De: "I see one mistake, but it's pretty big."
It's not a mistake. And I'm pretty sure it is not "very big" in the bigger picture. I said: “what we are talking about is, perhaps, a 20% ONE TIME price increase, on average , worse case.”
I put in "average" for two reasons
(1) some reciprocal tarriffs are larger, and some are only 10%.
(2) ASSUMING Almost all consumer goods consumed in the US are made substantially in a foreign country -- so appliances and plastic crap will probably go up 30-40% sort term (and nothing, save electronics, ever really comes down, given the inflation is backward looking). Note, this is an assumption, not extensively researched, but commonsense and everyday awareness of basics says it is likely very much correct. The one obvious counter is food imports -- we grow a lot of food; but we also import a tremendous amount of things like fresh off-season fruits and vegetables, chocolate, coffee, etc.
http://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IMPMANUS
What I was most hesitant about was whether I was correct that it was "one time". I thought so, and still think so, but I'm not totally comfortable with my assumption. If nothing else, the tarriffs are likely going to be blamed for reduction in US dollar as the world's reserve currency. That seems likely, especially now -- but it was absolutely coming anyway! (And only ignorant people don't know that).
FWIW there is another BRICS+ summit coming in July. The last ones haven't been nearly so newsworthy as I had expected. But they keep coming. And the stakes are increased dramatically now that China's hand has been called in a major way.
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