Yep. Same exact trick that happened during COVID. Prices ratchet up but never down.

To me this suggests that the problem is not cost, but lack of competition, either in production or in pricing. My understanding is that there are sufficient laws to ensure competition, but they are not widely enforced.

	▲	coldpie 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> My understanding is that there are sufficient laws to ensure competition, but they are not widely enforced. That's correct, the laws exist but it's up to the executive to enforce them. The US has not meaningfully enforced any anti-trust laws since the Microsoft web browser bundling case in the 90s. There was a brief glimmer of anti-trust being resuscitated by FTC during the Biden admin, but the tech company monopolies got so spooked by that that they brought all their resources to bear in 2024 to ensure their guy won, and he did. Anti-trust remains dead in the US for at least another generation.

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zadikian 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Plenty of supply-driven inflated prices did go back down after covid, or after the post-covid inflation shock. Gasoline is one example.

At the same time, USD M2 supply increased an unusual 40% from Jan 2020 to Jan 2022. It only fell a little after. So prices that were inflated for that reason, I wouldn't have expected to fall back down.

I do feel like some local businesses just price according to costs but keep that ratched up if costs fall, like you said.

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mothballed 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Mouser (electronics parts distributor) just charges you an itemized tariff rate. They should go down immediately for those electronics parts.

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ajross 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Prices drop all the time. But no, they don't drop "automatically" as some kind of rules thing when regulations change. Prices drop when someone has extra inventory and needs to liquidate, or run a sale, or whatever.

Anthropomorphizing markets as evil cartels is 100% just as bad as the efficient market fetishization you see in libertarian circles. Markets are what markets do, and what they do is compete trying to sell you junk.