The linked story looks like cherry-picked data. Of course if average prices rise 2.6% percent, some outliers will rise more. But this hardly seems like a reason to panic.
The linked story looks like cherry-picked data. Of course if average prices rise 2.6% percent, some outliers will rise more. But this hardly seems like a reason to panic.
But this is not inflation. It's a completely different issue, with different causes and possible solutions.
> But this is not inflation. It's a completely different issue, with different causes and possible solutions.
There's also another kind of inflation which comes from the 1% having too much wealth and the shift in the Gini coefficient. That makes all the things that wealthy people buy much more expensive and leads to asset bubbles. So Housing (again) along with stocks, bonds (driving the evaporation of risk premiums), the whole financial sector and art and baseball cards.
What's special about housing, health care and education compared to say food, cosmetic surgery or tech is immense amount of govt meddling that both restricts supply and boosts demand. Everything from general regulatory burden to explicit things like zoning, certificates of need and healthcare subsidies, housing subsidies, etc. The results are predictable. Nothing whatsoever to do with profit seeking.
I think barriers to entry. In other markets profits like in these 3 industries would lead to an influx of new entrants which would put compete away excess profits. But try opening a new hospital or school - years of work and regulations to fight, and new schools have a long uphill climb to achieve reputability. Housing is constructed by bullshit restrictive zoning.
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/07/consumerpriceindex....
That’s a 7.5% annualized rate.
But inflation has been below 2% since December 2018, and interest rates are at zero (which gives the Fed considerable latitude for implementing inflation control). The panic here seems a bit premature to me.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT
And here’s the money velocity:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2V
When the economy actually reopens and people start spending again, prices will go boom.
Yes, this has actually been predicted. See also 2010-11:
> Then came a few months when inflation seemed to be rising after all. Consumer price inflation reached almost 4 percent; wholesale inflation went into double digits; the average price of commodities like oil and soybeans rose almost 40 percent in a year. Soon Republicans were haranguing Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman, suggesting that his efforts might “debase the currency.”
> But the Fed stayed its course, arguing correctly that rising prices were a temporary blip, not a harbinger of ’70s-style stagflation. Inflation soon subsided, and it has stayed low ever since.
[…]
> So what’s going to happen in the months ahead? We’ll probably see a number of transitory price increases, not just because the economy is booming, but also because the lingering effects of the pandemic have produced some unusual disruptions — for example, a global shortage of shipping containers.
> The question will be whether these price increases are a 2010-2011-type blip or something more dangerous. Smart observers will look past the headlines to measures of underlying inflation — not just the Fed’s standard “core” measure but things like the Atlanta Fed’s sticky price index as well.
* https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/22/opinion/us-inflation-stim...
We heard the same thing about printing money during the QE years. Still waiting for inflation after ~10 years.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Consumer_Price_I...
And if you don't believe the BLS's basket of goods, you can confirm it for yourself:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Billion_Prices_project
Past studies have generally shown the official numbers to be pretty good.