Wholesale prices rose 0.9% in July, much more than expected

[Deminpenn]

22. Yeah, it takes awhile for rising or falling prices to work their way

down to local retail.

Don't recall whose MSNBC show it was on, but one of the guests said that right now Walmart is paying a lot in tariffs because they don't want to pass the costs to their consumers. But that won't last forever. I've noticed items there that have gone up in price. Tomatoes from Mexico went from 98 cents to 1.12 and, interestingly, on the price sign the word "Mexico" is spelled vertically down the side. With a 30% tariff, that would be a 30 cent increase, so Walmart only passed half of that along to consumers.

One other thing, during the pandemic, I think a lot of businesses took advantage of the situation and raised their prices far more than necessary. That might well be a big reason they've been willing to absorb the tariff and not pass it along for now.