60 pointsby duxup3 hours ago4 comments
  • skybrian2 hours ago
    Also true of any other refund a business might get for any other expense the business was overcharged for. Not sure why anyone is surprised.
    • krustyburgeran hour ago
      Many businesses added specific surcharges to final sales to offset the tariffs they paid. While they have no legal obligation to refund those surcharges they imposed, it would be straightforward to do so and it would be the right thing to do.
    • duxup29 minutes ago
      Depending on the relationship it’s totally normal to say hey we want to adjust what you builded us.

      Not every business the business relationship works that way, but it’s not unusual.

      As for a surprise goes, I don’t know about surprised, but certainly it’s worth noting that after a massive illegal tax …. voters get no justice.

    • mindslightan hour ago
      It's not a matter of "surprised", rather it's outraged over the lack of accountability. The administration acted illegally, which caused harm to consumers. It's reasonable to expect consumers to be made whole from the results of those illegal actions - the same as if corpos were found to be illegally colluding to raise prices without Grump spearheading it.

      (although honestly I wouldn't be surprised if such a push ended up with the profligate spendthrift in chief sending more paltry "stimulus" checks with his ugly-ass signature on it right before midterms)

  • 0xy2 hours ago
    This would be a valid concern if businesses got $1 in additional tariff costs and passed on $1 in price increases. This categorically did not happen, and businesses absorbed the vast majority of the blow through both stockpiling and taking the bullet.

    Prime example is Mercedes. The RRP for post-tariff Mercedes vehicles was identical to the pre-tariff RRP.

    Food prices also rose significantly less than the tariff increases.

    Importantly, journalists in media, classically inept at any economic analysis, implied that 10% tariff = 10% RRP rise. They never corrected themselves, nor for the economists who falsely claimed the economy would collapse.

    When you pay $10 for a widget at the store, the cost price of that widget is likely $2. A 10% additional tariff (if passed along fully, it wasn't) would mean the widget goes from $10.00 to $10.20.

    • krunckan hour ago
      Zero businesses passed on the additional costs onto the consumer? None?
      • gruezan hour ago
        >Zero businesses passed on the additional costs onto the consumer? None?

        That wasn't the claim made. OP said:

        >and businesses absorbed the vast majority of the blow through both stockpiling and taking the bullet.

        Which so far as I can tell, is approximately correct, even if the "vast majority" part is suspect. A goldman sacs from last year estimated consumers will pay 55% of the tariffs by end of 2025. However that only includes the tariffs paid, whereas OP also included "stockpiling".

        https://abcnews.com/Business/new-tariffs-effect-us-consumers...

        • travisporteran hour ago
          OP also says "This would be a valid concern if..." so, no need to defend these poor massive businesses who also screwed us with shrinkflation for five years.
          • UncleOxidant36 minutes ago
            Yeah, that was quite a claim. I didn't realize that businesses were were so altruistic?
    • torawayan hour ago

        > Importantly, journalists in media, classically inept at any economic analysis, implied that 10% tariff = 10% RRP rise. They never corrected themselves, nor for the economists who falsely claimed the economy would collapse.
      
      This is irrelevant to the discussion in the article, which is specifically about refunding a portion of whatever amount a company receives back from the government to customers.

      It's also pretty vague without any examples of what specifically deserves corrections.

    • quickthrowman9 minutes ago
      > Prime example is Mercedes. The RRP for post-tariff Mercedes vehicles was identical to the pre-tariff RRP.

      If your prime example is a luxury car with a ton of margin built in, you need a better example. Tariffed commodities absolutely had the costs passed on, and far more of those are sold than high margin luxury products where manufacturers had the option to compress margins vs passing on the cost.

      Also, there are lots of products that go through multiple middle men, the tariffs were included and marked up at every stage. Very few things go from manufacturer to retailer with no middlemen.

      I’d guess about 1/4 to 1/3rd of tariff costs were absorbed and the rest passed along to the eventual end consumer.

      I suspect you work nowhere near the money at work, the closer you get to the money, the more you realize exactly what is built into a price.

    • nickthegreekan hour ago
      > Importantly, journalists in media, classically inept at any economic analysis, implied that 10% tariff = 10% RRP rise. They never corrected themselves, nor for the economists who falsely claimed the economy would collapse.

      Lovely strawman.

    • an hour ago
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    • unyttigfjelltolan hour ago
      > journalists in media, classically inept at any economic analysis

      It’s just the NYT. Let’s not demean the rest of the media for the faults of the NYT.

  • ycombinatornews2 hours ago
    [flagged]
    • rafram2 hours ago
      An image having a bit of bloom doesn't make it AI generated. If the Times started using undisclosed AI-generated images, it would be a huge scandal, and a violation of their own policies: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/12/reader-center/new-york-ti...
      • 2 hours ago
        undefined
    • connorboylean hour ago
      Wow, there is a (seemingly non-official) account on here with the username `ycombinatornews`. Somehow, they joined in 2018 and only have 60 karma.
    • RankingMember2 hours ago
      I think it's real, just post-processed to look like Costco from the perspective of someone dreaming about it
    • quickthrowman2 hours ago
      I initially thought the same thing, but there is a human listed as the photographer, Mark Abramson. The photo has been processed, but it’s not AI generated.
    • skybrian2 hours ago
      It doesn't seem obvious. How can you tell?
    • strathmeyer2 hours ago
      [dead]