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toasterlovin 2 days ago

Tariffs are just starting to work their way inoto consumer prices now.

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chrisco255 2 days ago | parent [-]

Tariffs are deflationary, actually. They are a form of taxation and act to inhibit demand.

Anyways inflation is actually declining and is well below 2022 levels.

https://www.bls.gov/charts/consumer-price-index/consumer-pri...

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ceejayoz 2 days ago | parent [-]

> They are a form of taxation and act to inhibit demand.

They also are a price increase. Whether that winds up being inflationary or deflationary depends on how much that price change impacts demand, which will likely vary from good to good.

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chrisco255 2 days ago | parent [-]

Tariffs go from the economy to the U.S. treasury, who ultimately issues the currency. That is, it's removing funds from private bank accounts to the US government balance sheet, reducing the deficit and the money supply at the same time.

Inflation is everywhere and always a monetary (or money supply) phenomenon.

Reposting my original claim:

Tariffs are deflationary, actually. They are a form of taxation and act to inhibit demand.

Inflation is actually declining and is well below 2022 levels.

https://www.bls.gov/charts/consumer-price-index/consumer-pri...

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toasterlovin a day ago | parent | next [-]

OP here, I actually agree with you about inflation being different from tariffs (which are indeed taxation), but people do often just conceive of inflation as prices going up, which is why I chimed in about the timing of tariffs (which I probably have more insight about than others on this site, since the company I run is affected by tariffs and we’re just now starting to see competitors increase prices).

That being said, one hypothetical scenario is that tariffs shift demand to domestic manufacturing, causing the price of domestic manufacturing to increase due to supply and demand imbalance. This would result in prices going up without any tariffs being paid. Theoretically. I don’t think that will actually happen in the short term.

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tim333 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

>Inflation is everywhere and always a monetary (or money supply) phenomenon.

It's also a prices going up phenomenon. I trump puts 100% tariffs on imports and Walmart marks prices up 100% then you have inflation. No monetary change there.

	▲	toasterlovin a day ago \| parent [-]
		Your point is addressed in the comment you're responding to.