“Price optimization” consultants are helping clients capitalize on Trump’s chaotic tariff rollout by using surveillance pricing tools, while Republican FTC chair Andrew Ferguson is reversing efforts to keep them in check.
“Price optimization” consultants are helping clients capitalize on Trump’s chaotic tariff rollout by using surveillance pricing tools, while Republican FTC chair Andrew Ferguson is reversing efforts to keep them in check.
We all knew this was going to happen.
Going to get another earful from some The Economist/WSJ Op-Ed about how this is totally awesome and signals economic resiliency and if you don’t like paying $15 for eggs or $100 for a piece of plywood or $4000 for a used refrigerator then you’re an uneducated goof who shouldn’t be allowed to make decisions.
Truly, I think one of the big reasons that Harris’ campaign failed was repeating the “best economy ever” line while so many were struggling under inflation.
Inflation, student debt, medical debt, skyrocketing rents, meager wages, and deteriorating public amenities. So many of these problems stretched back to the Bush/Obama Era, particularly in the wake of the Great Recession. They never got properly fixed and the wounds were ripped wide open again under COVID.
Dems don’t seem to want to admit that there’s anything wrong with the US economic status quo. And the real fear going into '26/'28 is - even setting aside whether we’re going to have anything resembling normal elections again - what an incoming liberal congressional majority is going to do in opposition. Are they going to look at the trainwreck of policy Trump has implemented and try to roll it back? Are they going to trailblaze a new kind of egalitarian economic reforms through the rubble? Or are they just going to shrug, concede that this is the New Normal, and go back to insisting American Exceptionalism is whenever liberals are in charge?
Struggling with their iphones many of them in US are even eating 3.5 meals a day.
While most of rest of the world people are living with parents and take care of parents, no iphone, no netflix, no TV, eat just 2 simple meals a day and don’t complain they are struggling. They don’t even ask people if they have said thank you or ask them to wear costume to work
Yes it’s absolutely a fact that literally everyone struggling has an iphone
And even if they did, it doesn’t matter.
“But they have an iPhone / Computer / Telephone / Refrigerator” is a very tired trope about how people shouldn’t complain. None of those are luxury items anymore and, even if they were, someone prioritizing getting one doesn’t mean they aren’t struggling. A used or prepaid iPhone/smartphone is <$100 and necessary for even the lowest jobs and assistance programs and far more available and useful than a full computer.
Both The Economist and the Wall Street Journal have been quite critical of the tariffs. Not only that, but those articles have been posted here.
But they’ve been outright in favor of price gouging
The Economist: Why Oasis fans should welcome price-gouging: There are worse things in life than paying a fair price
The WSJ: Kamala Harris Wants to Ban Price Gouging. What Do Economists Say? The line between gouging and normal market forces can be pretty thin. And stopping it is no easy feat either.