U.S. annual inflation rate drops to 8.5%
bls.gov
bls.gov
I'm also stuffing my freezer with meat and have a year's supply of non-perishables, not because I'm a prepper but because I know it'll be so much more expensive next year as to be worth it.
Also my rent is up 6.9%, but that's because I locked it in for two years. Would have been 10.5% for a one-year lease, and that's on top of last year's comparatively conservative 4.5% increase.
And my salary is up a mere 4.5%, and that only because I took on stretch assignments at work.
https://www.youneedabudget.com/
It's really good, knowing where you're money is going ahead of time removes so much guilt and anxiety.
Something's got to give. Thankfully we're starting to see some actual government investment in US industry for the first time in forever, but it'll take years for any results to bring down prices.
YNAB is much nicer than Mint IMO. Mint feels more like a toy.
With YNAB you do something called "envelope budgeting" (just a digital version) https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-envelope-budgeting-129368...
I've found being obsessive with tracking expenses is a good way to lose motivation (like going to the gym) so it's good to have a simple pattern to get used to.
Anybody who doesn't demand a raise in this environment is a fool.
anyway sorry for the vent/rant, but what we need to do is stop loose monetary and fiscal policy that transfers wealth to people who got assets like real estate and stock (boomers, the rich) from people who don't (young people, the poor). but nobody wants to do that...
There is also the problem that some folks have (cough, me, yes, I'm talking about me) that even if I go into Costco for 3 specific items, I walk out with 5-10 at least. That's another place to watch for cost and try to be strict about sticking to a list.
I can then stuff my freezer with ready to cook chicken, steak, fish, etc. I just take it out the night before to thaw in the fridge.
For nicer cuts of meat, sure, but for flank steak and such, I find it much easier to just let the meat marinate for 24-48 hours and then grill it.
My point is that with less space you need to store less different things.
- Too many items force you to buy insane quantities that don't make sense even for a 4 person family. The meat, for example, is great quality and value, but it's very hard to make steak or chicken taste good after being frozen, and in no universe should I be eating 4 huge steaks within the refrigeration shelf life. I can never use their giant tub of sour cream or shredded cheese before it goes bad.
- Related to the last point, Costco makes you pay for the square footage in your home to store their stuff, and to really utilize the membership you're gonna want a chest freezer, a whole extra appliance to purchase, run (electricity), and repair. Probably about $50/year in electricity costs.
- Too many of the items that are "great deals" are things most people would probably never buy in the first place when sold at the normal higher retail price. For example, Red Bull is barely over a dollar a can, which is unbeatable, but in no universe should I be buying a 24 pack of Red Bull for any reason.
- Similar to the point above, Costco's deals encourage consumption where the alternative is to not consume anything at all. For example, paper towels are an item where you really should just reduce your usage. Just use dish towels and cloth napkins, toss them in with your regular laundry. There are very few messes where you actually need to use paper towels.
- I know it's not supposed to be a replacement for a grocery store, but I think it's very hard to cook from scratch using whole and minimally-processed foods solely from what Costco sells.
- The low SKU count of the store has never not been infuriating to me. The entire health and beauty section is the worst offender here: good luck having any sort of preference.
- The store wastes your time by making you memorize aisle layout, this is done on purpose to increase aimless browsing time.
- The negotiation practices that Costco uses to keep prices low also causes their inventory to be incredibly inconsistent. One day there will be a pallet of Legos or an interesting brand of trail mix, the next it could be gone or replaced by something else.
- Costco is almost always packed with an uncomfortable amount of people.
- Am I the only one who thinks Costco doesn't have enough cat supplies?? It's all stuff for dogs!! You'd think I should be saving so much money by using Costco for cat litter but...nope, the stuff I buy at Target is about the same cost, they'll deliver it for free in two days, and Costco doesn't sell any form of unscented cat litter product.
- Their lauded snack bar is trash food and I don't believe the common refrain that it's a loss leader. Costco brags about that as a PR exercise. It breaks even at the very least.
- If your Costco is able to sell beer/wine/liquor, that's a pretty nice perk that can pretty legitimately make up for the membership cost over a year, but anyone with a really legit liquor warehouse type of store (e.g., Binny's) isn't going to be massively impressed. Low SKU count is still a problem here, and I don't actually think Costco is that great at curating wines (another PR exercise they like to engage in).
- Don't forget that you have to pay $60 a year just to get in the door. You have to buy enough discounted things to make up for that difference. Sure, it probably makes more sense than Amazon Prime, but that's still a major point to think about.
I think the only reason to be a member is to buy diapers, you'll make up the membership cost very quickly that way. Still, if you can tolerate lower quality diapers, Target's brand is actually lower cost than Kirkland. There are a number of Costco products out there where other store brands offer something at a close-enough price and quality ratio, without having to shell out a membership fee. For many products it might not actually matter that "Kirkland is the best."
I walk in and buy the same stuff every time. I never buy anything I end up tossing anymore. I know where everything is because they don’t change the store much.
Costco isn’t my main grocery store but I’m only in the Costco warehouse 1-2 times per month anyway.
And the lower price of gas makes up for the price of admission for me
Pessimist's take: When thinking about what we trade our time for, TV shows (and films, to some degree) have always been to me an endless source of a time sink for relatively little return. Games, slightly better, more social in some ways, certainly more mentally engaging, but also parasitic of time. To concurrently pay for multiple streaming services is unfathomable to me, moreso right now where, as you point out, your expenses have ballooned and your salary can't keep up. You aren't the only one, and yet it's highly likely (anecdotal experience here) that your friends know more about the last season of a show than they know about how to prep for the looming days, as you are prepping. One would think there's better ways to have downtime than to tune out in front of a box, but these habits are difficult to break.
(Cue the "They'll tell you" jokes.)
It was nice having multiple options on a Friday/Saturday night without the overhead of having to think about subscriptions, because the services combined were the equivalent of one or two hours of my hourly rate a month, and we were in the black month-to-month. So who cares? Now my hourly rate doesn't cover nearly as much as it used to what with everything else through the roof, so I have to care, and I'm lucky to be in that position. Fun times.
Even the highest end technical fabrics don't work very well when it's humid outside, which tends to happen a lot when it's raining.
If you're actually working hard, you'll be covered in your own sweat soon enough. Given the choice i usually just go with the rain instead.
Riding an ebike is a different matter, that's probably entirely doable with current tech.
https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/loans/auto-loans/total-co...
"For vehicles driven 15,000 miles a year, average car ownership costs were $9,666 a year, or $806 a month, in 2021, according to AAA"
VS https://bicycleuniverse.com/how-much-does-a-bike-cost/
So the figure is accurate.
If bikes could park like cars and be safe, a lot more people would use bikes for errands. As it is I only use my bike (even my cheap one) when I can keep eyes on it from the store.
I live in an area where I can very easily and quickly bike to just about anything. But I never do because there's nowhere to store the bike while I'm there so it will get stolen. So I either walk (if I have the extra 15-20 minutes) or feel silly driving a mile or less. I'd rather bike.
But if you buy a $5k electric cargo bike and it gets stolen two weeks later, or you have to spend 10 minutes finding a secure place for it everywhere you go...
A trailer would probably be a lot better.
In any case, I think that’s a good thing! The oil crisis of the 1970s was one of the contributing factors to the Netherlands getting their now-excellent bike infrastructure.
When I need to pad my savings I cut some costs but mostly I just work extra hours in side gigs. I couldnt imagine its worth going to multiple grocery stores to compare prices. Shop at 1 store, pay more for some items, work an extra hour to make up for it. I'm building my career and getting paid instead of experiencing traffic, grocery stores at peak hours, check out lines, and loading/unloading food to and from the car/house for a second time.
Does it really make sense for you financially to do that?
We have discount grocers nearby that sell a crap-shoot of stuff the bigger stores are trying to get rid of. If going there before heading to Wegmans can save me $50-100/month after gas, for maybe an extra 30 minutes - 1 hour of time, would be worth it these days.
But that sounds elitist so nobody says it. Doesn't make it any bit less true.
I live in a city where multiple grocery stores exist within 5 minutes of each other and I do enjoy doing mundane tasks outside my professional life. Those tasks made me pause, clear my mind, and escape the bubble that we called "work" (yes, work itself is a bubble).
Ones that let you hop in just whenever you feel like it and do one hour of work, with no commitment to minimum hours per week? And that you can put in a single productive hour every so often, without ramp-up time eating that entire hour with nothing to show for it? And that pays enough to make it worth it (i.e. not Mechanical Turk or whatever)?
I don't even know what such an ultra-flexible, low-context (= near-zero ramp-up time even if you only do it an hour or two a week, and some weeks not at all) but still high-paid gig would look like, or how to go about finding it.
Meanwhile, you can value-shop if you feel like it, or not if you don't. Entirely optional and no commitment or outside expectations. You can do it very seriously one week, then not do it at all the next.
There isn't a lot of daylight between low-paid, mostly uninteresting gig work and a real side job that takes some marketing, sales, avoiding time-wasting people who want to low-ball you, chasing payment, and some expectation of ongoing commitment.
I do have something drop in my lap now and then from someone I know, e.g. ghostwriting something. And that's fine. It's good money for maybe a day's work overall. But you can have tight deadlines and if you just wait for the phone to ring, you're probably not going to get a lot of that sort of thing.
C++ programmer by trade.
Just be careful that your freezer has a reliable electrical supply. The National Electrical Code has required GFCI protection on garage outlets since 2008 and those can occasionally fail and trip off for no reason. Ask me how I know...
Much easier than trying to get and find dry ice in an emergency.
My favorite use is sparkling grapes. https://sciencenotes.org/how-to-make-fizzy-fruit-with-dry-ic...
Put (food grade) dry ice at the bottom of a bowl, then a clean cloth or towel (for insulation), then grapes. Ideally our a loose fitting cover over the bowl.
As the dry ice sublimates, it passes through the grapes which will capture some of the CO2 and carbonate the grapes.
Very fun, and much less practical, use of dry ice…
I get it all the time for camping trips
I have a 1kW power station with solar charging, which won't fare a whole lot better; it'll run a fridge for maybe 2-3 days if it's sunny outside.
Low-tech solutions win in power outages of more than a day or two.
Power outages typically aren't more than one day, and dry ice is not going to help you for those outages.
I don't have any dry ice suppliers nearby (no the Walmart doesn't stock it), it's not a low-tech solution.
The low tech solution would be a bigger gas canister. 2 gallons a day is not bad at all.
In an apartment building or something I can certain see the use case for dry ice though.
But for those who like protein packed meals in a comfortable environment an additional deep freezer is a great investment.
You can deep freeze extra veggies/fruit if you have a beef with meat.
A dehydrator is another good option for preserving perishables. The shelf life is a bit shorter than most people would think, but properly packed and sealed you can get at least 3 months or so.
A freeze drier will preserve perishables for significantly longer than a dehydrator, but they cost an order of magnitude more. If you have a big garden or something though the three grand outlay might be worth it.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Protein-quality-assessme...
1. The human body can synthesize protein except for a few amino acids. These are called "essential" amino acids because we must get them from food.
2. Protein "quality" refers to the ratio of essential amino acids, specifically how close they are to the ratio of essential amino acids in our bodies. This metric is used to gauge the rate of absorption of proteins, not the overall amount of absorption.
3. Red meat is not ideal protein quality. Whey protein is actually a lot better because it consists of amino acids in ratios that are better for absorption. Also better than red meat is... rice and beans.
But honestly I think you have some kind of vegetarian agenda, and that's causing you to use some pretty tortuous reasoning to reach your desired conclusions.
I also love beef, tuna, shrimp and many other meats.
I like having a variety in my diet and to eat what I prefer.
See how quickly you hate beans and rice if you only have beans and rice.
Navy beans on Instacart are currently $1.14 for 104 grams of protein. https://www.instacart.com/store/items/item_1807377332
Ground beef on Instacart is $5.23 for 76 grams of protein. https://www.instacart.com/store/items/item_1785250798
Beans have 91 grams of protein per dollar compared to ground beef's 14 grams.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Protein-quality-assessme...
And you're comparing price per protein? Wouldn't this thread be based on amount as we're talking about storing it?
Also, see my response about "protein quality". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32417603
But either way I recommend storing and buying both. Definitely not going on a crusade against beans, they're great! (and so is meat)
Another user recommended eggs if you're concerned about protein to price ratio, but it's harder to store efficiently without getting creative.
You could farm your own eggs as I do, but it requires a lot of space (and a love for chickens, they can be a hassle).
The entitlement adjustments made based on trimmed CPI will always be less than the inflation even the gov't admits people are experiencing.
More seriously, that quality of life decrease is now completely ignored. I think it's worth acknowledging that it's happening.
And at the end of the day, it’s more important to be happy
- a popular quote in the internet
you can't watch people switch their crab and milk for krab and powdered milk then be like "oh we'll just trim that out of inflation lmao". inflation is not supposed to measure change in average cost of necessities, it's supposed to measure change in a basket of basic goods.
A TV today is not the same as a TV in 1970.
The groceries a family buys today are not the same Goods or quality as someone would have bought in 1920
You can starve.
It's beginning to feel like a 'let them eat cake' moment from the wealthy.
Want to take that bet? There's absolutely no reason to expect inflation borne of energy costs and trade disruption to continue. Remember (and so, so many people fail to understand this) that inflation is a year-over-year metric. The report today showing a drop in the "inflation rate" is actually showing an instantaneous decrease in absolute prices (fuels, primarily, like the ones needed to ship the meat you bought because you thought it was going to be expensive).
To wit: It is very likely that what you've done is stuffed your freezer full of meat you purchased at a price maximum.
Also, just because I have to ask: you're so concerned about prices that you're willing to make major changes to your lifestyle. But... you didn't even consider things like "eating less meat"?
GP literally did when he bought the meat.
You can grow hydroponic lettuce, indoor tomatoes, strawberries, carrots, etc. There are many good resources to learn. It's also a past time that will teach you one thing or two.
Then, if saving time is what you are looking for... robot vacuum, mop, and a all-in-one cooking appliance (e.g.: Thermomix) can help.
'Grocery prices were up 1.3% in July from the prior month and rose 13.1% in July from a year ago, the fastest annual pace since 1979.'
So really the EV market is still insignificant and gaz consumption for the average household has gone up, not down.
Historical data shows that overall gas consumption is more strongly linked to the frequency of highway travel than to recent changes in car purchases. See:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/188448/total-us-domestic...
There's a drop during the Great Recession, a rapid rise during the recovery, and a roughly flat line during the Trump administration until another crater during the COVID pandemic.
Infrastructure is not there and is not going to be there for EVs for a long time.
Its not only gas stations but also power plants, transit cables, personel, supply chains, technology, laws and other.
If we make good investments it will take around 50 years in some developed EU countries to reach appropriate infrastructure levels. In less developed countries probably 100+years.
But if every parking space just gets 1KW of solar panel ~$500 and sun shines for 10 hours a day, you probably have enough power for the 30 miles of daily commute. A car sits idle for 90% of the day. We can use this time to charge it.
It's not the long road trip use case but I think will put a big dent in the resources needed to migrate to EV.
I’m not gonna spend 10 hours in an office and definitely not from sunrise to sunset. Also, 10 hours of sunshine in a day is a rarity in most of the US, especially during the winter.
Not sure I'm feeling as pessimistic on infrastructure. A bunch of the infrastructure for EVs already exists and is wired to every house. Even if we converted 100% of all newly sold vehicles to EV today, the grid build-out required wouldn't be any harder than what we've done in the past.
No reason to go further than that at this point in time. Even if we do go beyond to create a doomsday scenario for EVs, it will be worked out because few of these things are unanswerable open questions. If this were hinging on some technological homerun like figuring out fission or the Alcubierre drive then I would feel differently about it.
We have troubles generating enough power to not force blackouts in EU and we talk about introducing hundreds of millions of EVs / to every household.
Currently it all works only because they are a novelity.
EVs are certainly not only a novelty in the EU right now.
But yeah, I wouldn’t count on short grocery store stops to charge my car.
But more to the point, how many people have a regular commute, only have street parking at home, and ALSO couldn't be expected to have their employer provide charging at work? Are they doing on-street parking at work as well?
I know a lot of folks in the city who own a car but use it for errands and trips but not commuting. They're the people best served by slower charging at grocery stores, movie theaters, etc. 20 miles isn't a lot but if you're topping up every-time you use the car anyways it adds up or at the least means you only need to use the fast charger once every few months at the most.
The need will become obvious to them once market share approaches 20%.
In my buildings parking garage there are 150 cars, where probably a good 30-40% of cars are BEVs. We're pulling a maximum of 32kW, or 400V/80A. I have yet to find my car not fully charged in the morning. It's a load balanced system, so usually I get full effect of 11kW when charging.
That would be twice as long as it took the US to electrify 90% of farm houses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_Electrification_Act
>Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn was a major proponent of the REA, which he helped pass in 1936 as Chairman of the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee. Rayburn stated in 1959 that ninety percent of farm homes in the U.S. were electrified, compared to three percent in the early 1930s.
Furthermore, electrifying gas stations along major highways will obviously be much easier than electrifying farms scattered around everywhere.
How many charging points do we need now vs # those farms ?
What was the quality of cable lanes used ?
Did we consider off-grid then ?
Whats the estimated cost in comparison to now ?
You make it sound simple, but its not. Making that comparison is like comparing apples to oranges.
There are ~150,000 gas stations in the United States. There are 2 million farms, and that's after significant consolidation of agriculture during the Green Revolution.
>You make it sound simple, but its not.
You are simply posting 'questions' without bothering to do the least bit of research. Looking up those numbers took less than a minute. Climate change discussions benefit from informed skepticism, not intransigent fatalism.
For me thats “a lot more” than 2 mil farms.
Its realism. Consider a situation when 50 cars have to park at the station to charge back to full. The station is out of service for the next 10h… This is a pretty common situation on highway.
We would need hundreds of those charging spots often with hotels.
Im more excited for Hydrogen cars than EVs. Its a lot cleaner and future proof solution.
(1) HOME CHARGING. In sparser areas where people live in houses with garages, duplexes, and even to some degree rowhouses, it's easy to run an extension cord and get a full charge nightly.
(2) STORE PARKING LOT CHARGING. In denser places where people live predominantly in apartment buildings and perhaps some rowhouses, there is enough density to have rapid chargers in store parking lots. You drive to the grocery store, park for half an hour while you shop, and you have enough charge for the rest of the week. There is also enough density that daily milage is much less so you can get away with charging once or twice a week instead of daily.
(3) OTHER TRANSPORT CHOICES REDUCE RANGE ANXIETY. Also at least in the USA TONS of households have multiple cars -- especially in sparser areas that are more car dependent and have plentiful parking. This creates an easy in for the plugin EV -- if one of your (typically two) cars is still ICE or hybrid, you don't have to worry about range anyway (while still putting most miles on the EV). Conversely, in denser areas (USA or EU) it is common to own zero cars or one car that isn't even used every day because public transit covers some of the transport needs. In either case, range anxiety becomes not much of a problem because the EV isn't your sole option for getting around (but, at 250mi range, range anxiety is kind of obsolete anyway)
So once again, whether you're in a sparse or dense area, there are dynamics that make it easy for many people to get started with an EV. Does it work for 100% of people, today? No. But that's how change works. Once a lot more people, starting with those who can easily do so, get EVs, it becomes more normalized, and there's more infrastructure, and the cycle continues.
Good plugin EVs like the Bolt or Leaf with 200+ mi of range are now in the $20-$29k range. It's starting to become pretty practical. They're not competitive with getting the cheapest camry shitbox you can find on craigslist and running it into the ground, but they're competitive with a lot of ordinary cars ordinary people buy.
https://electrek.co/2022/07/29/which-electric-vehicles-still...
The new car shortages are real but I don't see how they speak to long term EV viability which is what was being discussed. ICE cars are just as affected, and it's bound to get better eventually.
EDIT: It appears you have lied. The price you quote is for the fancier model of Leaf, but the base model is available for $27,800 according to Nissan's own website. I got here by searching "nissan leaf" on google. Not sure why you didn't do this. https://www.nissanusa.com/vehicles/electric-cars/leaf.html
This is still quibbling about details though. EVs are clearly here to stay.
And if you think about it, reducing "inflation" to a single number will always disguise some things - gas prices adjust multiple times a day if necessary but things like leases only get renegotiated once a year or even longer.
MoM is a cleaner way to look at things in volatile times like these.
I realized when monitoring COVID data that rolling numbers like this can be heavily impacted by the number that’s rolling off.
Take, for example, a 7-day COVID case count of 100. The next day this drops to 90. That’s great, right?
Well, if yesterday’s 7-day values were all 100, and today’s are 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 30, then yes, that’s great!
But if yesterday’s 7-day values were 700, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, and today’s are 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 630, then that’s potentially very bad (depending on other context).
This is obviously a hyperbole, but it shows that looking at and comparing rolling numbers can be tricky, and you need to look at other context to get the full picture.
[1] Which likely ends up being a proxy for oil, but as a farmer I watch food commodities much more closely.
Next year will even be worse, we are using a fuel reserves now and fertilizer will still be an issue (unless peace is made with Russia). I’m expecting a significant increase in the next 2-3 months then again in 15-16 months.
Certainly, it is possible for inflation to slow and then ramp up again. It is not a static value by any stretch. But it remains that current indicators suggest that it is slowing. Not only in the actual inflation metrics but other also in other indicators.
Russia can end this tomorrow, by withdrawing from Ukraine.
You probably didn’t mean to imply anything, but it’s a sensitive topic, semantics matter.
This is false. It requires a willingness from Russia to stop invading Ukraine. What you're writing here is appeasement, and it it's a very bad idea both generally and specifically with regards to global economic stability.
Yes, Russia can attempt appeasement by leaving Ukraine, but we have to accept that gesture for peace to be made. There is no reason why we have to lift sanctions just because they tried to appease us. We probably would for a number of reasons, but we don't have to make peace if we don't want to.
In your mind, how justified is Russia in this conflict?
Because nobody here is talking about lifting the sanctions to please Russia, Russia would have to stop invading Ukraine, which is explicitly not "Appeasement"[0] considering they're the aggressor and the ones creating the conflict.
The only way you could see Russia as not the aggressor here is if you think Russia is justified in its invasion of Ukraine...
Right, as the ball is in Russia's court to appease the West to see them lifted, and so what political, material, or territorial concessions are being made by the West to avoid conflict? In reality, Russia is the one who must concede on Ukrainian territory for sanctions to be lifted.
> The only way you could see Russia as not the aggressor here is if you think Russia is justified in its invasion of Ukraine...
This is a logical fallacy. One's feelings towards the matter have absolutely no relevance to the topic at hand.
Thus, to solve the problem of what would be "apeasement", you need to resolve the question or which of the parties involved (Russia, Ukraine, "the West", the US, etc.) should be considered "aggressive".
And that's why this question, which i think is an attempt to understand who the aggressive party/parties are in your opinion, is not a change of subject
Appeasement is defined as policy that avoids conflict. The conflict in Ukraine hasn't been avoided and remains ongoing, so Russia does not fit no matter how you slice it. Nor does the West, to be fair. Conflict hasn't been avoided full stop.
If, for argument's sake, conflict has been avoided, it is important to understand what concessions have been made to Russia, if Russia is the aggressor. It matters not who the aggressor is if nobody is performing appeasement in the first place. I am not aware of the West providing any concessions to keep Russia happy as it pertains to this. Instead, sanctions has been imposed against their wishes.
Russia pulling out and conceding Ukrainian territory back to Ukraine to keep the West happy is how sanctions will be lifted. The West is not the aggressor in the war, but could be considered an aggressor when it comes to sanctions. They were very much intended to be putative. If appeasement is relevant (which is debatable), that is where it fits given the subject of what it will take to see sanctions lifted.
One's feelings about whether or not Russia is justified is irrelevant and a change in subject. Furthermore, use of language needs to be introspective of broad interpretation, so even if personal opinion would serve to skew in some fashion, it does not hold relevant to understanding language use in a community.
You're simply using a different definition from them
> Furthermore, use of language needs to be introspective of broad interpretation, so even if personal opinion would serve to skew in some fashion, it does not hold relevant to understanding language use in a community.
As a matter of fact, languages I know (including English) are not built like that.
The closest "language" i know from this property is mathematics.
International freight, also. Ningbo-LA ran from $3,500 pre-Covid up to $22k last August/September, now down to around $9k.
Overall, still up a lot compared to 2019, but substantial drops in many commodities compared to peak.
Maybe the prices stay low, but with Europe warning of fuel shortages this winter, I can't see that happening.
I believe the plan in case of shortage is to reduce the amount of natural gas flowing to power plants, and to make do with whatever alternatives for electricity are readily available (which is probably coal, although maybe nuclear decommissioning will be staved off).
But oil (&coal) may be bought to generate electricity (to replace gas, not for heating but for electricity production. Some European countries such as Germany are heavily reliant on gas for electricity production), and that may still drive petrol up
Much of this period, the spot price of oil was high, but oil for delivery 6-12 months out was much less expensive. The SPR could sell into the spot market but buy oil for delivery 6-12 months out. This actually could mean a much more sustained drop.
If you think it is a decrease in the real gross domestic production and purchasing power of Americans, we are clearly already there.
If you think it is the slope employment for some reason, then no.
[0]: https://www.nber.org/business-cycle-dating-procedure-frequen...
In the same vein, more people working, but making less, and producing less is not a growing economy
An online dictionary defines it as "the activity of producing, buying, or selling products or services".
For most people growth means that the economy is getting better and recession means that the economy is getting worse.
Maybe you are right and the word recession has become too politicized to use to describe the different scenarios.
That said, if you were in a plane losing altitude and other people thought it was in fact gaining altitude, this would be a cause for debate
That's a fine shorthand, but the reason the standard data and interpretation of it matters is that otherwise all you have is what people feel about the economy, which is not very useful information.
There are detailed answers to all these questions if you care to study it.
The main moderating factor on that is that one month doesn't necessarily mean a sustained trend.
This is a single number in a noisy series of measurements. If it repeats 1-2 more times, we're on firmer ground.
Nope, last number is well within the limits set by the variation of the previous numbers. Depending on how sensitive you feel like being to false alarms, I wouldn't even say there's been a clear trend this year.
If you detrend it by successive differences we see that the slope is very close to zero compared to variation: https://static.loop54.com/XmR.html?baseline=0.4,0.6,-0.2,0.3...
However, the last number is close to a control limit, so if this continues next month we may have a signal!
However -- the technique might work anyway: the signal would be smaller, but so should the variation. Yes, one decreases as the square root and the other does not, but over just 12 months that might not make a big difference.
Only backtesting or a more thorough theoretical investigation can tell!
Edit: actually it doesn't have to be very thorough at all, it's a factor of 3. Probably important!
That said, as I've admitted in a more constructive parent comment, this tool was misapplied here due to my misreading of the GGP.
This isn't great.. And on top of it look at the number 1 comment here.. People are making concerted efforts to reign-in spending .. Which is excellent financial discipline.. but it's potentially very dangerous for this type of economy if everyone stops spending into this 'easing'
I highly recommend just looking at energy since it's an input cost into nearly everything
At least some of the 2022 numbers are only an artifact of being compared to that low baseline. And the apparent drop in the second half of 2022 is an artifact of comparing to the second half of 2021 when demand got mostly back to normal.
- Civ5
"rate of increase of inflation" (RII) = d inflation / dt
"decreasing rate of increase" = d RII / dt
So the 'rate of increase' of inflation is the second derivative. And to say that the second derivative is decreasing is another way of saying the third derivative is negative
I guess first, does he mean that y, the rate at which x increases is going down by z? or that y is down, but z is not its rate?
And second, if you see inflation here as a derivative or not.
Take that with a grain of salt, I'd welcome any corrections if some one sees fit.
The suggestion seems to be "yes", and that he was playing a game of telling a literal truth that was not however the good news 99.9% of the electorate would take it to be.
I notice this price varies even at the same locations sometimes, but it's WAY up in general by a solid 50 percent in 2 years.
...
I like discussions about inflation though because everyone brings up a particular item from their own budget. For instance, have you priced Little Debbie Zebra Cake Rolls lately? Did you even know they exist? It's like a mixture of a Swiss Roll and a Zebra Cake and they are completely awesome and I'm pretty sure the government is ignoring the 50 percent inflation I've been seeing on them lately. I don't know if this is incompetence or reactionary arrogance ("We'll stick with the hexagonal cakes they serve at Quadrangle Club thank you.") but I know the whole program is broken.
Wait, nevermind you're right about that.
Not really. There's this myth that it only costs a few pennies to fill a cup with soda.
I was a manager at a Subway from 2006 to 2012, so I got to see the costs of all our food. I did the math and found it cost about 1.7 cents per ounce dispensed, so a 32 oz soda cost 54.4 cents to fill assuming no ice. The cup/lid/straw cost us about 12 cents. At the time, we charged $1.69 for the soda, giving a margin of about 60%. This margin of course went up if they used ice, but went down if they refilled it.
About 20% of revenue went to labor. I'm sure you're thinking, "But if you can make a sub in under a minute, and you pay $10/hr, shouldn't it be less?", but there's a lot of time spent not making sandwiches, such as cleaning, baking bread, and other food prep. Sure, the lettuce came pre-shredded in bags, olives and jalapenos are pre-sliced, but we had to slice the tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and green peppers.
And then of course, there's the cost of rent and utilities, plus franchising fees. Overall, our profit margin was under 10%.
I'm sorry, what? People drink a whole litre of soda with their lunch? I don't understand this on multiple levels. Who would buy this, why would anyone sell it, and should that even be legal?
We Americans love our soda far more than our friends around the world.
I had sticker shock when I went to Italy a couple weeks ago and if I ordered a soda at a restaurant, I'd pay 3-4 euros and get a tiny 8 oz can.
In America, at a restaurant, if you order a soda, it's $2-4, and you'll usually get a 12 or 16 oz cup and get free refills.
At least I stick to the Diet/Zero-Sugar varieties so I'm keeping the calories down.
The McDonalds app is the weirdest mish-mash of modern app design with ancient CRM systems I've ever seen. It looks like they finally updated the email receipt - it used to be text-based straight from the 80s.
It will be interesting to see if locations start pulling tricks to avoid honoring the deals in the app.
This happens with things like Medium Ground Beef as well. But T-bone steaks can be quite cheap in lower income areas, and massively overpriced in more expensive parts of town.
Then again that's been true since I started paying attention to this stuff almost 20 years ago. The reported inflation rate's never felt all that close to how much stuff I buy's actually going up in price (the reported rate's consistently a lot lower than that).
HOWEVER, in the specific case of McDonalds, you have to factor in that they've spent the last few years aggressively optimizing for price discrimination. If you're poor, you use the app and physical coupons and never pay menu prices, but something closer to what the prices used to be. If you're not poor you pay menu prices and wonder when fast food stopped being cheap (it didn't, they just make you trade some time and effort to get "normal" prices now)
Experts are just spinning things to fit their idealogies. Regular folks must start evaluating how inflation is personally affecting us and make noise.
This is actually pretty similar to what pizza chains have been doing far longer and to a greater degree than other fast-food joints used to—it's long been the case that you can get 30-50% off your chain pizza order with coupons, and that there are always a bunch of coupons available to suit many common orders, such that there's rarely a reason to order anything at full menu price from a major pizza chain unless you just can't be bothered to track down any of the deals (hence, it's price discrimination, with a side of psychological manipulation to make you think the "deals" are actually bargains when they are, rather, simply not rip-offs).
As for my own experience: we usually do Arby's when we want garbage food. We can easily drop $40 there at menu prices without going nuts—or we can get all of the exact same stuff for $15 or less, with coupons (the key: lots of their coupons list, in small print, a count of times you can apply it in the same visit, so you may be able to use a single coupon for, say, "$3 sandwich + fries" to buy five of those meals at once at the coupon price). Again, these places have long had coupons, but they didn't used to constantly have lots of coupons or other deals active at once, and the difference between coupon and menu prices didn't used to be so extreme. Actually, noticing that Arby's prices had damn near doubled over just a couple years (pre-pandemic) was what prompted me to take notice of this situation, which does appear to be playing out industry-wide.
What supplier and location, out of curiosity?
[0] https://cleanenergy.org/blog/fpls-holiday-surprise-810-milli...
[1] https://www.fpl.com/content/dam/fplgp/us/en/rates/pdf/res-ju...
My electric bill has never been higher than $150, and maybe $175 this summer.
Stop putting your AC on 68 and you'll have a lower bill.
I've yet to find anyone with bills doubled, despite so many people claiming it true. But I keep asking....
More data: https://www.gulfshorebusiness.com/expect-electricity-bills-i...
The only actual stories with solid data say the increase is due to natural gas prices, which have not nearly doubled, so it'd be surprising that the end product doubled. And stories showing how unusual high heat waves have caused people to use more energy, which naturally results in a higher bill.
Also, that's completely different than inflation caused, and I doubt the higher bills would last long if that double monthly bill is true.
Also, if people were undercharged, then they owe the money. Basically they got a better deal by paying less early.
I looked through New Orleans rates. They never doubled.
I find zero cases where the electric rates doubled, which is what the person here claimed.
As far as complaints, I can find people here complaining their rates doubled, when in fact they did not. Going to another place is not much different than here.
As far as I have found, no electric company doubled rates, contrary to lots of hearsay.
Everything seems to be going up, but interesting that you brought home insurance up? Any particular reason why you mention it?
I guess if house prices and building material and labor costs are increasing, it makes sense that insurance would too. (Although I'm sure if everything dropped, insurance would remain the same)
Many house insurance companies give you a 10-50% new client discount, that slowly goes away year by year. The only choice is to jump ships every few years.
The problem is our laws about assignment of benefits and how insurance lawsuits get punished. So what happens is anytime any storm comes in you get swarmed with roofing companies wanting you to assign all benefits to them and they offer you a "free" roof. They then keep telling the roofing companies their previous estimate for roof was too low and they needed more money to fix the roof. At the end of the day the insurance companies end up paying double the cost of the roof because that's cheaper then the roofing company suing them, having to prove the costs they are being quoted are excessive, and if they fail they have to pay it out anyway + attorney fees.
We saw this ourselves when we had a hail storm at our house and didn't know any better. We did the AOB to a roofing company. That company never even looked at the roof. They called the insurance company, who sent an adjuster who looked at the roof. The insurance company wrote us a $15k check for a replacement roof. 3 months later (when the roofing company hadn't even looked at our roof still, let alone given us an estimate) we get a notification from the insurance company that the roofing company told the insurance company it would cost an additional $8k, and the insurance company wrote them a check.
We cancelled the roofing contract and shopped around. Got our new roof replaced within a month for $13k (we had 3 quotes from different companies, no company quoted more than $14k).
This is why insurance is going up so much in Florida, and why insurance companies are leaving the state. Last I saw, Florida leads the country in insurance litigation cases per year by a ridiculously wide margin to the 2nd highest.
And I'm not an insurance company defender or anything, but all home owners and renters in florida are all paying the price for this.
What happens is the roofing company claims to the insurance company that they had to replace more boards, they needed more nails, and a bunch of other material costs they claimed they needed. Since the policy states that the coverage warrants a replaced roof (of the same type) in this instance, the roofing company is claiming that a replacement roof costs more than the estimate and thus should be covered.
The insurance company could send another adjuster out to verify that the replacement roof costs as much as they did, but they'd have to verify how many boards are replaced (which means going without a roof until the adjuster verifies all the damaged boards), material cost for the roof, etc... That's a lot of investigation they need to do to fight a supposed excessive cost when the laws of the state make it very hard (and costly) for the insurance companies to win a denial that gets litigated.
It's not unusual for insurance companies to pay more than an adjuster's estimate though. An adjuster can't always see all the damage (they can't see behind walls, can't see under existing roof shingles, etc....) and if the policy covers fixing the damage then that means covering all costs it takes to fix that damage (minus deductible). So it's a balance between making sure insurance companies have the ability to push back against scamming of policies and consumer rights of making sure consumers get paid out what they are adaquately owed. Right now the balance in Florida is too far in the consumers favor and that's causing insurance companies to get scammed, and thus leaving the state, causing all consumers to ultimately suffer.
If 100% of the average consumer budget was spent on heating gas, a 600% increase of heating gas would be a 600% inflation boost.
At the end of the day, we each have our own inflation #. Some may be lower, some higher.
NYT made a calc to try and show some of this: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/05/08/business/econ...
(In fact, one question is "do you heat your home with oil", and a Yes answer seems to jump your score up 3% or so)
Yes the number overall is tiny - but it still means that whatever I used to spend on heating/hot water, is now 6x higher.
Though average food/fuel prices have also gone up quite a lot, so the total monthly expenses have gone up more around 20%, which is a lot more closer to actual inflation in my region.
We just stopped going to Taco Bell all together. It's kind of crazy. I can't find a reason to go there any longer. As a kid, they were so cheap[0], the running joke was that $20 worth of food there would kill a person. It was about properly priced -- despite being a fan of Taco Bell, their consistency between restaurants (better, today) was terrible in the 90s -- you'd get anywhere from 1/4-3/4 filled shells with random mixes of cheese-lettuce-GroundMeat ratio.
I took my kids there last weekend ... it was over $30.00 and I didn't eat. Fast food -- across the board -- has gone up. In my area, and I suspect most places, it's because they need to pay upwards of $18.00/hr to employ enough people to keep the store (and now restaurant) open. I expect a lot of automation is coming (and I hope like hell McDonald's fixes their terrible in-store ordering kiosk ... and that's one place where it's becoming increasingly expensive to avoid their app).
My grocery bill went from ~$100/trip to $250/trip if I don't do the majority of my shopping at ALDI. So I basically stopped grocery shopping anywhere other than ALDI[1] for anything ALDI carries. I only avoided it, before, because I have 4 options within 2 miles and ALDI is 6 miles away (I love ALDI).
I've started buying a lot of "the maintenance things[2]" at the dollar store (now $1.25, and the independent ones are now $1.00 - $5.00). You have to be careful with those because some items are a terrible deal there and some of the products are fscked up[3] but we've gotten lucky with a few trips -- consider that a 32oz bottle of the same shampoo was almost $8 at the other places and after purchasing a "test bottle" we bought out the rest and two other local stores in the chain. We do that when we find a good one and end up with enough to not have to think about it for a decade.
The saving grace, I guess, is that I haven't had a commute in two years and won't be getting having, again. I also replaced much of the rest of my driving with a OneWheel. I'm filling up my gas tank less than once a month when I was filling up more than once a week, before.
[0] At one point they were running $0.49 tacos -- mid-90s.
[1] While everything went up there, too, it went up less ... although the frozen pizzas that are a guilty pleasure of mine still land around $2.39 (they never go on sale for $1.99 any longer, though).
[2] Shampoo/Conditioner/Soap/etc, things like Band-Aids/Toothbrushes (they carry fancy manual toothbrushes which my kids use)
[3] I've gotten Shampoo from a well known brand that I've purchased at a grocery store which was "separated". I guess I could have called the 800 number; guessing it was counterfeit/meant for destruction and ended up back in the gray-market.
Amusingly the "Dominos Coupon pizza" has stayed constant through all this, whereas everything else around here has gone up - high enough that the difference between going to Culver's or going to the bar or an actual restaurant is basically nil again.
There IS a $5 "classic combo" that's large drink, one crispy taco, one beef burrito, chips, and a drink. Which is still way more than you can get anywhere else for $5 these days, if that's what you want to eat. While the rest of the menu is going to result in a more expensive meal than you'd get most other fast food. Although maybe I'm wrong about that, I think maybe my local McDonald's has some "combo meals" at like $13 even?!
This trend predates the current inflation.
Several major fast food chains appear to have worked out more effective price discrimination schemes that involve raising their menu prices to much higher than they used to be, then offering crazy discounts in their apps or via coupons.
It's always been possible to get significant discounts on fast food with coupons, but before they seemed to think they needed to keep their menu prices at least non-crazy or it'd hurt business. Something changed and a whole bunch of them decided they no longer needed to keep menu prices in the realm of sanity—10-to-1 this happened so fast and uniformly because one or more of the big-3 management consulting firms pushed new "best practices" across the whole industry in short order.
Now the menu prices are WTF high, but you can get 50-90%(!) discounts using the apps and coupons and eat fast food daily without ever paying anywhere near menu price.
Next year food will be far higher, largely due to
- people skipping fertilizer a second year in a row
- the feed price increases from year prior will impact next years meat
- much of the cow herds have been reduced due to hay prices skyrocketing (but beef rates staying far lower, due to sell offs)
- if Ukraine doesn’t surrender, we can expect less food production and potential oil disruption to center Europe
- Russia is not likely to renew trade relationships baring a reparations for seizing assets. They produce much of the fertilizer and oil
- 10% reduction in nitrogen targets for EU countries and Canada will further reduce food production
Yeah, a drop here or there isn’t indicative of a major change in inflation. I don’t see how we can get lower general inflation in the next 3+ years. FED has said as much.
In way of an explanation, hay prices have tripled. It’s expected they’ll at least double again tin the next 12 months. That’s one of the feed for cattle. That’s a 6x expected increase to feed cattle (the largest expense). To put it in perspective, that’s likely going to mean $12-20/lb ground beef; $25-$30/lb steak in 18 months.
I don't personally think rising beef prices are an issue, though. Nobody is going to starve because they're being priced out of a steak. I will be more concerned if we eventually begin to run short of beef-alternatives, though.
No one wants to accept the push to start eating bugs. Don’t give into the WEF propaganda
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/18/cows-sea...
There’s also an industry emerging, with big pushes from organizations like WEF, to normalize eating bugs [2]. Investors are getting in on this trend too [3]
1. https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4450/12/6/557
2. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/07/why-we-need-to-give-i...
3. https://fortune.com/2022/05/24/war-ukraine-big-ag-insect-fee...
For comparison, it would be silly to say we shouldn't normalize eating peanuts because of the allergy risk.
At this point I'll keep an eye out but insects are such a broad and mostly unexplored category that I'm not convinced there's an unavoidable and crippling allergen risk.
From a quick search it appears eating of bugs specifically refers to the WEF push:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/07/good-grub-why-we-migh...
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/07/why-we-need-to-give-i...
don’t know about the catch phrase or how it’s “anti-woke” but interesting
We don't need to eat bugs. We can just eat less meat, like our ancestors did.
> The researchers studied ten other comparable food lists from southern England and discovered a remarkably similar pattern: a modest amount of bread, a huge amount of meat, a decent but not excessive quantity of ale, and no mention of vegetables (although some probably were served).
https://www.medievalists.net/2022/04/who-was-eating-meat-in-...
Simply put, you have an animal who eats a bunch of veggies. It’s gathering the calories for you. Then when you kill it, you harvest those calories. There are other means of collecting calories (farming grains, milk & honey, etc) but for most of human history (even now) meat was necessary as it contained the calories to survive.
“The scale and proportions of these food lists strongly suggests that they were provisions for occasional grand feasts, and not general food supplies sustaining royal households on a daily basis,” says Lambert. “These were not blueprints for everyday elite diets as historians have assumed.”
“I’ve been to plenty of barbecues where friends have cooked ludicrous amounts of meat so we shouldn’t be too surprised. The guests probably ate the best bits and then leftovers might have been stewed up for later.”
Leggett adds,: “I’ve found no evidence of people eating anything like this much animal protein on a regular basis. If they were, we would find isotopic evidence of excess protein and signs of diseases like gout from the bones. But we’re just not finding that. The isotopic evidence suggests that diets in this period were much more similar across social groups than we’ve been led to believe. We should imagine a wide range of people livening up bread with small quantities of meat and cheese, or eating pottages of leeks and whole grains with a little meat thrown in.”
The researchers believe that even royals would have eaten a cereal-based diet and that these occasional feasts would have been a treat for them too.
But increase fertilizer 3-10x and fuel 3-5x and you’re going to adjust in prices. And you’re going to get a new sustainable level.
Btw when I say “sustainable” I mean market conditions, not environment. The environment can likely handle far more cattle, but it requires input (fuel, fertilizer, etc) for us to produce said cattle.
Recall, there used to be millions (probably tens of millions) of bison roaming the Americas. We basically replaced them with cattle. Cattle are constrained to a region and fed food from farms. Environmental wise, I don’t see much issue with cattle (when comparing to other pollutants)
I'm in no way anti-meat, but a lot of people have normalized eating a huge amount of meat per day at ultra low cost, and internalized this as some basic right. Natural consumption of meat is to eat meat sporadically, not 3 times per day.
I'm not questioning whether one likes meat, I do too. I'm saying you don't need it in these amounts nor should you expect it to be this cheap forever.
I'm imagining a farm household hundreds of years ago, growing their own crops and having a herd of 4 cows, killing one or two a year for lots and lots of meat.
Google says hunter-gatherers got most of their food from meat.
And are crops not unnaturally cheap with modern mechanized farms?
Not judging on the value of thaat diet though. "Natural" doesn't necessarily mean "good"
This is just an appeal to the way things were 70 years ago in the US. Much further back you had Native Americans absolutely eating tons of bison meat in the western US. Other tribes easily got fish for every meal. Others have been heavily vegetarian.
There is no “natural consumption of meat”.
Yes. As you point out the consumption of meat varies greatly across cultures.
Overconsumption of meat can lead to bodily issues as does a lack of particular plant foods. Particular meats are processed/digested in different ways, and have different pros and cons on what it does to your body and health.
So there very much is a "natural" way to consume meat that is most compatible with the capabilities and constraints of our body.
What is recommended/natural is an entirely different concept from what people actually do, which was entirely my point.
If Russia doesn't surrender. Don't put the responsibility of global food prices on the people being repressed and killed in their own homes. Do it on the aggressors and war criminals.
I’m stating what I see as facts. Russia will not surrender. The longer the Ukraine is in the war, the higher likelihood the people of Ukraine starve.
We can make an argument that they shouldn’t surrender. That’s a moral position.
I’m pointing out if we don’t figure it out within the next few months you’re not going to get the food from the region, as people are fighting over it. I don’t care who’s fault it is. We should recognize the situation so we can try to mitigate the issue.
Nobody disagrees that until it ends the situation will create further instability; but it can end with Russia giving up or surrendering as well. There is no global objective truth that Russia will not surrender; so by saying "I'm just stating facts" you're actually making a normative claim instead of a descriptive one; which can be viewed as problematic.
They are just claiming that Russian concession is much less likely than a Ukrainian one, which I think many would agree with.
If the war in Ukraine continues, we can expect less food production and potential oil disruption to center Europe.
No need to comment on how to get to this outcome, or thoughts about who will make a concession leading to a big conversation away from the main point of what you were trying to say.
Keep the if statement about exactly matters, not a secondary effect/cause.
Here’s one: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KILAY2miQdI
Here’s another: https://m.youtube.com/c/AlexanderMercourisReal
In short, for Russia to lose would be the end of Russia. They have to be seen as hitting their objectives (they’ve hit a few so far). Ukraine is massively out gunned, but has more manpower active. That said, I don’t see an outcome where Ukraine can regain any territory and will likely only lose more. That will further embolden Russia and will keep them from surrendering at the very least.
You have picked a 1. random unpopular youtube channel (which might be good, I couldn't verify anything from it, as I couldn't find who ran it, if you know I am happy to be proved wrong) and 2. A disbarred barrister https://twitter.com/markgaleotti/status/927087181532991489?l.... There is much better information to pick than this! Any information will have a bias, and if they claim to be neutral I personally get suspicious of what that bias is.
Your assertion that you can't see anyway for Ukraine to win is based on "If Russia loses, it would be the end of Russia". Well, if Ukraine loses it will be the end of Ukraine, so I guess by your logic Russia can't win either? (TBF, everyone losing to some degree is right with war).
I won't get drawn into a discussion about how the war will go. People qualified to make a guess have been wrong and wont make prediction. Neither of us is qualified, so I will not be weighing in on this except to say that unexpected things happen all the time in conflict.
One big difference here is that Russia has nuclear weapons and Ukraine does not.
"Ukrainian forces could wipe out all of 'exhausted' Russian troops' territorial gains, retired US general says" https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-exhausted-russian-tr...
There was also an interesting take on the business before the war even started by Mikhail Khodarenok - ex-head ... of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces, Colonel https://nvo.ng.ru/realty/2022-02-03/3_1175_donbass.html In Russian but Google translate works well. It points out a lot of difficulties that seem to have come to pass including:
>It is also worth recalling that the mighty Stalinist NKVD and the multi-million Soviet army fought the nationalist underground in Western Ukraine for more than 10 years. And now there is an option that the whole of Ukraine can easily go into the partisans. In addition, these formations can easily begin to operate already on the territory of Russia.
which seems to be playing out just now with stuff blowing up in Crimea and Belarus.
Unfortunately this will have some bad effects for the rest of the world in terms of food supplies, but it's a price worth paying to eliminate Russia as an effective geopolitical player for years to come. Remember that it's not just about Ukraine. If the rest of the civilized world pressures Ukraine into ceding territory to Russia as part of a peace settlement then next year Russia will try to take a little slice of Poland, a little slice of Estonia, etc.
It's not such a far-fetched idea. Russia (the empire) has been falling apart since 1991 (possibly even 1917, but that's a scale that doesn't matter much for the outcome of this war).
> I believe -- and this is a personal belief here at MFAN [the channel name] -- that the United States is actively flying both F-22s and F-35s -- stealth aircraft -- over the combat area. And now, are they dropping ordnance on Russian targets? Difficult to say
There's zero indication that nuclear weapons are relevant.
80,000 casualties in 140 days is shocking and unsustainable for Russia.
If western accounts are correct, western military support is increasing the weapons imbalance, leading to greater Russian losses and fewer Ukrainian losses.
Finally, I'll point out that pundits have been calling doom for Ukraine from the start, and have all been wrong. So, the onus is on you at this point to "dive in and debate."
Or don't, and accept your downvotes lol. It's just social media.
According to the Western media they were running out of ammo in March, April, May and June. Meanwhile, with an incompetent army running out of supplies, they were apparently able to occupy 20% of Ukraine's territory.
The conclusion as far as food goes is that globally, plans should be made that do not count on any food from Ukraine, or Russia entering global markets.
I just took umbrage that OP was seemingly (and probably unintentionally) putting the blame for the situation on Ukraine and not Russia.
> "To this end, we will seek to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine, as well as bring to trial those who perpetrated numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the Russian Federation."
How do you demilitarize a nation by taking only 20% of it? The only way to do this would be to capture the entirety of the country.
> How do you demilitarize a nation by taking only 20% of it? The only way to do this would be to capture the entirety of the country.
Really? What if Ukraine surrenders and negotiates sovereignty over the remaining 80% of their territory while dismantling (or at least greatly reducing) the capabilities of their armed forces?
That's just one of the possibilities that comes to mind which does not involve occupying the entire territory.
On the other hand, if Russia is able to make significant advances in the coming months, and Ukraine is at a point where it cannot meaningfully defend anymore, it seems the rational choice would be to negotiate and accept a reduction in their armed forces (while maybe retaining what territories they still have under control) instead of falling for the sunken cost fallacy and trying to defend a lost position just to avoid "wasting" 8 years of NATO training.
Maxwell Taylor quoted here: https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA486290.pdf
the problem you're alluding to isn't new: political leaders aren't likely to make the clear statement of aims you want them to make (see the quote). You should consider the fact that they might not make a clear statement, but 100% could still could be the goal.
My view is that the original ground scheme of maneuver (a strike at kyiv) points to a goal of replacing the ukrainian government with a russian puppet government, essentially a "100%" or unlimited war aim.
But in the post I was replying to it was stated as a certainty rather than a possibility.
On the other hand, they only took one big city in/since February and that's only because it wasn't defended by Ukraine.
Putin won't live forever. So the goal is just containment until he's replaced by someone less aggressive.
Where is this happening? The US sent another $Billion three days ago: https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/312005...
Western leaders have stopped visiting because they just did a few months ago, they don't need some official state visit merry-go-round to show support.
Also we do not "all know Ukraine is going to lose". In the real world, this is looking like a complete embarrassment for the Russian military. Hell we all knew the Taliban lost in Afghanistan in 2002 as well, and this is going much much better for Ukraine than it was for them.
I think you mean if Russia doesn't surrender. If Ukraine was to surrender, we'd have bigger problems than an increase in beef costs. I don't see any universe where Russia wins this war.
The RUSI - Royal United Services Institute - is a leading UK military institute that had boots on the ground assessing the situation. Here is their assessment. https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/special-r...
"At present, however, several Russian advantages and Ukrainian weaknesses are leading to an attritional conflict that risks a protracted war, eventually favouring Russia."
And here's the companion podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a-turning-point-in-ukr...
It will tell you a lot of things, including that Ukraine's losses are far higher than the general public estimates, as Ukraine successfully hid/minimized the awareness of its losses from phase 1 of the war.
I also recommend the War on the Rocks podcast with Michael Kofman, whose assessment of the situation is also not too rosy.
I am extremely pro ukraine. But that's the reality. At the moment Russia is winning and Ukraine is losing, just very slowly.
Russia is quite ready to sell on the following conditions:
- Remove sanctions which forbid (or make it difficult) the Russian export in the first place.
- Pay in rubles (i.e. you have to "sterilize" your cache through the Moscow stock exchange) like was done with the gas export to Europe.
- Remove sanctions which forbid export to Russia. It has no interest in selling stuff to the West, if it can not buy the stuff it needs in exchange. We already can see that its export-oriented economy sectors suffer from the strong ruble.
Russia has answered to the frozen reserves by freezing financial assets owned by foreigners. Interestingly enough, both numbers are quite comparable to each other.
I doubt that Russia would prioritize food production if they win the war, considering the huge list of "enemies" they've added to their list.
Most likely, they send food production to allies and they'll attack the next neighboring country in a few years by keeping exports (Gas/food) towards "enemies" at a minimum.
Groceries are 40% more than they were.
Utility bill is up nearly 50%.
Clothes and shoes don't seem to be more expensive, they just don't seem to go on sale anymore.
Our neighbors had a new roof installed and spend almost double what we did 3 years ago, we have nearly the same house and the same contractor did it.
Fast food has gone way up, sit-down restaurants don't seem to have changed much.
Homes in the area have went up 100% in the last two years.
We won't even talk about gas.
New Jeep Cherokee Latitude 4x4 was $21k in January 2021. The cheapest new Cherokee now is $35k. 3 years old is $25k. Seattle,WA.
2020 $51.9k
2021 $52.5k
2022 $55.3k
So, yes I can find such a car and it was quite easy. You should reconsider how likely people are to over-estimate the changes in prices compared to a systematic approach to tracking inflation like the BLS performs.
With a $38,635 starting price, the entry-level Odyssey now costs $4300 more than last year
Well that went down in price in July, and is one of the reasons inflation was flat in todays CPI.
Best case scenario is it stops growing.
This is also a data resolution problem. Sure we measure in months, but is that a reasonable resolution? Why not days? Years? Etc.
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/inflation-rate-mo...
OTOH, the Fed has goal of maintaining a 2% inflation target; so in the long run you can expect it to go up. For many many years before the pandemic, it failed to achieve that goal. Inflation was too low; which means job growth, wage growth, and gdp was below potential.
Shop around
It's been a long time since I've had an Oreo but I cannot bring myself to pay $6.99 for a 14oz package of oreos when I can bake my own cookies for pennies.
Not quite the same as an oreo though. Target had a store brand oreo-type cookie that was IMO even better than the real thing. Used to be $1 for a 14oz package but they've since stopped selling it...
If that's the norm I don't see how fast food will survive. Instead I'll go to the authentic taqueria next door, which used to be about double the cost for lunch (so I didn't go so often) but now it is actually cheaper and much better.
It's plenty of food, if you skip the soda it's like $3 for a small burger and fries, or a taco and a bean burrito.
I see some BK combos are within striking distance of $15. Add sales tax, easily over $1 in many locations, and there you are.
Everything you actually purchase day-to-day is up far more than the inflation benchmarks, so much so it’s beginning to feel like propaganda.
I overnight went from thinking “I make good money” with a respectable savings to going backwards every single month, and I am generally a VERY frugal person.
If all other prices double, but you own or have fixed rent, you're going to feel it but the numbers will be muted; if all prices stay the same but your rent doubles, you're still going to feel it but the numbers will now seem off again.
Hedonic adjustments + flat out replacing expensive items for cheap items was always retarded
While inflation can change consumption patterns, its not the only factor. For example, how do you compare your current spending on a mobile data plan or video streaming service compared to how consumers spent their money in the 1970s?
I am squinting at print media, broadcasts, and maybe live performances as a form of data. For example in the 1970s I expect my family had a book budget. My book budget has been subsumed by my ISP budget and they both effectively accomplish the same thing (reading material).
I know that this specific example wasn't crucial to your overall point, but I thought it was an interesting tangent to take literally.
Yes, the rate of inflation is slightly different for different products and services (it is a "field" rather than a "scalar"). Yes, it would be nice if the government reported the entire inflation "field" rather than just the top-of-the-line aggregated inflation number.
Does this mean the government or economists are "lying" (his word)?
Well, not really. The government DOES report the entire inflation "field". They have done so every month, as part of literal press releases, for years. All the data is available on bls.gov for anyone who is interested. And many people are interested and have made use of the data, which -- again -- is entirely public.
The way I see it, it is in the government's interest to "lie" about the rate of inflation because it is advantageous for them to do so. Inflation is used as a tool in monetary and fiscal policy. "Inflating away" debt is a real strategy and policy.
"Lie" is a loaded term, and perhaps this is a limitation of our vocabulary. Because inflation has no universal definition or universally accepted measure, economists and statisticians have leeway when they calculate what the rate of inflation is. For the sake of argument, let's assume there is a "real" inflation rate. Having an "official" number lower than the real number means the government saves money on expenses that are indexed against inflation, and they get to repay debt with inflated money. The converse of this is costly for the government, as an official number higher than the real number means they have to spend more than expected. Therefore, it makes sense to me that the government is incentivized to under-report, and that they can do so because of how complex the calculations are. Is it a lie to switch to a different model, one that happens to result in lower official numbers? That's up to your own interpretation.
The median inflation for ppl in EU is around 30-50%.
In US its probably less 10-20%.
But its nowhere near of what goverments proclaim it to be.
Its really bad and its going to be worse if climate change hits hard.
Not making everybody happy would be one thing. But it sure looks a lot like the main inflation number isn't making ANYBODY happy.
The long answer is here: https://www.bls.gov/opub/hom/cpi/home.htm
The short answer is, the BLS samples prices of many consumer products in various categories (some from direct observation, some from consumer surveys) and calculates a weighted average[1] of the prices. The result is the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The consumer price inflation is calculated as the percentage difference of the current CPI compared to twelve months ago.
[1] Weights: https://www.bls.gov/cpi/tables/relative-importance/home.htm
As inflation was measured in the 1970's, we are experiencing ~15% consumer inflation.
[1]https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/3zik5t/shadow...
Two examples: 3bd house in the Chicago suburbs, sold for $190,000 in 1999, and $420,000 in 2021. 5bd house in the Houston suburbs, sold for $290,000 in 2003, and $480,000 in 2022. If there were 5x price growth, these houses should be selling for $1m-$1.5m.
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/case-shiller-home...
See fork above, shadowstats is probably overstating but BLS data is probably understating consumer inflation.
Case Shiller measures home prices (asset cost), not housing cost (rent expense, actual or forgone by choosing not to rent out a property you own.)
Also, the repeat sales method it uses has structural biases that favor increases.
However, the public generally is used to a specific unemployment measure and a specific inflation measure which is what's generally reported in the news.
Construction: Sheathing products (plywood/osb) are 3x pre-pandemic, other wood is 2x (at least)
Insurance (health care) my employer is shielding it from me but it's like 8x from what it was 8 years ago.
I went from being a little casual with my money to being very frugal. My last raise was early 2020.
My everyday life and family and friends are feeling inflation far differently than the number crunchers in DC apparently.
This disconnect is not a good thing!
[1] In economics there is a proposition known as Dornbusch’s Law that states: Crises take longer to arrive than you can imagine, but when they do come, they happen faster than you can possibly imagine.
[2] https://www.resilience.org/stories/2022-08-08/the-renewed-cl...
[3] https://www.resilience.org/stories/2022-08-03/the-status-of-...
These are the times I feel dumb for not being a homeowner (despite technically being able to afford it, just didn't want to get locked down in an area for 8+ years to make the rent vs buy math work out, though at these rates of inflation the math would turn around much quicker).
In theory every cost you pay as an owner, you pay as a renter - just with less time investment as a renter. It's a convenience fee.
Most folks in the United States have fixed rate mortgages. So at the very least, the two largest portions of a person's payment will not go up: principal and interest.
The last two (or three, if you include HOA dues) generally go up over time, especially in places like Texas that use property taxes in lieu of a state income tax. Insurance will go up too, as the actual amount the policies cover (e.g. the cost of replacing the house) rise over time as well.
Edit: here's a concrete example: https://imgur.com/a/cGQm4U0
> Value often increases over time as well but this isn't cash in hand over the course of living in a house.
You can "cash out" the value increase without having to actually sell the property by remortgaging the house, but that only makes sense when rates are low.
…per month.
My taxes went up quite a bit this year, which reflects in the monthly payment. Of course the mortgage part of it stays the same, but the overall monthly payment which includes the taxes and insurance goes up.
Principle and interest are fixed for most people. Mortgage insurance, as an example, is fixed. Everything else is variable.
The vast majority of buyers will see huge changes (increases) to their property taxes and insurance over the lifetime of a mortgage.
There’s also opportunity cost from all the upfront and ongoing capital, and homeowners practically never include that in their monthly costs estimates. Opportunity cost grows over time, too. Not just from compounding growth, but from maintenance and repairs that you otherwise wouldn’t make.
TLDR owning a home isn’t a fixed cost, and it’s usually way more expensive and variable than people are admitting or calculating.
In almost every single test I’ve done, buying becomes way cheaper than renting and investing the difference after 5-10 years. Pretty much the only case where renting gets ahead is basically if the house appreciates less than the rate of inflation (again, painting broad strokes here, please do not interpret me too literally), or if one wants to move too frequently (my case).
This is not because housing is some magic investment, but because fixed cheap leverage is. If I could get a 30 year fixed-rate cheap non-callable loan to invest in market indexes, it would be a similar situation, but margin is an incredibly riskier different instrument.
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/08/09/business/inflatio...
It this just purely gas prices? Or does the market just play along as if everything is good then freak out all at once?
Furthermore there was no justification for raising prices other than "there's now a lot more money floating around, it's a free market baby".
Citizens wouldn't accept that, especially as most of them didn't get much richer from COVID money (mostly only asset owners did). But they can accept inflation when it's "caused" by a war instigated by a foreign dictator villain.
roughly, changing prices has transactional and psychological effects, so suppliers hold out on price changes as long as possible, then do bigger changes (especially in non-liquid markets). So we see fewer big step changes in prices than smaller continuous changes (except for things that are traded frequently, like commodities).
Also there is a herd effect with consumer pricing. Once a market leader raises a price, that makes it 'safe' for other firms to match the price change.
Gasoline (gallon) - 3.00 last summer, 3.75 today (25% increase)
Towing a Car (~50mi Round Trip) - 125 last summer, 350 today. (180% increase!)
Bag of Dorito's - 4.50 last summer, 6 today (33% increase)
Can of Spray Paint - 4.25 last Summer, 6.50 today (54% increase)
2022, a $100 shopping cart may still have space left before you have to start stacking things. More like $300-$350 if you fill it up.
But the point isn't specifics. The point is that the existence of some things that went up by more than 8.5% over last year is not meaningful evidence that the 8.5% number is a lie.
Name one other thing that went down. Literally everything is 20% more expensive.
- edit (post limit) -
Not being pedantic and yes I know monthly inflation fluctuates, some things are seasonal. I'm mainly talking about yearly inflation. Name one thing that is cheaper this year.
I'm genuinely curious because looking through my expenses there's not a single thing I can see that has.
Christ. I didn't expect the third degree about an abstract statement. Surely you agree that sometimes there are things that go down in price, at least temporarily (since it apparently doesn't count as "going down in price when something goes up and then goes down but not as much as it went up). The entire point was that inflation is a weighted average, not a statement about the specific price change of any particular good.
> Literally everything is 20% more expensive.
If you are going to be so pedantic about my post, at least be pedantic about yours. It is absolutely not the case that everything is 20% more expensive.
https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-issues-fifth-emergency-n...
Is it possible that the demand went down? Could the recent price movements be partially attributed to the demand supply paradigm?
Heating oil (diesel) is still 70% higher than last year.
I'm about to delete the oil heat, so have been watching this.. I will certainly be annoyed if it crashes back to the $2s next week (right after the conversion..)
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/n3010ma3m.htm
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APUS11A72610
BTW, this site allows you to compare the different heating costs: you have to enter the current prices:
https://www.amsenergy.com/fuel-cost-calculator/
$35.78 oil
$24.94 gas
$79.13 electricity resistance (100%)
$39.57 electricity heat pump (200%)
It's not pretty if the oil tank leaks...
The last time oil was this high, the heating bill was $3800 for the year. At that price the decision is easy.
What could happen is we go into more competition for our natural gas with Europe this winter. For sure the price would be much higher. Luckily (for USA consumers) that the Freeport LNG terminal is off-line..
Oh well foo, they soon will be back on line:
https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/us-regulator-all...
I got quotes for mitsubishi systems ranging from 31k to 39K. Ended up going with an LG Red system for 19k. I then installed an heat pump water heat myself so am now fully off of heating oil and it is great.
Also the rebate depends on also insulating your house.. which is a good idea in all cases, but not cheap either.
Whereas replacing the furnace and AC was a $9k job and there were some rebates for that, too. Electric bill is already down, and gas should be down a bit.
Inflation is a hidden tax that the public has been PR'd into thinking is acceptable.
Money creation is part of the story of inflation, but it isn't the end of the story.
Even with the effect of high base, I am getting increasingly suspicious of official numbers (same with the unemployment statistics). Energy costs have skyrocketed and they get into almost everything an economy produces. I guess, we could get a bit clearer picture after the incoming midterms.
There is absolutely NO WAY inflation suddenly drops like this
The Fed has aggressively raised interest rates and signals that it will continue to do so, and there is widespread worry about a recession. We've had two quarters of negative GDP growth! (though I tend to think the numbers will revised upward eventually).
Negative inflation would mean prices are going down
https://twitter.com/truflation/status/1557349186466627586
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/24/technology/inflation-meas...
"But experts on inflation say the changes to calculations over the years have made the reported rate a more accurate snapshot of how much prices are rising for shoppers. The rate under a different methodology might be higher, they say, but the effect would be small, and the alternative number would do a poorer job of reflecting the costs consumers were grappling with."
It is ok to be wrong. Especially when predicting the future. Cut the malarkey.
As for it not being real, who said that? No one I know.
Unrelated to government spending? Well, inflation is multi-causal. Europe didn't go on a spending splurge, and yet they have inflation too. Most economists believe that government spending is at least partially responsible for the inflation. However, when the government was deciding to respond to the pandemic recession, economists advised them that the downside risks of over-compensating were smaller than not doing enough. And you know what? they were right. 8% inflation is certainly high, but this is no depression.
[1]https://www.bls.gov/cpi/notices/2021/2022-weight-update.htm
[2]https://www.bls.gov/cpi/tables/relative-importance/home.htm
You say energy prices have skyrocketed? well yeah, and that is reflected. year over year, increased over 30%, according to this:
The truth there are different inflation measures that tell us different things about the economy. Also, when the structure of the economy changes, the indexes used might mismatch what people are actually paying. We live in wild times, and it very well might be that there is more uncertainty in the numbers, or more mismatch from lived experience, than there used to be.
https://www.bls.gov/cpi/factsheets/common-misconceptions-abo...
Have you done it? Can you confidently say that you can completely reproduce it?
What I would like to see ideally is something like a spreadsheet with all formulas, coefficients, and inputs being inside it for every published CPI value. And every calculation input in the spreadsheets has to include its source.
As the famous saying goes, there are 3 kinds of kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. There is a LOT of wiggle room to play with inputs, coefficients, wights, and various adjustments.
Inflation, especially dollar inflation, is more complicated than 'printing more = inflation'.
Looking at https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/national-debt/ and https://datalab.usaspending.gov/americas-finance-guide/debt/... it appears the largest holder is the "public".
Is that through treasuries sold by the US gov? If so, we wouldn't be "destroying" money by funding these.
The federal reserve has large holdings as well, which I believe it generated buying corporate bonds and MBS during covid - would we be "destroying" money by giving the federal reserve the cash to balance the books on all of those holdings so it can hold them to fruition (after buying them at a loss) without ever having to sell? It could then just toss away all of that money it received to cover the loss.
This could work, but I don't know the details or if this is the plan.
Just confused, and I've never had a real conversation about this - I hear "print money, tax money" but it seems too simplistic.
Do you happen to know?
Destroying money (taxes, when fiscal policy is viewed through the lens of monetary effects) is counterinflationary. Creating money (spending) is inflationary. Broadly speaking.
I'm for low taxes of course. I don't know too many that aren't. But they have to make sense as well.
[0]https://www.thebalance.com/cost-of-trump-tax-cuts-4586645
The comment I responded to said government can cause inflation by destroying money by increasing taxes.
That's backwards, destroying money is deflationary.
Which is exactly what all the folks trying to point out that this was a transitory effect have been trying to say, repeatedly, only to be shouted down by the inflatocaplyse cheerleaders.
(FWIW: if prices continue to come down as rapidly as they did this month, the "recession" is likely going to turn out to be a phantom too.)
I can't imagine that policymakers are going to make precisely zeroing in on 2% their first priority given the current market anxiety... but that's ultimately a bridge that will have to be crossed when we collectively get there.
You should also keep in mind that inflation trends tend to lag behind monetary policy, so the Fed will actually pivot strategies ~6-12 months prior to when the inflation rate is projected to return to 2%. This means that the actual rate we land at will be a lot more imprecise -- potentially as high as 4% or as low as 1% -- while policy gets dialed in. The Fed has historically been fine with a sine-wave pattern of this nature so long as it averages out to 2% over time (there will also probably be some magical thinking in underweighing the past 12 months of extraordinary inflation for the purposes of such averages).
One last thing: the Fed typically uses the core PCE for measuring inflation, which excludes food and energy prices, since they're prone to price shocks. The year-over-year core PCE was 4.8% for the month of July. They'll probably choose to overshoot this measure, however, since inflation sentiment over the CPI is highly negative.
Public inflation expectations certainly do play a role in inflation, but, as Volcker showed us in the 80s, it doesn't matter how much credibility you have with the public if you're willing to slam on the brakes hard enough.
If they were truly going for shock & awe, it would have been much more effective do one single 2% hike rather than breaking it up over 3 adjustments.
Had the federal government pursued different strategies this all could have been avoided and these rate hikes would have come at a much slower rate.
For example, based on the pre-1990s CPI calculation, inflation is currently at around 12%. No government's changes to the CPI calculation ever result in a larger inflation number, only lower!
well luckily, it's not the administration that decides the calculation method, the the BLS, and their method is also pretty transparent (https://www.bls.gov/opub/hom/cpi/calculation.htm) . Whether you agree with the method is one thing, but that method isn't just changed to suit a political purpose. And if you should so choose, you can look thru the historical methods and changes made, and form your own opinion (https://www.bls.gov/opub/hom/cpi/history.htm).
But on top of that we've had a genuine demand shock as everyone has decided this year to travel. This might've been fine had the companies taken the Covid relief funds and not laid off staff like they were supposed to but they didn't. And they refuse to now pay market rates.
Reminder: there is no such thing as a labor shortage. There are only under-market wages.
But what we've had is this spike in inflation and the thing about inflation is that inflation tends to begat inflation. By this I mean that companies tend to start charging more anticipating further inflation. What does this do? It drives up inflation.
Profits aren't hurting because of inflation. The likes of Exxon and Chevron are making money hand over fist. What does the government do? Raises interest rates to tackle inflation while suspending gasoline taxes.
You can also tackle demand with taxation like a windfall tax. While inflation is above, say, 4%, you could simply charge an additional 30% corporate income tax.
Reminder #2: corporate taxes are only paid on profits.
You could then use this money to help those most hurt by inflation.
As for inflation dropping, that's not surprising at all. The writing was on the wall months ago as gasoline inventories started to rise as the demand-supply mismatch started to correct itself. Next year you'll probably be paying $2.50/gallon for gas.
Fed is going to continue to increase rates.
At some point the markets are going to wake up to that reality and tank.
Then by holding rates high the Fed is going to break something in the economy and the recession will cause a financial crisis.
Gasoline prices down 7.7%
Food prices up 1.1%
Shelter prices up 0.5%
So the minor overall reduction was by far gasoline.
It's likely the price shot up and overshot what it "should be" (assuming such perfect price exists) and now it's settling down. The question is where the new normal will be.
So the conclusion that gasoline was the biggest factor in the overall reduction is not true.
Here's where you can dig out the weightings used from the BLS [1]
[1] https://www.bls.gov/cpi/tables/relative-importance/weight-up...
We were in a definite asset bubble to begin with, so some correction was expected. But I'm concerned the fed's levers against inflation are slow ones and that we could see a real deflationary economy coming up here.
The economy has been fast to fall and slow to recover, so the fed is, IMO, in danger of overshooting their soft landing significantly.
Why are the lifeblood of the species constrained on demand and flowing freely when they look away?
It certainly is convenient for you to believe the masses have to accept austerity in deference to normal humans who repeat these handy phrases and point to any old phenomena they control, assigning an immutable key-value pair to your memory.
“Gather ‘round, children; it’s time to recite the spoken traditions! Austerity is for the poor. Authority is for the rich.”
We could see this as stochastic terrorism; there’s no need to give the powers that be a free pass when it’s clear their power is built on reciting politically correct “truth” not serving the species and public.
Lucking into wealth does not place someones biology on another plane of cognition, or imbue magical powers of insight.
Edit: rest assured in proper social tradition I am indifferent to the literal state of anyone else. If some avoidable calamity should impact you or I have am in a position to empower myself at your expense, I am all in. Just optimizing for myself, in-line with the politically correct chants; Powell said there will be pain to people, not him of course but others. I’m just following the leader too.
Subject Powell, Bezos, and the like to the same material truth as the masses.
Electoral turnovers improve economic outlooks for public: https://www.nber.org/papers/w29766
Give everyone equal policing authority: https://aeon.co/essays/game-theory-s-cure-for-corruption-mak...
End the long game of abstract agency control used to coddle they who control the interpretation of scripture from a long dead past: https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/27/business/job-insecurity-o...
Shift the real burden of providing something real to a bunch of non-contributors who stubbornly demand control of our agency so they can sit and engage in meta-analysis.
Make the con men yank on their own boot straps.
Economists and the likes real contribution is a whole of qualifying daily life that will occur regardless of their meta-analysis existing. History will have happened regardless of historians observing and writing books on it. Make people actually support themselves rather than ride on book sales of figurative stature. Such folks tend to use a lot more resources for output of insignificant value to keeping their meat bag alive. Why do they get to live in a bubble? They can grow some potatoes in between book deals.
Also, the gas prices are still significantly higher than they were a few years ago so dropping isn't really a big deal until it becomes affordable again.
Lastly, one reason the price is dropping is due to releasing the reserves. When that stops (and it will have to eventually) the price will increase again.
I expect the Fed to declare "mission accomplished" via a 50 bps hike in September if the Aug CPI print is lower.
>So what are we going to be looking at? You know, we’ll be looking at the incoming data, as I mentioned, and that’ll start with economic activity. Are we seeing the slowdown that we — the slowdown in economic activity that we think we need, and there is some evidence that we are at this time.
Economic activity data is likely to continue to worsen between now and the September FOMC meeting, so I believe there's a high likelihood that they are opting for +50 bps rather than +75 bps.
This would signal that we are getting close to the end of the tightening cycle. You can see it in the price of risk assets today after the CPI data release - everything is up (markets are forward looking).
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/economics-and-finance/the...
This is UK focused but makes a pretty universal case.
I thought the "stag" part was stagnant GDP and we are even in a recession. The inflation part is there of course. Even if it's not stagflation, the inflation part is due to dumping trillions into the economy and super low interest rates. I expect there to be a lot of pain when it actually corrects, but since there is also a trade war and companies are bringing production back to the US, we might see low unemployment for some time. I dunno, it's weird.
They have had positive GDP growth above 5% since roughly 1990.
I don't think we're anywhere near the limits of human productivity, let alone all the ways we can enhance it through innovations and mechanical aids.
I think it's a fair question to ask, but then I'd say you'd have to prove we have reached a plateau.
9.1% between june 2021 and june 2022
8.5% between july 2021 and july 2022
its just not really conveying everything... well?
Annual numbers are also canon.
People think on yearly timescales
We shall see how this trend settles out at the end of the year.
Enhance your calm. =)
What is a "Democrat", and how is it related to the subject matter?
While I can't seem to understand the unjust world theories... I do respect your misguided opinions.
Have a gloriously wonderful day. =)
Fuel prices along, while it came down a little, they are still way high.
In general when the facts are not recognized ie. pretended that they are not happening, long term it is bad for the country as a whole.
But you can't have a meaningful discussion about it if you do not list the weight of the price hike in your expense pattern.
When gas for your car normally takes up 10% of your income, and this price doubles, your personal inflation is 10%, not 100% (assuming no other price hikes).
Perhaps he is only spending 10% of his income, but it doesn't really matter for what he is talking about.
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=e...
I would say that you can't just look at average prices for the US. Look at the California version of that chart [1].
July 2021 to July 2022 is an increase of about 38%.
If you look at June to June it is 50%.
While not double, it is quite a bit more than 30%. Depending on the area the person quite possibly did recently experience double the price like I did.
[1] https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=E...
Typically statements like "this increased 100-150%" are used to support the theory. The only thing I'm saying is that individual price hikes are meaningless without any information about the total expense breakdown.
That said, I do agree that CPI is typically slightly optimistic.
My biggest expense is a fixed rate mortgage, which did not go up. Followed by property taxes, which went up 2.7% between 2021 and 2022.
Electricity barely went up because my electric supplier locks in rates years in advance with long term contract. (I expected it to go up eventually but not 100%)
Food is harder to calculate because prices are variable since grocery stores have periodic sales. I just checked and Diet Coke at Sam's Club went up about 20% year over year- which is a lot but is certainly not double.
Since I tend to order the same thing at a local Wendy's based on my credit card history prices year over year appear to have gone up 4.2%.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU0000709112
The average in Feb 2020 was $3.19/gallon. Today it's $4.15/gallon. So roughly 30% increase since then. The average cost of a gallon of milk since the mid 1990s has never been below $2.40/gallon so maybe that $1.35 you paid was a result of a panic during the early pandemic?
I guess TV's are cheaper (and 'better'), so they use that double-plus-goodness to bring down the headline inflation figure. Nevermind you can't eat your TV (which now has ads, by the way) or ride it to work. You could burn it to cook on and heat yourself, I suppose.
CPI collects certain things some people have decided represent the economy as experienced by ordinary people. How well it works in general and for your experience in particular depends on the choice of items in the basket and how well they match your reality.
edit: There's a Planet Money series on GDP. I wouldn't be surprised to see a follow-up on CPI soon.
Also, given that the government is ultimately responsible here. And we pay taxes to the government. You'd think they might cut us some slack on that. Having fucked up and all.
But taxes are crazy high. Property, sales. Higher than some big cities.
It's stupid expensive, unless you are on the dole. About half the population is on the dole here.
(We do have a very nice state-of-the-art triple-sized police station tho. And two marijuana dispensaries)
That really is the only solution to this mess. Put everybody on the dole. Like medieval serfs except with cellphones. Abandon freedom and property. Let daddy government take care of you.
I believe wholesale goods inflation is somewhere near 30% since the pandemic began (inflation numbers look lower because services -- aka wages -- don't increase at the same amount).
The only people immune to inflation are the rich who have hard assets that aren't affected by inflation.
If people really understood how badly they are getting screwed by inflation, there would be riots.
That's already in CPI-adjusted dollars. Nominal median household income in 1990 was $30k:
- "Medical debt is the #1 cause of bankruptcies." This goes back to a handful of papers by, among others, now-Senator Elizabeth Warren and colleagues at the Harvard School of Public Health. There was a lot of back-and-forth at the time, but I'll sum up the objection to the thrust of the papers and the factoid: People who go into bankruptcy tend to have all kinds of debt, and the authors made no rigorous attempt to establish the specific "but-for" causality of medical debt.
- "40% of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck." This comes, AFAICT, from the annual Federal Reserve "SHED" survey on household economic well-being. There's lots of good data in these, but downers somehow latched onto the "How would you handle an unexpected $400 expense?" question and interpreted any response other than paying it off in cash or equivalent as "living paycheck-to-paycheck". FWIW, the "pay it off" response has become more popular every year of the survey's existence, rising from 50% in 2013 to 68% in 2021[1].
[1] https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2021-repor...