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Comment by grecy | Hacker News Reader

We Canadians used to regularly talk about how cheap the US was, and load up on gas, food, beer, cheese and all the rest when staying in cheap hotels and getting cheap meals with cheap entertainment (concerts, sporting events, etc.). If you could be bothered electronics were cheap, cars were cheap, clothes were cheap, etc. etc.

In the last ~12 months I have been floored how expensive life in the US is now. I was just down two weeks ago, and everything was either the same dollar number as Canada or higher, but it's in US dollars.

I don't know how people are doing it.

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This was a very very brief moment when the CAD appreciated. Are you sure you didn’t just end up coming of age at a particular moment, specifically 2006-2012?

Because otherwise the exchange rate has been about where it is now to substantially worse for the rest of the data set.

I read their comment differently than you did. I think the point they are making about exchange rates goes like this:

The dollar amount in CAD was normally higher than the equivalent in USD. For example, next to the bar code on the back of a paperback, it would list the prices as $15 USD or $20 CAD. Many other goods have similar price differences.

Lately in the US it seems like a lot of prices are increasing to the same number value, despite the exchange rate.

> Are you sure you didn’t just end up coming of age at a particular moment, specifically 2006-2012?

I'm 42, so, ah, no.

What I mean is that basically since forever things were cheaper in the US than in Canada.

Gas? 25%-50% cheaper. Cheese (of course) 50% cheaper. Electronics, cars, clothes, hotels, beer, food at restaurants, etc. etc.

Now, everything is more expensive in the US than Canada.

They are doing it with wage growth. Inflation is likely a result of high employment levels. There are more jobs than candidates.

Personally I believe it is due to the last of the boomers retiring. Economists/analysts are not used to thinking about demographics and they have a blind spot on this ever more important topic.

Supermarket prices are up 25% since 2020: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/food-prices-grocery-inflation-b.... People’s wages are not 25% higher.

More people are employed however.

For the poor, nominal wages are much higher. Bottom quintile saw 20% higher wages. https://www.dallasfed.org/cd/communities/2022/0808

Bottom decile even higher

Awesome, wish they straight up outpaced it though

More like credit growth inspite of high interest rates.

You really think this is the primary cause not a side effect?

Are boomers retiring? Both of my parents are near the traditional retirement age but are planning on working for another decade. Even boomers who do retire often get part time jobs.

They wish they could but they lost their shirts in 08-09 thinking their ATM, I mean houses, would continue to allow them to do nothing and get rich like it had for the prevuois 25 years.

Worst. Generation. Ever.

~disgruntled X

"They are doing it with wage growth. Inflation is likely a result of high employment levels. There are more jobs than candidates."

There is limited real wage growth and it is mostly concentrated at the bottom end.

There might be more jobs that "qualified" candidates. Companies are still being very picky. A lot of the jobs/employment numbers we are seeing are including more part-time or low wage positions than in the past.

The inflation is mostly because of the increase in money supply in my opinion. The economy is fragile enough that the Fed is talking about a rate drop soon despite inflafion.

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