Comment by caminante
Wait.
We agree.
Saying it needs to be a sustained increase is consistent with what I said above.
Wait.
We agree.
Saying it needs to be a sustained increase is consistent with what I said above.
> assuming no additional countervailing policy changes
When you add this qualifier who is disagreeing? This is tautological.
It's like you're making a point that doesn't flow from the original discussion and point raised that economists missed the mark on how much Trump's tariffs would cause extreme inflation for everyday US citizens. They still can (TBD), but haven't to the extent predicted.
> > assuming no additional countervailing policy changes
> When you add this qualifier who is disagreeing?
Anyone who disagrees that tariffs are inflationary. If you enact them, price level increases are produced which are sustained unless some other event unrelated to the tariffs introduces a deflationary effect which offsets the inflationary effect of the tariffs.
>some other event unrelated to the tariffs introduces
I appreciate your good faith approach to discussion.
IMHO, this has devolved into semantics and has fallen astray from the original discussion above.
Here's an example to demonstrate semantics:
1. Trump put tariffs.
2. USMCA (read: NAFTA 2.0) exemptions, pre-existing policy, started to get used more to avoid tariffs.
They are unrelated in that the policies are different. However, they are related because companies became more incentivized to use the exemptions as a result of the tariff. Nothing new (AFAIK) was "introduced" on just this combo alone.
No, we do not agree.
The introduction of tariffs does, assuming no additional countervailing policy changes, result in sustained general price increases. (Over time, adaptation to the tariffs will, in cases where there aren't hard reasons preventing this, become more diffuse across products than they are initially at introduction, but the net long-term effect is still a general price increase.)