Sticker Shock Just Beginning? 80% More For USB-C Cord
By Michael Snyder/Economic Collapse Blog May 20, 2025
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Are you ready to pay 80 percent more for a USB-C cord? Unfortunately, Walmart, Target and other major retailers have decided to start dramatically raising the prices of thousands of imported products. Of course our paychecks are not going up dramatically as well, and so our standard of living is going to go down.
We live at a time when 70 percent of Americans are already more financially stressed than they have ever been before, and now big corporations are going to be hitting us with a tsunami of enormous price hikes.
If prices of many imported goods go up by 5 or 10 percent, we can handle that.
But apparently Target is going nuts with their price hikes. For example, it is being reported that the price of one popular USB-C cord is being increased by 80 percent...
Now, thanks to insider information from Target workers, the extent of the raises are becoming apparent. Staff say it is just the beginning.
A $9.99 USB-C cord from the store's in-house Heyday brand is now ringing up at $17.99, according to a self-identified employee on Reddit.
'It's happening,' the worker wrote, sharing a photo of the price tag update. 'All of Heyday is going up.'
Seriously?
Did Target really need to do this?
And Target CEO Brian Cornell has also warned that prices will be going up on many common grocery items...
The company's CEO, Brian Cornell, started warning customers during a March earnings call, when the US was staring down potential 25 percent tariffs on Mexican and Canadian products.
At the time, he warned that everyday grocery items that frequently cross borders before making their way to Target's aisles -- like strawberries, avocados, bananas, and coffee beans -- were set to increase.
Of course Target is not the only major retailer that is raising prices.
Last week, Walmart CFO John David Rainey told CNBC that customers should expect price increases "towards the tail end of this month, and then certainly much more in June"...
In an interview with CNBC, Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said tariffs are "still too high" - even with the recently announced agreement to lower duties on imports from China to 30% for 90 days.
"We're wired for everyday low prices, but the magnitude of these increases is more than any retailer can absorb," he said. "It's more than any supplier can absorb. And so I'm concerned that consumer is going to start seeing higher prices. You'll begin to see that, likely towards the tail end of this month, and then certainly much more in June."
When President Trump heard about this, he went ballistic.
On his Truth Social account, he insisted that Walmart should "EAT THE TARIFFS"...
After Walmart last week said it would have to jack up some prices because of high costs of the global trade war, Trump on Saturday responded forcefully in a Truth Social post, demanding Walmart reverse its decision.
"Walmart should STOP trying to blame Tariffs as the reason for raising prices throughout the chain," Trump said. "Between Walmart and China they should, as is said, "EAT THE TARIFFS," and not charge valued customers ANYTHING. I'll be watching, and so will your customers!!!"
Trump believes that Walmart should be able to absorb the tariffs since the company is making so much money. But it has also been pointed out that Walmart's margins are very thin...
"Walmart made "BILLIONS OF DOLLARS last year, far more than expected," Trump posted on social media on Saturday. That's accurate -- Walmart is America's biggest retailer and had a strong 2024 on the back of inflation-weary customers seeking out its notoriously low prices.
But Walmart's profit is a function of its massive scale, rather than artificially high prices. As a percentage of sales, Walmart's operating income last quarter was just a little over 4%. Its net profit margin was less than 3% -- razor-thin by business standards.
When I visited a local Walmart recently, I was stunned by how much prices had changed.
And if Walmart CFO John David Rainey is telling the truth, the price increases that we have seen so far are just the beginning.
Sadly, the truth is that prices are rising to absurd levels just about everywhere.
One father in Florida recently made headlines all over the world when he revealed that he spent $1,400 to take his family of four to Disney World for a single day...
A Florida father-of-three was utterly disgusted at the $1,400 he had to pay to take his family of four on a 'bargain' day out to Walt Disney World.
Craig Stowell took his three kids and his wife to the self-proclaimed 'Happiest Place on Earth' in Orlando while family was in town visiting them, but he quickly found out just how deep the one-day trip was going to hit his pocket.
'It started with the ticket purchase, and then it ran right into the parking, and then it just was like a cash cow for the rest of the day,' the small business owner told Fox and Friends.
I remember my parents taking me to Disney World when I was a child.
But these days only the wealthy can afford to take their kids to our ridiculously overpriced theme parks.
Most of the country is just trying to find a way to scrape by financially from month to month. Consumer sentiment just fell to the second lowest level ever recorded, and the rising cost of living was the biggest reason for the drop...
U.S. consumers are becoming increasingly worried that tariffs will lead to higher inflation, according to a University of Michigan survey released Friday.
The index of consumer sentiment dropped to 50.8, down from 52.2 in April, in the preliminary reading for May. That is the second-lowest reading on record, behind June 2022.
The outlook for price changes also moved in the wrong direction. Year-ahead inflation expectations rose to 7.3% from 6.5% last month, while long-term inflation expectations ticked up to 4.6% from 4.4%.
After four years of steadily rising prices, we really are facing a historic economic crisis.
Unfortunately, it appears that prices are just going to keep going even higher.
I wish that I could tell you that there is an easy way out of this mess, but I cannot do that.
We are all just going to have to find ways to tighten our belts even more, because the purchasing power of our dollars is just going to continue to go down.
Originally published at The Economic Collapse Blog
