Big brands are officially worried about American shoppers

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/25/nx-s1-5375820/big-brands-tariffs-us-spending-consumers

35•paulpauper•9h ago

Comments

ludicrousdispla•9h ago

Most people in the US have some orientation towards independence and self-reliance, which economically translates to curtailing superfluous expenses.

Etheryte•7h ago

I don't really see how that holds, historically it clearly hasn't?

wyatt_dolores•7h ago

Most people in the US live beyond their means through credit card debt.

stevage•7h ago

You're either saying something obvious and universal, or something blatantly false.

mensetmanusman•3h ago

I eat aluminum cans!

ujkhsjkdhf234•7h ago

You have a group of shoppers that are boycotting brands they feel have backtracked on positions they previously held and you have income inequality getting worse so people can't afford the things they used to. Companies will feel the squeeze on both sides of those things.

layoric•7h ago

Inequality getting worse is definitely going to start impacting company sales more and more. IMO we are watching the math of perpetual "growth" hit a finite world.

andrewjf•4h ago

I mean, the middle class finally died a decade ago and all the money was siphoned off to the top. I don’t think is has much to do with growth in it of itself

trilbyglens•1h ago

The upper classes have extracted growth from a slowing curve by carving more and more out of the middle and lower classes. To them it looks like growth, but it's really just stealing from the bottom to pad the curve.

gruez•4h ago

Recessions happen all the time. What makes you think it's not that but "perpetual "growth" hit a finite world"? What bottlenecks are we running into that's causing growth to stop?

quickslowdown•3h ago

I mean, the extremely obvious answer is tarrifs at the moment.

apwell23•5h ago

i think things they are producing are not that tempting anymore.

mberning•7h ago

I already told my wife and family this is going to be a dramatically pared back summer. Try not to get laid off. Try not to die. Try to not sow the seeds of your own demise.

6stringmerc•6h ago

You should get a beat and make this a TikTok as a theme song for the inevitable market crash.

Pared back summer

No gas for the Hummer

nop_slide•6h ago

Recession creepin while you sleepin

Next 2008 gonna be a bummer

euroderf•11m ago

Inevitable... market... crash! bang! boom!

I got Spam cans 'n Twinkies piled high in my room

stevage•7h ago

One small silver lining in all this is perhaps that it is such a clear cause and effect that people will remember in future. So many economic levers take many months or years to really play out, but everyone can grasp that the president imposed big tariffs on every country and the economy instantly tanked.

genter•6h ago

I doubt it, people will forget in a generation or two. How many people have actually read The Jungle? How many people have actually seen our rivers on fire? How many people remember when the air was so polluted going outside would kill you? How many people remember corporations hiring private armies and literally killing their employees because they dared to strike? The people that benefit from so many of our laws are cheering their removal without understanding why they're there.

alphabettsy•5h ago

People are unaware that companies were so daring to add chalk to milk and random dark substances to coffee. Unregulated capitalism is not something we should want to return to.

stevage•4h ago

A generation or two (25-50 years) would be an incredible result. These days it's a miracle if anything has consequences more than a year or two down the track.

trilbyglens•1h ago

I mean we Americans have literally already forgotten Nazi Germany, or maybe we were never really taught it in a way that was meaningful.

jerlam•6h ago

It may make less of an effect that you hope, especially this early in the election cycle. People's memories aren't great and if things look like they are improving at election time, people may choose the incumbent even if the same person caused all the problems.

Cypher•5h ago

I don't have money so it's not a boycott by choice... just incredibly poor, depressed and under water

mindslight•5h ago

oops. Maybe corporate America should have taken the fascist candidate with the proven track record of destruction at his own words, and donated money to conservative (aka Democratic) candidates instead.

Honestly after resuming use of Aliexpress for last minute stocking up of industrialish goods, and seeing how much stuff on there now ships direct from US warehouses, I'll likely keep checking them in addition to Amazon/eBay.

gruez•4h ago

>Maybe corporate America should have taken the fascist candidate with a proven track record of destruction at his own words, and donated money to conservative (aka Democratic) candidates instead.

Putting aside the laughable implication that "corporate America" is some sort of monolith that can agree on one party to support, is there even evidence that they supported the Republican Party more? The Democratic Party out raised them in the last cycle.

moshun•4h ago

A quick glance at the front row of the inauguration seems to imply they are in fact a monolith. Not to mention how many corporations immediately bent the knee for this administration before even being asked.

palmotea•1h ago

The GP is talking about before the election, but you seem to be talking about after the election. Those are very different situations.

roxolotl•4h ago

It’s pretty wild to me that if a US political party were to genuinely try to and implement a degrowth policy this would be a very good start. Increased uncertainty to cause pullback in corporate investment. Large tariffs to reduce consumption and shorten supply chains. Major reductions in government spending.

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