Well, yeah, because inflation has been under average the last decade, so it wasn't as pertinent. We are past the tipping point for many industries, and costs have already been increased.
I raised our prices 13% across the board in January even though our costs haven't increased. Not having increased our fees in 2.5 years and with others doing it allowed for an easy time and excuse to get away with it. Two weeks ago, I interviewed with an investor on the east coast regarding a CEO position at a small company he invested in. He talked me out of that job, then offered me to run two of his five companies (guy is a serial entrepreneur who also wanted to dump $1 million into me starting the same company on the east coast that I just built here). One of those two companies has a product which is almost entirely steel. It retails for about $4500. He is raising the cost $1500 and will still make less on it after the increase due to the shipping and steel costs increases. So even though he is increasing retail price by 33%, he is still going to make less on each unit.
None of that changes the fact that what Herdman said is false. He said "any business is going to pass that cost on," and that's not only completely false, but it is also bad business.