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Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything

(www.wsj.com)
462 points JumpCrisscross | 1 comments | 30 Aug 25 20:56 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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casey2 ◴[30 Aug 25 21:10 UTC] No.45078043[source]▶
This is how you know most economic theory is a total lie, if it wasn't they would just "price what people are willing to pay" and be forced to eat the loss. Is that cause copper bathtubs are a special item or are you just making up more rules after the fact to patch holes in your leaky theory.
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1. anigbrowl ◴[30 Aug 25 22:44 UTC] No.45078626[source]▶
Most economic theory is good, but most theory salespeople are flogging a simplistic version of it. 'Pure' price theory demands perfect market information and zero costs to enter/exit the market - that's why it's easiest to study on extremely fungible commodities.

In real world markets economics considers elasticity, arbitrage, and distribution of market information between producers, wholesalers, retailers, buyers etc. But very little of that finds its way into op-eds or blogs aimed at a non-academic audience.