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The worse part about this is all this media coverage on inflation is a self fulfilling prophecy. All this brain washing will make us think inflation is here whether it’s true or not which will ironically cause inflation.

Edit: For those downvoting, price increase for supply decrease != monetary inflation (at least not 1:1). That just simply the movement of economics and the movement of supply and demand curve that HN loves. Inflation on the other hand is the devaluation of money. While I can see why these two things are hard to decouple, they are not the same.

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I own restaurants. I have seen 100%+ price increases across 80% of my supply chain in the last 6 months. But, you are right I am sure it is just the media not my bills.

Can you find employees?

In my northern city, as soon as I felt comfortable going back to restaurants I quickly stopped - the wait everywhere is >2hr because they’re desperate for ppl. McDonalds is even offering $22/hr

The detail that gets overlooked is that I have had only 1 application from someone over the age of 18 in the last 90 days. While highschoolers are awesome they only work 10-20 hrs a week.

To caveat, I am in a highly desirable submarket for entry level staff, with near 75% 1 year retention, and above market pay for my area, especially for part time staff.

To provide further context, I had a staff member quit a couple weeks ago, because I do not pay a "livable wage", while this staff member only worked 2 days a week based on their availability. I am not sure how to address this kind of issue.

>To provide further context, I had a staff member quit a couple weeks ago, because I do not pay a "livable wage", while this staff member only worked 2 days a week based on their availability. I am not sure how to address this kind of issue.

Possibly dumb question, but how much do you pay per hour and how much are the rents in your local area?

I only have one employee working around 15 hours a week at A$28/hr (minimum wage is around A$26/hr for "casual" employees with no set hours or paid leave), but that's enough to cover all living expenses in shared accomodation plus a bit extra.

I am not at US$20(yours converted) probably closer to US$14-15 on average, but midgrade COL is 800-100 2bed/1200-1500 3bed/1500-2100 4bed in my area renting, and probably 20%-25% less buying. Staff is 98% under 23.

Key detail seems to be that shared accommodation is very undesirable for my staff, at least those few that live outside the family home.

Man, the rent really is too damn high (we see similar prices in Melbourne, AU, albeit with better conditions for workers).

I wonder how many issues of inequality and low living standards would simply disappear if we as a society simply decided to enact policies to drive the cost of housing down as low as possible, rather than inflating it and making it artificially scarce.

The ship has sailed on that one.

You would have to somehow transform 50+ years of suburban sprawl into a higher-density, less car dependent living arrangement, that's also _cheaper_ than the current one, and affordable to e.g. restaurant and retail workers.

While you've described the ideal case, I don't think it's true that the ship has sailed on affordable housing.

At least in Australia, most of the increase in value comes from speculators and investors taking advantage of very generous tax concessions (negative gearing, capital gains tax reductions, reserve bank handing out low-interest loans to property investors).

Rental vacancy rates in Sydney and Melbourne have remained pretty much static over the past decade (excluding COVID), yet prices have soared by 60-70%.

In theory capital gains on land should be taxed 100%. The problem is that you still need people to do things like renovate the house. Valuing the land separately is difficult. It's much easier to just set a fixed rate based on what the land is zoned for which means straight up land value taxes are easier to administer.

That problem not only exists with housing. It also exists with money.

I mean. People want their houses to be expensive. They also want their money to become expensive (deflation). It really doesn't make sense to me.

In theory expensive housing makes it easier to build more of it. That law of supply and demand doesn't really exist because it is not a free market. It's actually kind of funny. It's the subversion of the free market. As land and the house that sits on top of the land gets more expensive people want to reduce supply. They use politics to basically run what amounts to a housing cartel. You won't sell your house so that apartments can be built. Your neighbor isn't allowed to build them either.

I’ve stopped going to several restaurants from which I used to pretty regularly order takeout (and post-vaccine, dine in) over their crazy price increases since spring.

It’s interesting to hear that this is driven by supply chain increases, but those seem much higher than what I see at my local grocer. Is there something particular to restaurant supply that makes it sticky enough to pay these doubled prices?

The timelines. These increases have been in place for months, and eventually restaurants have to increase prices. Especially around proteins and disposables (ie all take out stuff) right now. EX: Chicken wings and pork butts are probably being sold at a loss by most restaurants right now, unless they have tripled prices.

Secondly, restaurants usually purchase some portion of product as prepared or partially prepared which is being hit by the labor shortage for preparation cost in the production facilities.

Third, grocery increase are less noticeable due to the price point. Ten cents on a dollar is less noticeable than 1 dollar on 10 dollars.

I’ve noticed pretty significant grocery increases over the last year. My wife and I basically eat a fixed menu day to day so the groceries we buy are usually exactly the same week over week. About a year ago we spent about $150/wk. Now it’s much closer to $200. Some of that is due to what we eat (keto/meat heavy) and that includes chicken wings (which are apparently in short supply) and pork butts. I’d bet we are looking at almost 40% above 2019 prices just on those two items alone.

We’re also seeing about 30-40% grocery increases overall from Feb 2020 to now. That’s high, but it’s nowhere near 100%.

If restaurants are seeing 100% ingredient increases, labor price increases, and labor shortages, I think we’re going to see a massive wave of restaurant bankruptcies in the next 18 months. There’s no way consumers are going to just swallow that.

Sorry for the late reply.

My 100% increase converts to 15-30% at the price point. In the same way you are seeing that 30-40 at the grocery. Restaurants generally run %20-40 food cost.

There is a self fulfilling element to inflation - but this is not it. The media, if anything, is downplaying it by reporting the monthly rate instead of the more widely used annual rate.

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