Consumer Prices Will Go Down From Day One? Will Gas Prices Go Down 50% Within A Year?

essentialsaltes said:

'Con job!' Trump snaps at reporter over fact check on his big Thanksgiving claim​

"Mr. President, since you brought up the Walmart Thanksgiving meal, and it is cheaper, but it also contains less," the reporter noted.

"Fake news!" Trump bellowed. "NBC, you're fake news! NBC's gone down the tubes along with most of the rest of them."

"So that would mean that the whole series of pricing and costs, you know, the groceries and everything else, it was a con job. It was a con job, affordability, they call it, was a con job by the Democrats."

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Gotta trust an expert.

McDonald's is losing its low-income customers. Economists call it a symptom of the stark wealth divide​

Industry-wide, fast food restaurants have seen traffic from one of its core customer bases, low-income households, drop by double digits, McDonald's chief executive Christopher Kempczinski told investors last week. Meanwhile, traffic from higher-earners(*) increased by nearly as much, he said.

"Happy Meals at McDonald's are prohibitively expensive for some people, because there's been so much inflation," Josephson said.

Prices at limited-service restaurants, which include fast-food restaurants, are up 3.2% year over year, at a rate higher than inflation “and that’s climbing” said Marisa DiNatale, an economist at Moody's Analytics.

A recent earnings report from Delta offers yet another illustration. While Delta's main cabin revenue fell 5% for the June quarter compared to a year ago, premium ticket sales rose 5%, highlighting the divide between affluent customers and those forced to be more economical.

At hotel chains, luxury brands are holding up better than low budget options. Revenue at brands including Four Seasons, Ritz-Carlton and St. Regis is up 2.9% so far this year, while economy hotels saw a 3.1% decline for the same period, according to industry tracker CoStar.

Consumer credit delinquency rates show just how much low-income households are hurting, with households that make less than $45,000 annually seeing "huge year-over-year increases," even as delinquency rates for high- and middle-income households have flattened and stabilized, said Rikard Bandebo, chief strategy officer and chief economist at VantageScore.

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(*) President Donald Trump constructed his own mega McDonald’s sandwich while eating from the fast food restaurant chain on the 2024 campaign trail, according to Republican National Committee chair Joe Gruters.

“He had hot fries waiting for him from McDonald’s ... And then he had a Filet-O-Fish, a Quarter Pounder, and a Big Mac, and I think he combined two of them,” said Gruters, who did not reveal which two sandwiches Trump put together.

Trump Admin Blames High Beef Prices on Mass Migration​

Speaking to Fox News Sunday, Bessent addressed reports that beef prices could hit $10 per pound next year, saying it was an issue “inherited” by the administration due to long-standing factors.

“There’s also, because of the mass immigration, a disease that we’d been rid of in North America made its way up through South America as these migrants brought some of their cattle with them,” Bessent said.

While risks of screwworm infection have halted trade from Mexico, foreign supply makes up a small share of U.S. cattle, and evidence does not support Bessent’s claim that individual migrants are bringing in diseased cattle. [Normally] Around 1 million cattle come from Mexico per year, which makes up around 1 percent of the total cattle herd in the United States.

essentialsaltes said:

McDonald's is losing its low-income customers. Economists call it a symptom of the stark wealth divide​

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Trump’s Affordability “Con Job”​

LIKE CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE EPSTEIN FILES, the affordability issue is a “hoax.” So saith our president.

SO WHAT CAN TRUMP ACTUALLY DO about any of this? The answer is not much, but ideally none of the things he’s currently doing.

It’s unhelpful, for instance, that Trump has jacked up tariffs to the tune of approximately $1,700 for the average household

The president could also stop mass deportations of the agricultural workforce, which even his own administration says is a threat to “the stability of domestic food production and prices for U.S. consumers.” Same with the construction workforce, which is needed to build more houses.

There’s no knob under the Resolute desk that presidents can use to dial down prices, but there are a few isolated things Trump could do to help. Extending the ACA subsidies, for instance, would shield people from a doubling of their premiums. But that might require acknowledging Democrats were right [which also applies to the previous items on this list.]

mark46 said:

Let's watch each month and make the 2026 election a referendum on the keeping of those promises.
1) Does inflation go down each month compared to a year ago?
2) Do food prices go down, actually go down as promised?
3) Does the price of eggs go down?
4) Do gas prices go down?

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I don’t expect them to go down but if they don’t go up I would say that’s an improvement.