Tag: Consumers

“It Is Of No Concern”

Donny’s and BiBi’s war has driven the price of oil to over $110 per barrel and that means we all will be paying through the nose for transportation, food, etc….and does the mental midgets in DC think about the coming storm?

White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett caused a stir on Tuesday when he indicated that the prospect of US consumers getting hurt by a protracted conflict with Iran was not of particular concern to the administration.

During an interview on CNBC, Hassett dismissed concerns about the Iran war, which is now in its third week, dragging on indefinitely.

“The US economy is fundamentally sound,” Hassett claimed. “And if [the war] were to be extended, it wouldn’t really disrupt the US economy much at all. It would hurt consumers, and we’d have to think about, you know, if that continued, what we would have to do about that, but that’s, like, really the last of our concerns right now… because we’re very confident that this thing is going ahead of schedule.”

In fact, US consumers are already hurting financially from the effects of the Iran war, which has caused the price of both oil and gasoline to skyrocket. Petroleum industry analyst Patrick De Haan reported on Tuesday that the average price of gas in the US has reached $3.80 per gallon, while the average price for diesel fuel has reached $5.03 per gallon.

The war’s impact on oil and gas prices has been exacerbated by Iran closing down the Strait of Hormuz to shipping, and so far there is no indication that it will be reopening anytime soon.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/kevin-hassett-iran-war

Donny’s ill conceived policies have already put the American consumer in a hurt locker and now he wants to just keep adding to the woes of American families.

Someone please remind me why you voted for this piece of crap.

On second thought do not bother….the only answer is you are a fuc**ng moron.

The sooner this person leaves this plane of existence the better.

Sorry to be a bummer but enough is enough.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Consumers Need To Bend Over

HAPPY MARDI GRAS!

This is just an FYI in case few are paying attention.

With Christmas behind us I have heard some say that it was not as expensive as predicted which was a good thing but now is the time to bend over for price hikes are coming.

Shoppers who enjoyed a brief pause in price hikes may want to brace themselves. After several months of relative calm—and holiday discounts—companies are again bumping up prices on everything from jeans to spices to software, the Wall Street Journal reports. The increases, often in the high-single-digit range, appear steeper than a typical January reset in prices, particularly for electronics, appliances, and other durable goods, economists say.

Levi Strauss, Columbia Sportswear, McCormick, and a host of smaller firms report they’re paying more for tariffs, wages, health insurance, materials, and shipping—and passing at least some of that along. Online data tracked by Harvard’s Alberto Cavallo and Adobe show the largest monthly jump in web prices in more than a decade, led by big-ticket categories.

Small businesses, facing thinner margins, are raising prices across the board or cutting products they don’t think customers will pay more for. A recent Vistage survey found more than half of small-business leaders plan near-term price increases, mostly in the 4% to 10% range, even as they worry higher tags could scare off buyers. Last week, economists at JPMorgan predicted that “inflation will re-accelerate for a time this year,” citing tariff-related costs being passed on to consumers and the “potential pass-through of the sustained weakening of the trade-weighted US dollar over the past year,” reports Reuters.

The president of Structural Systems Repair Group, a Cincinnati-based construction company, tells the Journal that tariffs pushed up steel prices 10% last year and healthcare costs for employees increased by around the same amount. “It’s not sustainable for us to tolerate that kind of increase without some sort of concession from our customers,” Bryan Erickson says.

Be prepared for the increases and think of ways to end this nightmare.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

FLASH! You Are Screwed!

As soon as Donny wiggled his way into the WH and announced his dumb ass idea of tariffs I have been trying to get people to see that the only loser in them are the consumers.

After his election and the talk about tariffs I had to make my feelings known…

The Real Cost Of Trump Tariffs

Well all the analysis has proven my predictions too be spot on…..

Americans, not overseas sellers, are paying almost all of President Trump’s tariff increases, according to a new analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The report finds that roughly 90% of the cost of the administration’s import duties is falling on US consumers and businesses, undercutting Trump’s frequent claim that foreign exporters are footing the bill, Reuters reports. From January through August 2025, Americans absorbed 94% of the tariff burden, the Fed economists estimate; that share slipped to 92% in September and October and 86% in November, though it remained overwhelmingly domestic.

The findings align with a separate assessment from the Congressional Budget Office, which said higher tariffs raise the price of imported goods, thereby lifting costs for American households and companies. The CBO estimates that foreign exporters are covering only about 5% of the tariff tab. In the near term, it says, US businesses are likely to eat around 30% through lower profit margins, while passing the remaining 70% on to consumers through higher prices. A study released last month by a research institute in Germany produced similar findings, putting the share paid by US consumers and importers around 96%.

Tariffs have been a central element of Trump’s economic strategy, deployed to generate revenue, pressure trading partners, and encourage manufacturers to move production back to the US, per Reuters. The data shows that foreign suppliers sometimes cut prices in response to tariffs, per the New York Times, but that it’s a less common reaction. In an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal on Jan. 30, Trump said, “the data shows that the burden, or ‘incidence,’ of the tariffs has fallen overwhelmingly on foreign producers and middlemen, including large corporations that are not from the US.”

I cannot understand the support these disasters have even today with all the rising prices…..it does not bother them only thing they seem to care about is that brown skin people are been attacked.

There is a name for that…..

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Does He Watch The Polls?

Polls are notoriously wrong these days…..but after some of the pull back Donny has done on his policies does indicate that at least someone in his inner circle of corrupt officials pays some attention tom them.

The consumer is not happy with all the game playing from Donny and the thugs….

Consumer sentiment in the United States continued its sharp plunge this month under President Donald Trump as Americans grew increasingly concerned about the prospect of a job-destroying recession in the near future—fears fueled in large part by the administration’s erratic tariff policies.

The University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers, released Friday, found that U.S. consumer sentiment plunged 11% at the start of April compared to last month, a decline that was “pervasive and unanimous across age, income, education, geographic region, and political affiliation.”

That’s according to the survey project’s director, Joanne Hsu, who said that “sentiment has now lost more than 30% since December 2024 amid growing worries about trade war developments that have oscillated over the course of the year.”

Friday’s assessment shows that overall consumer sentiment has fallen to its second-lowest level since the early 1950s.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/consumer-sentiment-plunges

Part of the problem is the cost of food….like the eggs….

For the third straight month, U.S retail egg prices have hit a record high, despite falling wholesale prices, no bird flu outbreaks, and President Donald Trump’s campaign promises—and recent misleading claims.

On Thursday, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index (CPI) reported the average retail cost of a dozen eggs rose from $5.90 in February to $6.23 last month.

Trump also said that egg prices “are going down more,” a statement that contradicts not only recent trends but also his own administration’s Food Price Outlook, which forecasts a 57.6% increase in egg prices for 2025, with a prediction interval of 31.1%-91.5%.

Recent record egg prices have largely been driven by an avian flu epidemic that has forced farmers to cull over 166 million birds, most of them egg-laying hens. However, no farms are currently reporting any bird flu outbreaks.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/record-egg-prices

While Donny continues his waffling and babbling his approval rating is taking a nose dive….

President Donald Trump is not well-liked, and, according to new polling, few Americans understand why anyone would approve of the job he’s doing.

…

Recent approval polls show Trump sliding: He’s 13 percentage points underwater in a recent YouGov survey, 12 points underwater in a recent Quinnipiac poll and 5 points in the tank in the notoriously pro-Trump Rasmussen poll.

According to YouGov: “Trump’s net job approval is down 14 points since the first Economist/YouGov Poll after he took office this year, when 49% of Americans approved of him and 43% disapproved.”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2025/04/11/trump-approval-rating-tariffs-groceries-polls/83036443007/

His, Donny’s, tariffs are dooming him in his push to become president for life….the polls illustrate just how pissed the peasants are getting especially with higher and higher food prices….

In the wake of President Donald Trump imposing tariffs on dozens of countries, a vast majority of voters (72 percent) think the tariffs will hurt the U.S. economy in the short-term, while a smaller majority (53 percent) think the tariffs will hurt the U.S. economy in the long-term as well, according to a Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pea- ack) University national poll of registered voters released today.

For the short-term, 72 percent of voters think the tariffs will hurt the U.S. economy, while 22 percent think the tariffs will help the U.S. economy.

97% of Democrats, 77% of Independents, and 44% of Republicans all believe that tariffs will harm the economy. Considering that the tariffs have been dialed back but aren’t going away, that seems like a pretty big problem remaining for Republicans.

https://www.politicususa.com/p/new-poll-bombshell-trump-and-republicans

In case you have not noticed Donny has been waffling lately on the tariffs…..is that a good sign or is he just trying to calm a sleeping beast?

This will be interesting to keep a sharp eye on in the coming days and weeks.

Jeez!  I love this stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–20Feb23

Inflation has been kicking the crap out of the American consumer….and it just keeps getting worse….

People are using the credit cards to help get by….

U.S. consumer credit card debt has jumped to nearly $1 trillion, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said on Thursday.

Credit card balances increased more than $60 billion over the three months ending in December, lifting the total amount of U.S. credit card debt to an all-time high of $986 billion, the report found.

The skyrocketing credit card balance has coincided with an increase in the interest rates paid on such debt, crunching household budgets as high inflation eats away at the savings that many amassed during the pandemic.

The average credit card interest rate offered in the U.S. over the last three months of 2022 stood at 21.6%, according to WalletHub, a jump from about 18% a year prior. An aggressive series of interest rate hikes imposed by the Federal Reserve has caused the jump in credit card rates.

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/us-credit-card-debt-now-totals-1-trillion/story

A trillion dollars that is about the amount the War Department’s recent budget….

Eventually all this debt will be called in and thus an economic collapse will be in our future.

I am fortunate for I have no credit debt…but that is just me.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

 

HISTORY OF TOILET PAPER, PART II – BY ELLIN CURLEY — Serendipity Seeking Intelligent Life on Earth

I thought in these trying times in these trying times in the search for TP….I thought that a more in-depth look at the item and its history might help understand the need.

I recently wrote a blog about the history of toilet paper and the response was so enthusiastic, I decided to look further into the subject. Before toilet paper came into existence in 1857, people used leaves, moss, stones, corncobs or whatever was handy. The Romans used a sponge on a stick which doesn’t sound too […]

HISTORY OF TOILET PAPER, PART II – BY ELLIN CURLEY — Serendipity Seeking Intelligent Life on Earth

Why Toilet Paper?

Closing Thought–Mar20

There have been lots of interesting stories surrounding this virus outbreak….like ISIS telling its people to not travel for now…..and attempts at authoritarian rule……to include the empty shelves in most stores these days.

3 of the main products that are missing from stores and hand sanitizer (understandable) and paper towels (sort of understandable) and toilet paper (working on that)……none of the main symptoms of this virus has anything that massive amounts of TP will be needed……then why are we hording TP?

There’s nothing quite like the behavior of panicky humans—especially when it comes to hoarding. Let a blizzard approach or a hurricane churn toward shore, and we descend on stores, buying up more batteries, bottled water and canned foods than we could use in a lifetime. We’re seeing the same thing again as America hunkers down against the novel coronavirus, and of all of the products that are being snatched up the fastest, there’s one that’s in special demand: toilet paper.

The Washington Post reports a run on the rolls, with both Costco and the Giant supermarket chain stripped all but clean. Even Amazon’s physical stores “appeared to be down to single rolls of novelty toilet paper in some places Friday,” the Post said. The New York Times similarly reports from a Whole Foods supermarket in Somerville, Mass., where shoppers had to be limited to two packages of toilet paper each, lest they strip the store bare.

https://time.com/5803273/hoarding-toilet-paper/

Like I said in the beginning…..this one is a bit a head scratcher….

A thought from Australia……

We’ve had to deal with drought, bushfires and a killer virus.

And now we’re having to cope with a toilet paper famine entirely of our own making.

Yep, the hoarders are getting the last laugh because while their panic buying has meant they can merrily wipe their way through the winter and beyond, the rest of us are having to find alternatives.

The trouble is, our toilet paper shortage is not real. It’s an artificial famine caused by the selfish who think their bum is the only one that matters. Toilet paper is made in Australia and if we all buy responsibly there’s enough to go round. Or, rather, down.

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/coronavirus-turns-out-toilet-paper-hoarders-were-right/news-story/eb7fccbca18806573f6d89f5b164645d

But why is TP a hot item?  Really, why?

It’s a scene that’s become familiar around the world from the United States to France to Australia: Rows of empty supermarket shelves where toilet paper used to be, the result of coronavirus-induced panic buying.

What exactly is it about the rolls of tissue that has caused mayhem across cultures, including, at times, violent clashes that have reverberated on social media?

At its most basic, say experts, the answer lies in game theory: If everyone buys only what they need, there will be no shortages. If some people start panic buying, the optimal strategy will be for you to follow suit, to make certain you have enough squares to spare.

https://www.straitstimes.com/world/united-states/why-toilet-paper-the-psychology-behind-the-coronavirus-induced-panic

I realize these days we are focused on our butts….we have products that keep you from smelling up the bath with a BM…..

Any Thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

What A Pathetic Species

The weekend and I feel like dancing….well that’s a lie.  Gonna do what I always do on weekends…..as little as possible.

WE Americans are a trend whore….we chase one trend after another….we do trendy food…..trendy cars…..trendy electronics….and there is always those trends in clothing.

Remember those jeans with all the tears in them?  These sold for huge amount of cash to look like a bum on the street.

Well I found another trend that is only a matter of time before it takes off……

Neiman Marcus is selling $1,425 “Future Destroyed High-Top Sneakers” from luxury designer Maison Margiela on its website, and it the shoes completely live up to their name. The men’s sneakers are so mangled and dirty, they look like they previously moonlighted as a chew toy for dogs.

Is it possible that with the Cro-Magnons we as a species have ceased to evolve?  Were they the pinnacle of our species?

The “Opiate Of The Masses”

My Saturday begins and I bet you think you will get some diatribe on Marxism….if so then you are WRONG!

But if you truly would like a lesson in Marxism I will gladly help out…..(pause here for reply)….I thought so…..

We begin the month of December….with all its Black Fridays and Cyber Mondays and all the sales and deals on the run up to Christmas….and every year Americans spend more and more on these “deals” and gifts….why?

I am glad you asked….I have written about this phenom in the past……

I have written about our addictions in the past….our addiction to drugs or the addiction to war…..but our real addiction is……. consumerism….

Whatchu talking about professor?

You Are An ADDICT!

Source: The Real American Addiction – In Saner Thought

We as a society are truly addicted too consumerism…..why else would we stand in line to buy a phone that has NO new features?

American consumers have learned NOTHING from the screwing they took in 2008.

That is it for today…I have a tangerine crop that needs pulling…..go out and enjoy your day…..

The Real American Addiction

To close out my posting day I would like to re-visit posts from the past…..

I have written about our addictions in the past….our addiction to drugs or the addiction to war…..but our real addiction is……. consumerism….

Whatchu talking about professor?

You Are An ADDICT!

Let me refresh your memory if I may…..these are from past posts here on IST….

For those who think this will be a diatribe on the value of Marx’s statement on religion….you would be mistaken.  While I appreciate a lot of the work of Karl Marx I will disagree with …

Source: The Real “Opiate Of The Masses” – In Saner Thought

Or a later post……

We all are addicted to something…..drugs, cigs, sex, whiskey and so on……but we Americans have an addiction to……consumerism.  A couple of years ago I wrote a piece enti…

Source: The Power Of Addiction – In Saner Thought

About here you are starting to wonder just why I bring this past posts up, right?

The iPhone7…..is the answer.

Apple has released the new version of its popular iPhone series…..

Apple has officially announced the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus today. The new iPhone features a design that’s very similar to last year’s iPhone 6S (and the year prior’s iPhone 6), with a rounded aluminum body. But what’s entirely new is the phone’s water resistance, which means you can get the iPhone 7 or the larger iPhone 7 Plus wet without worry. Also new is the long-rumored dual camera system, stereo speakers, and a darker black color scheme. And, as expected, the iPhone 7 does not have a headphone jack, rendering countless 3.5mm headphones useless with the device (or requiring the use of an adapter).

The new phone may look very similar to last year’s models, but instead of the matte metal finish we’ve become used to, it has a glossy, mirrored design. The new color is called jet black and is much darker and richer than the space black of years past. Apple is also releasing a standard black model, along with gold, silver, and rose gold.

People will stand in line to acquire this new gizmo….even if there is NOTHING technologically new with it…..

It is a sickness…….And that my friends is an addiction!

Consumerism….the Real Opiate of The Masses!