon listings, (which is about what I’d expect of the Bezos weasel) is to require ALL internet retailers to list ‘COUNTRY OF MANUFACTURE’ directly below, or above the PRICE.
While brick-and-mortar stores MUST display products with country of manufacture labels on the packaging, there is no such requirement for product descriptions and images for internet retailers.
Of course they backtracked on this.
If they actually did it, by doing some simple arithmetic you and I would be able to see how little they actually pay for the crap made in China and how outrageous their mark-up is.
zion don is a schizo leader of a cult of dumbfucks. democracy has always worked perfectly. just read republic of plato and study history of voting……..
there’s your tds! It was right where you left it. On the nightstand where Trump is living inside your head. Hope you’re collecting rent.
Trump should listen to Reagan https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Mj6N-WBPrVw
raygun was a great con man. lifelong pitch man for MICC
Easy for you to say, but Reagan brought down the Soviet empire without a single shot being fired.
If you do not understand how this was achieved, maybe take a few minutes to read up.
That’s completely unfair to expect someone to read history before regurgitating pithy things they read on the internet somewhere.
“The administration is a pack of economically illiterate liars.”
Yes they are, and worse than that they are transparent to all that they are trying to intimidate with their irrationally calculated tariffs.
Let’s say you are China and the U.S. represents 11% of your exports. The U.S. declares an economic war on you and you can source everything you get from the U.S. and gain market share from opening trade with other nations that the U.S. is also declaring war on.
Boom! It is a fantastic opportunity to slam the door on the U.S and open your doors for commerce among the nations that the U.S. alienates.
Meanwhile, the U.S is heavily dependent on importing rare earths, computer chips, cellphones, etc and exporting grains and agricultural products to you.
What do you do?
Ignore the bullies and when trump comes calling? Kick em in the nuts!
Trumps balls are getting kicked so hard by the Chinese that he can barely walk.
100th day of nightmare II.
In other news of ancillary damages: China is denying entry for ships carrying goods from the U.S. So far they have rejected shipments of:
Liquefied Natural Gas
Pork products
Multiple grain shipments
Tip of the iceberg for the banquet of unintended consequences trump and his henchmen have put in motion.
Meanwhile, Russia and Iran are shipping oil and LNG and completely ignoring our sanctions and toothless trump is doing nothing but waiting for a phone call from Xi.
China is doing what is best for China, can’t find fault with that. Trump’s mental illness is destroying America.
All part of having a mentally ill POTUS. Trump has got to go! Congress critters that have bent the knee have got to go! CEOs that have bent the knee have got to go! It’s time to clean house.
Old saying about fat ladies singing might well apply here.
Looks like Trump will delay tariffs on auto parts for a third time. The auto companies would shut down within a few weeks of auto parts tariffs.
Trump is mastering the game of delay to mask caving in…
At best the tariff charade has been poorly thought out at best and could be a smoke screen for his gutting our military and its civilian contractors.
Military personnel used to have support when they were transferred. This support included moving their household, selling their house and locating a new one. This allowed them to remain functional at their job when called upon to move quickly.
Since DOGE unilaterally terminated those civilian contractors that provided those support services, military personnel and their families are caught in a logistical nightmare – thanks to trumps thoughtlessness and incompetence.
This weakens our military and the adversaries trump is taunting know it.
Who does trump work for?
99% of this makes no sense.
Trump is following the Project 2025 playbook. Look at who designed that plan for a clue as to who he works with.
It’s an interesting experiment in economics and the result will be something to learn from.
Project 2025 means we have to learn to live in the 1950’s and see the dollar disappear and our nation become a feudal nightmare of social and economic oppression?
Or, do we go from an economic war to a hot war and see millions of innocent souls die?
In war it is always the young, elderly and children that are the first victims.
Agree.
– Amazon considered, then rescinded, price tags that show tariff impact. > That could mean that they felt it was not worth the consumer backlash. No admission of anything, just bad optics perhaps?y
– White House Says Amazon Tariff Pricing Would Be ‘Political and Hostile’ > This is based on Why the Biden Administration wasn’t treated the same way? A whole lot of that has taken place, so it’s good to see it called out for what it is, A Fact!
– Reporter: It was reported this morning that Amazon will soon… Blah, blah yeah this time? Really are they as reported, or NO again, and another misreported nonevent. Racking them up big time now…
– Amusingly, it is now considered political act to tell the truth. Go figure. > That MSM, there they go breaking new Ground…
– And it gets straight to the heart of the matter as to who pays tariffs. > No it doesn’t, because it doesn’t exist.
– Rather than answer the question, the administration blames Amazon. > Nope
– Every company should do what Amazon proposed to show what big liars the administration is. > For Each and Every President? Let’s start with Washington, and wake me when we get to Lincoln.
– As for why Amazon did not do this under Biden, did Biden stupidly put 145 percent tariffs on China. > He was incompetent, and probably incapable of even spelling “Tariff” so No He Didn’t. He didn’t even sign bills, the auto pen did all the work, in whoever’s hand it was being controlled by at the time. Seriously… Biden didn’t do anything obviously!
I wonder when Mish will realize MishTalk has been taken over by the same people who supported Biden and Harris,. They promote/believe every lie put out by MSM.
I visit here, and comment here less and less–it’s become an echo chamber with negligible critical thought–that is, intellectually bankrupt. Note that I am not a MAGA fan. However, the US, and much of the West, need radical change to survive. So far, only Trump has taken action. What does that say about the rest.
BTW, you are correct: we are seeing a replay of standard Democrap practices. Nothing has changed.
As usual, the trump administration put up a smoke show blasting Amazon instead of presenting any real content.
100 days of pure shit show…
Is it not true that the reason that tariffs are placed on things, using automobiles as an example, is so the price is so unappealing that people buy the product made in their own country? It seem disingenuous not to mention the real reason, beside tax revenue, is that tariffs are placed on products to discourage people from buying things made out of their country. It is a way to compete merely on price and not the quality of the product.
Yes. That is one reason.
The US has had a 25% tariff on imported pickup trucks since 1964. This has helped domestic automakers sell US made pickup trucks for over 60 years now. This allows domestic automakers to sell trucks at higher prices and profits. And consumers pay more as a result.
This is the trade-off. Protect domestic industry and pay higher prices.
But what if we can’t produce something? Like potash. We can only produce 5% of our needs and import the other 95%. Why are we putting tariffs on something we can’t produce enough of ourselves?
Or aluminum, steel, copper, uranium etc.
Why put tariffs on things our manufacturers need and have to import in significant quantities? That just raises their costs and makes them LESS competitive.
Even if tariffs made sense, no other country acts like elephant in a China shop.
Tariffs make sense in isolated instances to protect production in areas related to national security.
Broad tariffs on all other countries make no sense at all.
But I say let Trump go nuts with tariffs and we will see what happens. A real world economics experiment to observe and learn from.
The results are just beginning to trickle in. I expect a recession before the end of the year.
It’s “Real World” for sure. I just wish the reporting was kept in a bottle, until it could be accurate. It has caused a lot of confusion, and we have enough of that with this New Event. So much has been kept under wraps for so many obvious reasons, but that hasn’t stopped the distorted news articles, with only pieces of a story, and even many of those seem questionable at best. Let it play out, and we will ALL eventually see the results together, and REAL!!!
Sorry. I have no idea what you are talking about.
We live in a world of constant information 24/7. You can’t turn it off.
And Trump can’t go a day without being in the news. He thrives on disseminating information and misinformation.
we will observe it, for sure. learn from it? jury out. but history says humans don’t learn too much from history. brush up on the tariff wars in the us senate for decades leading up to the us civil war, or recent unpleasantness for you southern history buffs.
Correct. Most Americans are not history buffs, and they were not around during the civil war or great depression. So the lessons need to be learned again first hand through experience.
Looking at history is crucial. For example, the long decline of US manufacturing industry and the rise of financial services for example. Given the price impact of labor, energy, and regulation, it is reasonable project the decline continues. Aircraft manufacturing will go the way of shipbuilding. Tech/electronics will go the way of toy manufacturing. Agriculture hangs on because of the fertile midWest. Everything else, chemicals, clothing, even education will move to the low cost producer.
It gets worse. Innovation which drives the future declines as US math/science literacy declines
That is your future.
What’s left? Printing money.
“Broad tariffs on all other countries make no sense at all” unless you’re shifting government revenue away from income taxes (production taxes) and to tariffs (consumption taxes).
Why do you ask these questions as they all have the same answer, “Because Trump is mentally ill”.
This likely is political theater. By stating the tariff amount, Amazon would be disclosing how much markup each item had. For instance, if a product shows a $145 tariff, the end consumer can determine the product cost as $100 at a 145% tariff level. If the item is listed at $735, the consumer can easily calculate that the vendor is tripling the combined cost of the product and tariff.
Vendors would not be happy about that. Bezos simply knew the government’s reaction and will likely get a fat check to shut up.
“The administration is a pack of illiterate liars”
FIFY
What do psychiatrists call Trumps condition? Asking for a friend.
A case study.
Malignant Narcissism combined with sociopathic tendencies.
Might have been said already but let’s line item the whole item.
If a consumer must pay the tariff immediately that would mean prices are too low? Product is a necessity?
Cheap begats cheap. Without real incomes to pay for things, a race to the bottom ensues.
Of course Amazon was being political, whether listing new US tariff costs on imported foreign made products, or listing old bu current foreign tariffs on imported material and services for US made products, or both in the interest of a free trade tariff free world. Apparently Amazon and their amazonians of gender neutral equal outcomes in a non-binary equal opportunity gender inflating world for the chosen are not interested in a no tariff free trade planet. Smoke ’em if got ’em at the Easy Street topless bar and grill, and should someone complain give ’em a Chinese virus medical mask to wear for the second hand smoke while pretending they’re at smokey Bohemian Grove with the millionaires. . . .
Well Amazon just gave consumers a way to see which products are made in China and which are not. Before you had to research it first. Now Amazon just gives it to you. I like it. I don’t know whether it will change people’s decisions but it might. It will for me.
Thank you for one of the very few insightful comments here.
It amuses me to read through comments, most by people who do not realize the policies of the last 40 years have created a country living FAR BEYOND its means. $37T and growing is only part of the problem. The US Congress is a large part of the problem, with a government infrastructure of ingrained mediocrity.
Education ranks 30th or so in the world–which says a lot about the future of the US
Putting price labels up to show the impact of tariffs is definitely protected by free speech. It’s also is a very civil way of protesting.
The media, from the WSJ to the NY Times, across the political spectrum, the blogosphere, the social media, ALL of them have been LYING to Americans about the tariffs from day one, bombarding them with bullshit and lies and braindead idiocies, ceaselessly fearmongering, every day all day long, in their efforts to sacrifice everything, including the entire US economy, at the altar of high stock prices, fat corporate profit margins, and one-sided globalization. I have never seen anything like that. No wonder everyone is in a sour mood and all the soft data is shitty. But there is an economic reality out there: businesses trying to make their businesses work, and consumers making records amounts of money and spending it, and having fun.Wolf Richter
Wolf came out supporting tariffs and is looking more and more wrong-footed. He uses Trump’s tariffs from his first term as evidence that they’re no big deal, in spite of the obvious difference in magnitude compared to the current clusterf**k.
What I’ve seen from economic bloggers is that they tend to double down on bad calls, especially when challenged, and as a result, when their current thesis is going wrong, they end up looking silly for a while as they try to save their story line.
For anything that a customer doesn’t need, there is also no need to pay a tariff amount. Pretend those items are out-of-stock.
Disclosing the tariffs, wherever they decided to do that and without being forced to disclose them, would hurt sales to some extent. I wouldn’t call it a ‘hostile political act’, just not good for sales.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/29/consumer-outlook-hits-lowest-since-2011-as-tariff-fears-mount-conference-board-survey-shows.html
Here come the mass layoffs.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/ups-reports-fall-first-quarter-revenue-2025-04-29/
Darvo. Once you know what it is you have trumps and his cronies play book.
Deny/ attack / reverse victim and offender
I always find it funny that trumps blames biden for the covid inflation when he printed half of the money and shut down the economy to boot.
Maybe the impact of lost American jobs should have been tacked on Amazon prices. For each action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
American consumers will pay for tariffs, and have previously been paying for the build up of the Chinese Communist military, in return for lower prices. Allegedly, Xi wants the military ready in 2027, to take over Taiwan. What are the consequences if that happens?
How times change. At one time people were proud to buy American…now its more like how much more soon to be landfilled plastic junk can I buy.
watch documentary “century of self”
People in Taiwan will have to learn Chinese.
And then people in the US will have to learn Chinese. Almost inevitable that the West will fail with it being overrun by foreigners, reliant on imports, a military finding it hard to recruit from an obese soy boy population and a currency that is being destroyed by inflation and debt.
Only American women will have to learn Chinese. Within a generation, the pretty American women in the impoverished USA will be mail order brides for wealthy men in China. Also Japan, Korea, Singapore, and even Russia which is ironic after Americans gloated and celebrated when the USSR collapsed and Russian & Ukrainian women became mail order brides for American men. American women won’t consider themselves mail order brides since they’ll be meeting their Chinese husbands in their Instagram DMs the same way American men used to hook up with Filipinas on Yahoo Messenger. It won’t be like Marc Edward Davis’s Dream Connections mail order bride business in Ukraine, or maybe it will. We’ll see.
Seeing as American women have effectively neutered their men and boys, I hope your prediction comes true. Sexism and racism abounds in China.
Drop and give me twenty Neal. Enough with the pessimism. Say no to the bullshit.
=People in Taiwan will have to learn Chinese.
are you some kind of uneducated american mor1on who never travelled outside local county?
People OF Taiwan ARE Chinese! 100% . pure Chinese.
you know there is a thing called internet and Google search. start reading.
that will be the last act of the chinese civil war that has been waging since pre ww2.
Declining consumer sentiment (CS) is about where it should be for a tapped-out American consumer class. The CS and the added 30% for imported ‘luxury items’ sold on Amazon will wipe out many 3rd party American small business import entrepreneurs. The essential here is the current WH verbiage to the possible publication of the consumer import tax and Amazon’s response. Maybe next time the WH will label it more forthrightly as Goebbels and Stalin did .. ‘an act by an enemy of the people.’ The US 250 year institutions will hold until the midterms.
Yes Mish I don’t like your strict adherence to libertarian/austrian economics, but I complement you on your objective analysis of Trump’s chaotic stupidity. Keep it up.
Your chocolate rations have been increased to 20 grammes per week.
zion don, needs a nice rest in an insane asylum. bless his heart.
Wait til he deports Bezos to El Salvador.
i think people would applaud that.
What will be interesting and amusing is how the ass kissers will deny that they were ever MAGA when the Donald is gone.
Speaking of Amazon and the tariff’s. Trump’s singular focus on tariffs as the bestest economic tool of forever will have lots more unanticipated, not considered and unintended consequences that will reverberate throughout the economy of the US.
This appears to be driven more by Amazon vertically integrating and doing its own deliveries. UPS lost major business to Amazon.
You are correct. The Amazon business that they were doing was extremely low-margin. They are trying to be more profitable. Ascribing this to tariffs is, um, trying to be nice, misguided.
I believe this statement in the article alludes to tariffs. People are hesitant to say the word directly out of fear of angering King Trump.
Jeff – This is not the way to replace Musk at Trump’s side!
When unfunded Social Security and Medicare obligations of $104 Trillion are added into the commonly discussed Federal debt of $32 Trillion you have a whopping $136 Trillion owed by America. Trump and anyone with any brains knows this is a ticking time bomb on Americas solvency. Tariffs and Doge are efforts to cut costs and raise Government income to deal with this Debt and maybe somebody has a better way? So how to start paying down those debts while keeping folks happy?
Amazon should only show this Tariff cost— when every other Retailer also does it.
Youre forgetting to add in the income from taxes. Yep, the debt is a large number, but there is income coming in. Not enough, but some. That brings the $136 number down.
Oh sheesh. You are so wrong. Look at John’s numbers. $32 trillion plus $136 trillion. Yes, money is coming in, but it’s $2 trillion short each year of where it needs to be to cover expenditures, so the $32 trillion has been growing by $2 trillion a year and it will keep doing so unless something changes. This is the problem with democrats and RINO’s. They can’t do math. Not ever simple math, like addition. The $136 trillion is not coming down. We’re getting older. It’s going up.
Do you honestly believe this started yesterday? We have been in deficit and borrowing for FIFTY YEARS! And the gas is in the gas stations and the food is in the stores and you and your wife are probably very happy. All he has up top is alarmist nonsense. As long as there are goofs to buy the Treasuries … and where is Midnight????????? Does he see the 10 year yield going down cause Trump wanted it down like I said he’d get 🙂 ….
But there are fewer goofs buying the Treasuries. The marginal buyers now are hedge funds doing the carry trade. We have been in increasing danger of a failed Treasury auction. This is why Yellen started the practice of focusing heavily on short-term issuances and why Bessent could not immediately reverse the practice. If we were to have a couple of failed auctions, the value of the dollar would collapse, we would have hyper-inflation, and the Fed would increase interest rates by 1%, then 10%, then 20%, and nothing would happen. Progress is being made. Yields are coming down, credit spreads are falling, as is the price of gold, but we are not out of the woods.
If you believe this to be true, are you writing Trump and the Republican Congress members and telling them NOT to cut tax rates or increase spending – aka, increasing the deficit even more?
Nope. The changes that are in process are going to hurt, but they are necessary. A recession is possible, but not inevitable. DOGE is cutting some spending, but if too much is cut, then recession will be inevitable and deficits will blow out. Interest rates are coming down which will be helpful. Here’s a big part of the problem — the stupidity of US politicians, according to Jack Ma in 2017:
“American international companies made millions and millions of dollars from globalization,” Ma – the founder of Alibaba, the world’s largest online retailer – told participants on the second day of Davos. “The past 30 years, companies like IBM, Cisco and Microsoft made tons of money.”
The question is: where did that money go? It was wasted, Ma explained.
“In the past 30 years, America has had 13 wars at a cost of $14.2 trillion. That’s where the money went.” He also questioned America’s decision to bankroll Wall Street after the 2008 financial crash, arguing the money would have been better spent in other areas.
And then came COVID which was used as the reason to create, what, $7 trillion more in spending. We are broke, and we are cursed with political leaders who are slaves to the military industrial complex and who have learned that, in order to get votes, they just have to throw money at an increasingly poor populace. We have to restructure. This is the reason for the shock and awe moves of the Trump administration. If this stuff had to go through Congress, it would die a slow death.
One more thing — if your girl Kamala had been elected, the spending would have just gone on with nothing to show for it. Eventually, a bond auction would have failed. This may still happen, but chances are going down. You should watch Brent Johnson on the Thoughtful Money podcast. Michael Every also.
The “unfunded Social Security and Medicare obligations” are funded by the Social Security and Medicare taxes. When those taxes are no longer sufficient to pay out benefits, then either the taxes go up or the benefits go down. All adjustments are painful to those affected, but these aren’t going to be apocalyptic.
Its all part of one big budget. More money is borrowed to cover all the Federal payouts … till it doesnt.
Social Security and Medicare are 2 totallly seperate things. SS is nearly fully funded and only needs either a slight increase in contributions or a slight tightening of payouts. Medicare is only about 20% funded and that is declining as the expenses are rising/ compounding at double digit rates.
Enforce the laws against the price gouging and collusion against the medical and insurance industries and get healthcare down from 20% of GDP back to under 5% where it was in our youth otherwise it will collapse in our dotage when we need it most.
Remove the SS tax cap on income goes a long way in solving the issue for SS.
The federal “debt” is actually a payment to the private sector and hence is just a part of GDP. PRIVATE debt is the problem, NOT government “debt”. Rejuvenate profit-making economic systems with the new monetary paradigm of GIFTING at retail sale with a 50% Discount/Rebate policy at retail sale and thus implementing beneficial price and asset DEFLATION for everyone…because EVERYONE buys things at retail sale. Every merchant gets their full price with the rebate aspect of the policy which utterly destroys the quantity theory of money, and the heads of those who still believe in it will explode. Just look at the temporal universe realities that this single policy creates.
You left out the trillions owed by state and local governments, school boards and other entities. What happens if Cook County or the state of Illinois defaults or renegotiates their dung heaps of debt starting a cascade of reassessments of other states? That will flow through to the federal debt either from bailing out the states or on the bond rates that will need to be offered on rolling over the 35, not 32, trillion federal debt. So a trillion in annual interest might become 2 trillion and the bigger the debt the bigger the risk premium on every dollar of that debt.
Got gold?
The United States has approximately 450 to 500 military bases within its 50 states. All 50 states have at least one base, with some having dozens. Additionally, the US has at least 128 military bases located outside of its national territory, as of July 2024.
We could start by cutting a few hundred of these bases and almost all overseas.
first of all, the Biden inflation wasn’t traceable to anything Biden did. Sure, his CONTINUING the easy money and fiscal stimulus of Trump 1 hurt, but let’s remember it was Trump who browbeat the Fed into $3trillion in easing, then had several rounds of fiscal stimulus including litreally sending Americans checks. Biden probably should have puled back the stimuluis, so certainly he shares SOME of the blame but really it was just a response to the steps both Trump and Biden took in response to Covid.
And second of all, Amazon is ALLOWED to engage in “hostile poitical acts” if oit feels. like it. Its right to do that is no different that my right to put up a yard sign that blames inflation on Trump. legally, it’s the same.
You seem to have missed several rounds of superfluous stimulus advanced by the Biden Admin. There’s a reason why the Federal deficits didn’t come down.
P.S. Yes, Amazon is allowed hostile political acts, but then they need to be prepared for the consequences.
OT: the party is over. Employer is deferring all new spending until further notice. They are not even going to pay invoices unless forced to. Found out this morning.
SOund slike a company in financial difficulty.
It doesn’t take much to destroy a company. Even a multi billion dollar semiconductor company.
Especially when the management is poor. I’ve worked for my share of these in past years.
It’s not a bad idea to itemize the “why cost” on labels. We should do this for everything (including College Tuition, Hospital charges, etc). I wanna see how much non-teaching staff is costing my daughter. I wanna see why government administrative cost is increasing in the era of computers.
How will this tell you “why”?
How much information do you need to know whether to buy a McDonald’s hamburger?
Where the beef was sourced? What food they were fed?
What local taxes the franchisee has to pay?
Wages for all its employees? …
That’s a great thing about a market system. Don’t like what you’re buying/getting? Go somewhere else.
Nobody cares about a burger, but people are curious why (in the age of computers) college costs so much more than in the past. Why the administrators are so many more (some say 5X more) than actual teachers, assistants, and scientific personnel.
“Market system”? Private universities (private businesses) are receiving taxpayer funds – that’s market system? Monopolizing accreditations is market system?
What if someone says “let’s go mild socialism” (such as most European countries 30 years ago) and nationalize all of them by law – so that students are not burdened by debt for life? If we want to nationalize Hospitals and doctors (that’s what single payer means), why not Universities?
So much angst and mis-information here.
Everything is more expensive than it was in the past, not just colleges.
The people that really care about the price of college are those going (or their parents) – which is a very small subset of the population.
Private universities receive very few “taxpayer funds” directly from the federal government. Individual students receive federal student loans to spend wherever they choose, and then pay them back personally later in life. That’s like blaming Ford Motors because a Social Security recipient decides to buy a new car.
If you want to nationalize universities like Europe does, call your Congressman and tell him to increase your taxes to European standards to pay for European universities. The two go hand in hand.
Otherwise, tell your daughter to get a job and pay for whichever university she thinks is worth it in a market system – and there are SO many substitutable choices.
You sound like an angry old man that should have known what college costs, but complains afterwards. No one is making you or your daughter go to school. And no one cares what you think about the staffing there. Make your own market decisions and learn to live with the consequences.
OR, send your daughter back to Greece to complete her education there. And if she finds employment there she can retire 10 years before any other European
I was talking generally, but you chose to make it personal (typical American): I have 3 daughters (one PhD, one Master’s, the younger just Bachelor’s, with ZERO college debt and ZERO debt of any kind, and the younger one also owns her own condo fully paid, and a cushy 80K job, dual citizenship and trilingual.
This doesn’t mean that I will detach myself from the mainstream problem, just because I am personally out of it. This narrow view of Americans “hey, I’m personally wealthy so everyone else is just incompetent” is disgustingly stupid, anti-social, and rude.
American college tuition has increased multiple times above inflation over the last 20 years, with the main culprit being a huge rise in administrative staff, and if you don’t know this simple fact, what are you doing in this (rather advanced) blog? American College debt has become uniquely high (1.5 trillion?), no other country faces such a unique gigantic debt issue associated with education, and Silicon Valley says we don’t have enough educated personnel? With such a budget we should be exporting ships filled with professors, not importing H1B workers…
Scott Bessent (= trump) is MORON if HE thinks he can turn around USA trade/ manufacturing policies installed and practiced by BOTH PARTIES FOR LAST 30+ years by just singing off papers like bolsheviks in USSR did!
not single job will be returned into USA !
USA ship already sailed down the ocean , and $37 trln tons iceberg is on horizon!!
you so dumb.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/24/south-korea-hyundai-us-investment.html
Hyundai spending over $21 billion on new plants in US, including $5 billion on steel plant in Louisiana. Now, who’s the moron?
Er Matt, sorry to piss on your parade but car factories automated some time ago, Non union robots do a lot of the assembly now, hell they even paint the goddam car.
When the downturn hits those companies won’t be building factories here.
You’re right about the numbers, statically. Better to be more optimistic. They were saying about China “it’ll never amount to anything, too many years under communism“. And about Japan? “it’ll never do much, it was destroyed in the war“. Etc. etc. Even if Trump’s is not the best attempt, it raised awareness about hard political decisions. Now, the next government will be asked point blank “what are you doing about balancing trade etc”. They won’t accept going back to total surrender.
The price of retail diesel fuel is down to where it was around 3.5 years ago.
Perfect. Blame Amazon for the higher price of goods. First of all it’s not an overtly political act. It’s just information about costs. Trump or his flunkies call it hostile because it sheds light on the truth. Turmp is the source of those higher costs, and he doesn’t want to take the blame, so he’s accusing Bezos of poisoning the information pipeline. Trump always blames other people for his misconduct. It is Trump who on a daily basis engages in hostile political acts, like deporting US citizens, who are actually born here in America. He intimidates, harasses and threatens law firms who hire people he doesn’t like. He fires prosecutors so they can’t bring new criminal cases against him. He attacks major Universities as engaging in his perception of illegal hiring and admission practices. He spews lies everyday to pollute the infosphere to confuse his MAGA base. This is a guy who went bankrupt 6 times, had many other business failures, stiffed his banks, his contractors and has engaged in a pattern of extortion since he was elected, including extracting money from Bezos, Zuckerberg and Musk by the tens of millions of $$s. Trump is running a Presidential Protection Racket, and you must pay him, to protect yourself from him. That’s TrumpWorld, TrumpThink and TrumpSpeak.
“You can’t handle the truth!”
“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.”
So two options:
I’m going with option 2.
False dichotomy fallacy. You’re short on options, there. Need bigger imagination.
Nope, LM2020 nailed it as far as I an tell.
OK let’s assume you are correct, what is to be done about it? Obviously remove Trump, the question then becomes how. Will you elect a Dem congress critter so Trump can be impeached and removed? If not what will you do when he has completely taken over or eliminates the other two branches of the federal govt? You you be comfortable with a Saudi type govt where the leader can have your head removed from your body, just because you said or did something he did not like?
If there was ever a reason to change the Constitution and make the Attorney General of the US a separately elected official, I am running out of reasons not to vote for it. When one guy runs everything, he starts appointing dogs and cats as government officials. Nutzo.
Too late in Springfield, Ohio. The Canadian Geese are next in Michigan.
I’ve noticed that Democrats say no one is above the law, until the law is coming after them. I also noticed that Garland and Mayokas did nothing about the horde of people illegally entering the country when Biden was president. I also noticed Senator Kennedy tear apart several of Biden’s ideological cat and dog nominees. Would have been nice if the DOJ/FBI wasn’t corrupt under the Democrats.
LOL so Trump’s new friend is now committing hostile political acts?! The admin doesn’t want consumers to see the true price of these tariffs & realize that the future Golden Age is maybe taking a too-large toll in the present? Hilarious. Again the admin is defining the truth and a fact as hostile & that’s far from winning. If Trump & Co. is proud of its economic platform & tariffs there should be no agony. This outrage at the truth tells the tale.
Yeah, maybe not so much. You should listen (or read) Brent Johnson’s latest (video on Thoughtful Money). There is method to this madness, but it’s probably a much bigger game than you’re thinking. Your moron commentators who say that Scott Bessent doesn’t know what he’s doing should try reading a bigger variety of articles. Brent is way above us all, intellect-wise.
=Yeah, maybe not so much
or may be not!
if this = Brent Johnson= fellow is so smart, he must be in Forbes 400 ? please kindly remind us what his number is ??
==
yes Scott Bessent (= trump) is MORON if HE thinks he can turn around USA trade/ manufacturing policies installed and practiced by BOTH PARTIES FOR LAST 30+ years by just singing off papers like bolsheviks in USSR did!
not single job will be returned into USA !
buddy. USA ship already sailed down the ocean , and iceberg is on horizon!!
alx
many more headlines like the one I hit you with above.
Easy now….enough is enough
What else can one surmise but that trump is a “real piece of work.”
Many Oregon car dealers add a line item for the odious “Corporate Activity Tax” to make it clear to purchasers who really pays our communist legislature’s taxes. Fully supportive of full disclosure on all taxes. Our governor has yet to attack car dealers for telling the truth. Maybe Don will school her? In all seriousness, I wish Amazon hadn’t caved.
jesus!
if ordinary Joe cant figure out simple facts about gov/debt and taxes in 2025
might be he-she needs his=her head examined.
Agree that every item for sale countrywide should display the tariffs added cost.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant. It took years to finally force Crook County and surrounding counties to note the specific contribution of public school and other government PENSIONS to be a separate line item on the property tax bills.
Would be good to show the actual cost of Nike’s as made in China before Bezo gets a hold of them. $10?
Amazon denies considering this for the full Amazon platform. Apparently it was only for a specialty site.
Personally I think full disclosure of the cost and country of origin for the entire value chain of every product would be a good thing.
How enlightening it would be to see the parasitic “drag” on all our purchases, huh?
How about the profit added by each middleman?
No, the middleman performs a service. Warehousing, distribution…it’s a real cost. Tariffs and other taxes are pure parasites.
BUT the price they charge may still be excessive and therefore, drive up the overall cost, for which the end retailer will be saddled with the blame.
Exactly.
“As for why Amazon did not do this under Biden, did Biden stupidly put 145 percent tariffs on China?”
Bingo! These guys are so stupid that they don’t know the difference. The tariffs weren’t just on China, it was the world.
Kim Dong Trump keeps making a fool of himself like other central planners non stop.
If the Donald was named Hillary Clinton, Bezos might have something to worry about.
I call dibs on the wife. I want to experience a hilarious date.
You want a date with Bill Clinton?