The DOW just pushed past 50K Briefly

[SweetTea]

Consumer paid higher prices to companies. Companies protected profits with price increases. Consumers bought less slowing down the economy - lowest GDP since Great Recession last year. Inflation is climbing when it should be falling in a slow economy. Companies made out ok last year with price increases.. .now they are making out great with rebates. Wanna know how i know.. cuz that is exactly what we did. Raised prices made more money, sold less units but made more profit. Now we are paying out bonuses and our share holders are going to get nice returns due to the refunds. None of that is making it to consumers... just owners and executives.

The inflation numbers from last year don’t bear out what you are saying. Real GDP growth was in the negatives in 2020(COVID) and just 1.6% in 2016. What is all this Great Recession talk?

There aren’t official discretionary vs non-discretionary inflation numbers, but from what I can tell, non-discretionary increased about .5% in 2025. And discretionary decreased or held steady. These aren’t exactly correct because things like housing costs decreased in 2025 and they hold more weight than some non-discretionary items that increased.

I don’t agree with companies getting tariff refunds because they not only passed the tariffs on to consumers to some extent, but they also got some discounts from exporters who in turn got some discounts from foreign manufacturers. This split is why not all consumer products rose from 2024 to 2025.

Now that tariffs are being refunded, which is a mistake, those companies are making out even better. It appears as though your company was one of those. Why don’t they pass those refunds back to the customer that bought their products with inflated prices? Would you make the decision to do so if possible instead of passing it on to executives and shareholders?