Based on the graph, the increase in cost to the retailer was $0.49 and they marked up $1.10. I imagine this is pretty standard markup but multiplies the effect of the tariff and passes it to the consumer, not to mention the producer and importer.

Can't repeat this enough and I'd like to make sure to connect the dots. The Big Beautiful Bill that was signed into law cut taxes. To keep the US Federal Government from going (even more) into debt, Trump introduced aggressive tariffs (it doesn't matter that he introduced the tariffs before the BBB became law because he/they knew the BBB would pass and that was baked into the tariff decision).

The BBB tax cuts benefit the wealthy much more than the average person. The tariffs are borne by both the wealthy and by the average person when they buy tariffed goods, but those tariffs are easily absorbed by the wealthy while acting as an additional tax on the average person by increasing prices. This is just about as direct a transfer of wealth from the average person to the wealthy as you could possibly put into place (barring an actual transfer where the average person is taxed and those dollars are literally transferred directly into a wealthy person's bank account).

In a way, it's a genius move. Convince a healthy chunk of the US population that you're on a populist crusade to bring jobs back to America while increasing the wealth of the wealthy and taking even more of the average person's income. Don't forget that the reason the jobs were exported in the first place was to decrease costs so that, you guessed it, wealthy people would get wealthier (but at least in that scenario the cost of a tv went way down, am I right???).

All that said, I don't mean to suggest that bringing jobs back isn't actually a goal. It's just not the primary goal. My take on the priorities of the current admin's tax policy, including the tariffs (which, broken record, are taxes) 1. decrease taxes on the wealthy 2. decrease income taxes on everyone else who pays taxes 3. get "everyone else who pays taxes" to fund the decreased taxes on the wealthy 4. bring jobs back. Somewhere in there is also "create a mechanism for opaque profiteering." I'm not quite sure where that falls on the list. Cynically it's probably number 2.

so that's not true - I worked for years in the grocery business and prices DO come down and in fact, I've seen evidence all over the NYC market of prices falling recently.

examples include eggs for $2.99 in some places (!), and other competitive categories like unbranded meat and cheese, pasta, and more.

prepared foods seem to be slower, I'm assuming because labor costs continue to rise.

Wages also changed since then. During COVID food outpaced wages. Since then, wages have outpaced food. Maybe not for you but on average.

Just like food prices didn't just jump one day, they won't just drop one day. We target 2% inflation, so they'll still go up, but slower.

Going up slower than wages means better affordability.

Prices went up because of this:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL

This is a deliberate choice by Congress to give the Fed a mandate to target 2% inflation. In particular Congress hasn't given them any instruction to try to make up for mistakes. If inflation overshoots in one year then they don't try to undershoot in the next year. They just keep trying to hit 2% inflation.

So if retailers tried to lower prices to pre-COVID levels then they would fail. The Fed would see the falling prices and cut rates until 2% inflation was achieved.

Retailer profits from foreign wine decreased because of reductions in sales (~12% iirc). This is textbook econ 101, profit maximization of a firm, supply and demand etc.

Taxes make after tax prices go up and reduce profits due to reduced quantity.

No reason to go searching for a "plausible excuse" or some greater critique of culture.