All of 2025, the forecasts came in hot. CNN Business, July 10, 2025: "Prices are now starting to rise because of tariffs. Economists say this is just the beginning." Yale's Budget Lab estimated tariffs would cost households about $2,800 in the short run. The message on cable: hide your wallet, the tariff bomb is coming.

FNN will not pretend tariffs are free, because the data says they aren't. A New York Fed study (October 6, 2026) found tariffs added as much as 2.9 percentage points to consumer goods inflation by February 2026. It estimated the effect on goods inflation would fade to about zero by August 2026, but goods prices would stay higher.

Now the context the doom loop skipped. Goods are roughly a third of the consumer basket. BLS reports overall CPI was up 3.4% for the 12 months ending August 2026, with core at 2.4%. The biggest driver was energy: gasoline was up 27.4% over the year. Food was up 2.7%. Higher prices, yes. An explosion, no.

FNN analysis: economists get forecasts wrong all the time, and that's fine. What isn't fine is anchors treating the scariest model as settled fact, then going quiet when the numbers come in smaller. That's how media trust among adults under 50 fell below 30% (Axios on Gallup, 2025).