Inflation Rises, Tariffs to Blame

Plus: Zohran Mamdani's brilliant plan, Google monopoly claims fall flat, and more...

Inflation predictably creeps upward: Consumer prices rose in June, indicating that the tariffs that have already taken effect are making everyday items more expensive for all Americans. The consumer price index (CPI) "increased 0.3% on the month, putting the 12-month inflation rate at 2.7%," per CNBC. "Excluding volatile food and energy prices, core inflation picked up 0.2% on the month and an annual rate of 2.9%, with the annual rate in line with estimates."

Up until June, inflation had been on the decline, sloping gloriously downward, a welcome reprieve from the rampant high inflation during the years of President Joe Biden. But President Donald Trump's tariffs are having the effect that pretty much all credible economists said they would. "Prices of products most exposed to tariffs, like household furnishings, jumped 1 percent, significantly higher than the 0.3 rise last month," notes The New York Times. "Prices for appliances, specifically, rose 1.9 percent, up from 0.8 percent. The apparel index increased 0.4 percent, snapping multiple months of declining prices."

But this shows only the very early impact of tariffs. Trump is still working to strike deals—like one with Indonesia, in which imports to the U.S. would be taxed at 19 percent, announced this morning—and jack up prices on other countries, like the European Union, Mexico, and Brazil.

It's pretty clear that worse inflation is likely to come and that we'll encounter both higher prices in critical sectors and, possibly, weakened demand. For example, as new cars become more expensive, will people just substantially delay their purchases, hoping to wait it out until tariffs become less crippling? A country where you don't feel like you can realistically afford a new car anymore, because prices have been jacked up due to the president's foolhardy, haphazard decision making, is not a prosperous one.

Not to mention: Anytime inflation accelerates, the Federal Reserve is less likely to cut interest rates. So borrowing money does not appear likely to get cheaper, which means more people will be locked in place when making housing decisions, for example.

It feels like this administration is struggling to learn the lessons revealed by the prior one: People do not respond favorably to normal items getting more expensive for no good reason, nor to the knock-on effects of having to delay purchases and moves.

The funniest part of this may be the fact that we just had an election in which the losing side screamed for a YEAR that we should focus on the price trend, not the price level, and now… the winners are doing the exact same thing.

Hilarious stuff. https://t.co/R42GB9MnH2

— Scott Lincicome (@scottlincicome) March 6, 2025

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Scenes from New York: Our (likely?) next mayor has a brilliant plan for government-run grocery stores. I'm sure no one's ever thought of this before.

Wait wait wait wait… Mamdani's plan to offer cheap groceries comes from bulk pricing?

Hahahahaha pic.twitter.com/4UxKFvvdKY

— Patrick Hedger (@pat_hedger) July 15, 2025

It's going to be so funny watching a mayoralty consumed by trying to run a grocery store

— Kyle Smith (@rkylesmith) July 15, 2025

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QUICK HITS

• Worrisome, from MarketWatch: "The Federal Reserve has defended itself from White House criticism that ongoing, costly renovations at the central bank's headquarters in Washington are the result of mismanagement. Last week, Russel Vought, the director of the White House's Office of Management and Budget, said the Fed was turning its headquarters into a 'palace.' The cost of the renovation has risen to $2.5 billion, which is $700 million above its initial estimate. 'I think it just points to the fundamental mismanagement of the Fed under the chairman,' Vought said in an interview on CNBC." Chair Jerome Powell, whom the president is interested in replacing, says the media's coverage of the project is bad, but if he wants to correct the record, he ought to do so.
• "OpenAI and Perplexity's new browsers make the monopoly claims about Google look foolish," argues Reason's Tosin Akintola.
• Really good, spicy CNN clip where Democrat pundits insist, over and over again, that they really just have a messaging problem; libertarian pundit Brad Polumbo counters with the harsh truth that, also, their policies are in fact profoundly unpopular. (Gavin Newsom, king of the flip-floppers, lends some credence to this take in a recent podcast clip.)

There's a strange view on the Left that the only thing preventing their positions from gaining widespread acceptance is "messaging."

Maybe, if by "messaging" they mean their ability to use confusing language to trick people into supporting absurdities.pic.twitter.com/7NRVp42y9C

— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) July 15, 2025

• This thoughtful post cuts through a lot of the noise on both the right and left about heritage and pride in where we came from and whether caring about that is a fascist dog whistle or anything of the sort. But I'm ultimately persuaded by this argument, which is that it's really inappropriate for the Department of Homeland Security to be posting about this at all.

I understand why people find it distasteful for DHS to post this given the Trump admin's aggressively anti-immigration stance. But I viscerally, passionately hate this response and am disgusted at its popularity.

This was in fact my heritage! Almost every line of my ancestors… https://t.co/ailhT3J2Wz pic.twitter.com/3rVVQtyZhR

— TracingWoodgrains (@tracewoodgrains) July 15, 2025

• Hard agree:

Historically, tech that has given parents the ability to monitor their kids more closely has led to heightened anxiety/raised the bar on adequate supervision rather than giving kids more freedom. See: the baby monitor. https://t.co/FDHESDf2kw pic.twitter.com/qiJxNAub10

— Stephanie H. Murray (@stephmurrayyyy) July 15, 2025

• So many people just counter "move out of NYC!" But is nobody else bothered by the idea of just…ceding our nation's largest city, full of 8 million people and lots of important industries, to the ultraprogressives? What's the suggestion for people who work in finance or law or other industries that are tied to New York? Not to mention that it's not great in Los Angeles, or San Francisco, or Austin, or Denver, or Atlanta, or Philadelphia. Where can one benefit from agglomeration effects, good job prospects, and story times where they read the classics and focus less on woke indoctrination?

Every time I try to take my kid to storytime in Brooklyn it's always THIS TYPE OF BOOK. Can't we just read classics like Where the Wild Things Are (a great book about monsters and the importance of obeying yr mother) or Go Dog Go (about traffic laws and treetop parties)? pic.twitter.com/UONXEys6dN

— Liz Wolfe (@LizWolfeReason) July 15, 2025