Somebody who needs to read their Hazlitt
Leggett & Platt, an American innerspring manufacturer, has been busy lobbying the Department of Commerce. The fruit of their labor: a tariff of anywhere from 164.75% to 234.51% on innersprings from China, their biggest competition.
This tariff means that you can expect to pay double for your next mattress. Because innersprings are the most expensive part of traditional mattresses and the tariff has effectively removed affordable, low-priced mattresses from the market.
Leggett was already responsible for 70 to 80 percent of the domestic innersprings market. Without foreign competition, they now have a virtual monopoly on the market. In short, mattress makers are now forced to buy from Leggett at any price they set.
This means many mattress makers have discontinued discount mattress lines. Almost all have had to raise their prices in order to pay for Leggett’s high-priced product.
Many small mattress makers relied on foreign sources of innersprings in order to compete with their larger competitors. This new tariff means that’s no longer an option, so many small mattress makers maybe forced to close their doors.</em>
Somebody needs to put a few copies of this in the Legett boardrooms.
