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

(www.wsj.com)
462 points JumpCrisscross | 4 comments | 30 Aug 25 20:56 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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lazarus01 ◴[30 Aug 25 22:32 UTC] No.45078568[source]▶
In NYC, for the first 6 months of 2025, 994 new private sector jobs were created [1]. During the same period last year, there were 66,000 new jobs created.

Higher cost of doing business from tariffs has frozen hiring. With a frozen job market, there’s less revenue coming in.

NYC is a leading indicator for the rest of the country.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/13/nyregion/nyc-jobs.html

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macintux ◴[30 Aug 25 22:37 UTC] No.45078595[source]▶
I’m curious whether it’s more the tariffs, or the uncertainty. No one knows what will happen on a day-to-day basis: the chaotic (and illegal) decision-making leaves everyone wondering what’s next.
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YZF ◴[30 Aug 25 22:54 UTC] No.45078705[source]▶
The hiring slowdown predates tariffs. For various reasons CEOs either believe they can do more with less people, or that they can hire cheaper people in other geographies, or both. Businesses (tech or financials) don't seem to be telegraphing uncertainty, S&P 500 revenue is at all times high and trending up, earnings/profit all time highs and trending up, valuations all times high and trending up.
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1. cyanydeez ◴[31 Aug 25 15:40 UTC] No.45084035[source]▶
Market bubbles combined with parallel political bubbles are probably the real black swan event coming down the pike
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2. stirfish ◴[31 Aug 25 23:07 UTC] No.45087893[source]▶
What is a political bubble? I googled it, but I'm getting definitions closer to "my news feed only shows me what I want to see"
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3. Yizahi ◴[01 Sep 25 10:44 UTC] No.45091525[source]▶
If I had to guess - "political bubble (bursts)" is when an extremely incompetent and/or radical politician suddenly is elected to one of the top posts in a country. So it's like a closed off boiling pot - incompetent radical has 5% of the electoral base and nothing happens, then 10%, then 20%, 30%, 40%, still nothing, and then one day he "suddenly" crosses 50% threshold and bubble bursts, he is now in charge for real.

For example in France their own Le-Trump aka Marine Le Pen had 41% votes last election cycle, so nothing really happened and system centrists won again, politics remained moderate and predictable. But if she or her ideological successor even takes 50%... hooboy, EU will see some Orbanification just like USA does today.

4. cyanydeez ◴[02 Sep 25 00:10 UTC] No.45097758[source]▶
Start with the idea of political capital and end with the monumental loss of value and trust in the political system