FOX–
A 20% tariff on the cost of goods ‘doesn’t mean the retail price goes up by 20%,’ according to ex-Toys’R’Us CEO Gerald Storch.
A longtime and well-respected former executive of some of America’s most popular retail companies is putting out a firestorm of concern about tariffs putting more pressure on consumer prices.
“They’re not going to go up 10 to 15 or 20% in price,” Gerald Storch – previous executive at Toys”R”Us and Target – said on “Varney & Co.” Tuesday. “I think this whole thing with the tariffs is grossly exaggerated by a factor of at least two.”
“I think people are hysterical. It’s not nearly the magnitude of what they’re talking about,” he added.
On April 2, the Trump administration will implement reciprocal import tariffs that reflect U.S. trading partners’ own rates. Details of the plan are still being worked out, one White House official told Reuters last week. MORE
Anyone with more than four gray cells hooked up in parallel knows that the components of retail prices include real estate, physical plant, employee costs (pay, benefits, payroll taxes, etc.), transportation, business licenses, corporate taxes, theft, spoilage, and on and on AS WELL AS cost of buying/producing that actual goods being sold.
And any good Austrian Economist will explain why costs are determined by prices and not the other way around.