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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: 0.294s | 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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thayne ◴[30 Aug 25 21:18 UTC] No.45078099[source]▶
It's because basic economic theory makes some really bad assumptions. It assumes everyone has the information they need, and sellers can instantaneously change prices in response to changes in demand or cost of production.

Neither of which is true in the real world.

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1. anigbrowl ◴[30 Aug 25 22:47 UTC] No.45078656[source]▶
It's not so much that theory makes these assumptions, as that they describe the simplest economic models. You can make your models as detailed or not as you'd like, but the more work to construct/operate/understand them, the lower your likely return on that effort. It's just like how some people want simplistic games like Candy Crush, others want high investment ones like Dwarf Fortress.