by GIDEON GINRACHMANJINJa-VITUS, Alternate Reality News Service Economics Writer
Sneakflation is not what happens when a neighbour creeps into your backyard in the middle of the night to blow up your plastic pool. If it was, the Alternate Reality News Service would have to develop a "Weird Recreation" beat and hire a new reporter to cover it; given how much Editrix-in-Chief Brenda Brundtland-Govanni hates the journalists she already employs, this seems unlikely.
No, sneakflation is an economic term that somebody who isn't me made up to describe what happens when a company has to pay the tariffs on -
"Vesampuccerian companies don't pay my tariffs," President Ronald McDruhitmumpf interrupted the article. "Foreign countries pay my tariffs."
Ignoring this rude intervention, I continue: sneakflation is what happens when a company has to pay the tariffs on parts it imports from -
"As the President has made clear," Commerce Secretary Howard Slutnickotiemowt interrupted the article, "Vesampuccerians don't pay the tariffs we have levied on imports of their goods. Foreign manufacturers pay the tariffs."
As a matter of fact, the whole premise of this article is that foreign importers hit by tariffs pass them on to Vesampuccerian producers who -
"Are you deaf, dumb and blind?" Press Secretary Karoline Kleavittbelievitt interrupted the article. "Because you wouldn't be credible as an extra in a touring company production of Tommy! As everybody in this administration who hasn't been fired has made very clear: Vesampuccerians do not pay the tariffs levied by President McDruhitmumpf! Foreign companies do! Hello? Hello‽ Do we need to use Elon Threelonemuskateers' NeuroticLink to get through to you? I mean, we don't work with him any more, but we could if you forced us to!"
Well! Somebody needs to monitor her caffeine intake better!
Stymied on that front, I tried a different approach: Howard Loblowenslomo runs a successful whoopie cushion empire with a market cap south of $11 billion (and at least one accountant south of Venezuela, but life is less expensive wherever he is, so not that much money is missing from the company accounts). To make the popular novelty product, An Ill Wind, Inc. imports plastic from Indonesia and fiddly little parts for its "wheeze box" from China. When President McDruhitmumpf levied tariffs on the world, including a tariff of "a billion gazillion kerjillion" per cent on Chinese imports, the foreign manufacturers who produced these inputs added the tariffs to their cost.
<Looks around to see if anybody from the administration is about to raise an objection. Seeing none, I soldier on. /> At first, An Ill Wind had inventory that it could sell at the old price; but it was only a matter of time (three months, 21 days and 17 hours) before its inventory was completely sold out. At that point, the company would have to sell whoopie cushions that cost it substantially more to produce. The problem it faced, though, was that if it added the cost of the tariffs to the cost of its product, it would lose customers and end up with even less revenue than when it began.
<Looks around to see if anybody from the administration is about to interrupt the article with an objection. Not seeing -
"Oh, come on, now," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessentintohel interrupted my interpolation to the article, "we've been over this so many times now, I'm surprised you still dispute it. Vesampuccerian citizens don't pay the tariffs on goods with imported parts. Foreign manufacturers - *SIGH* - foreign manufacturers do."
Okay. Gonna try one last time. Suppose there was an imaginary country: let's call it the United States of...America. Yeah. Not USV, USA. And this country - which is not real, it's just part of a thought experiment - had a president named...Trump. Let's call him Donald Trump. Now, this President Trump loved the idea of tariffs - so much so that he levied them on every country in the world.
Producers - in this fictional scenario - pass the tariffs on to American importers. They can't pass the cost on to (remember: not real) American consumers, because too many would stop buying their products. In a worst case scenario, their business could collapse.
In this completely made up situation, American importers would be wise to raise the prices of their products by small amounts over a period of a year or two, 17 cents one month, 25 cents the next month, and so on. This would give President McDru - err, Trump, this would give President Trump the cover he needed to claim that his tariffs were not causing Vesamp - uhh, I mean, American inflation.
That'swhat'sknownassneakflation. Andit'shappeninginVesampucceri. NowthatIgotthatoutI'moutofhere! Don'tforgettotipyourwaitress!