No. 60 of 108
August 12, 2025
An interview about tariff impacts with the CEO of a popular regional grocery operation (Stew Leonard’s) offered disaggregated info. U.S. beef herds are at historic lows, so wholesale prices likely to rise 80cents to $1/lb unrelated to tariffs. Shrimp, coffee, bananas among items sensitive to tariffs because supplies are primarily non-U.S. They have already shifted suppliers from one country to another due to differential tariff agreements. Aluminum trays are from China, and among items that were stocked up on anticipating price increases. Wholesalers will begin to run out of pre-tariff inventories in about a month. In a recent non-government consumer survey, 53 percent identified grocery prices as the source of “major stress”, more than other economic factors. The CEO says although prices have not yet gone up (except beef unrelated to tariffs), customers are already purchasing a greater share of basket from sales, specials and private labels. Consumer confidence index numbers were recently deemed inaccurate by the White House. In other news, the new pick for the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests they will move from monthly to quarterly reports “until they get it right”. Their predecessor was fired because the President didn’t like the reports, suggesting they were made up for political harm.
As government information trends dodgy and dicey and ghosted, we need close-to-home informed sources. Some source folx will be activists. And some folx will be genuine experts because that is what they are professionally but had not previously been asked because their information was aggregated and processed and relied upon officially. (We, the lay public, may have rarely paid attention to these pronouncements… truth be told.) They didn’t think of themselves as activists. Now they are only so because of what the central government thinks of them and what they have to contribute. Scientists and researchers and technocrats. And some folx are and have always been the everyday knowledge and wisdom wealth of our communities. They run businesses, farm, teach, tend to. May we ask, may we listen, and may we thank.