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Consumer prices increase 2.6 percent

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Re: Consumer prices increase 2.6 percent

#41

Post by CameronNemo »

vkou wrote: post #4
markus_zhang wrote: post #2

Well, they finally got what they wanted. Inflation, more inflation!

I think what they wanted is for the economy to not implode, with millions of people either dead to the virus, or newly homeless because they are broke.

Then they should have built a better safety net. Monetary policy just leads to consumer or asset price inflation, and the legislature did a very poor job with fiscal stimulus when it was most necessary (early in the pandemic). They just wrote blank checks to businesses and people. They could have done so much more (expanded SNAP benefits or more incentives for first time homebuyers, for example). Instead wealth inequality is higher than it was before the stimulus.

Re: Consumer prices increase 2.6 percent

#42

Post by nostromo »

chickenpotpie wrote: post #10
notyourday wrote: post #3

Anyone who has been to a supermarket in the last 12 months knows that the 2.6 percent increase in consumer prices is observably not true. I buy the same basket of the generic products ( chicken quarters, produce, beef, eggs, bacon, dairy products ) . Compared to this time in 2020 I'm spending at least 20% more. People who buy processed food(s) are spending at least 30% more.

I'm going to believe the massive study over your single data point

Both can be correct, and likely are.

HN doesn't live in "America" - we live in a bunch of different cities with different economies.

This is actually a key problem with the Fed's tools -- they're national in scale. Inflation can be low in Acron, OH, but very high in San Francisco.

Re: Consumer prices increase 2.6 percent

#43

Post by nkozyra »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #29
sonium wrote: post #26

Looking at the chart 2.6 percent seem quite average, so what’s the big news?

Well the prices I see around me are up a lot more than 2.6%. My latest sticker shock was at Lowe's.- https://imgur.com/a/9UoXNdk

The Anecdotal Price Index is historically less accurate than CPI.

Re: Consumer prices increase 2.6 percent

#44

Post by Der_Einzige »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #29
sonium wrote: post #26

Looking at the chart 2.6 percent seem quite average, so what’s the big news?

Well the prices I see around me are up a lot more than 2.6%. My latest sticker shock was at Lowe's.- https://imgur.com/a/9UoXNdk

Construction related stuff is way up right now everywhere due to the housing / renovation boom.

Re: Consumer prices increase 2.6 percent

#45

Post by danhak »

vkou wrote: post #4
markus_zhang wrote: post #2

Well, they finally got what they wanted. Inflation, more inflation!

I think what they wanted is for the economy to not implode, with millions of people either dead to the virus, or newly homeless because they are broke.

Could you please expand on how keeping interest rates artificially depressed, causing the prices of homes to skyrocket, advances the goal of preventing homelessness?

Re: Consumer prices increase 2.6 percent

#46

Post by chrischen »

jrsj wrote: post #5
notyourday wrote: post #3

Anyone who has been to a supermarket in the last 12 months knows that the 2.6 percent increase in consumer prices is observably not true. I buy the same basket of the generic products ( chicken quarters, produce, beef, eggs, bacon, dairy products ) . Compared to this time in 2020 I'm spending at least 20% more. People who buy processed food(s) are spending at least 30% more.

Somehow everyone seems has this experience, rents have continued to climb at a high rate for the last decade, and they manage to downplay this in statistics.

Or maybe everyone who has been having this experience is posting about it, because otherwise there's nothing to post about.

Re: Consumer prices increase 2.6 percent

#47

Post by monksy »

rwcarlsen wrote: post #18
nostromo wrote: post #7

Some non-CPI items like cars (new and used) and basic commodities like lumber have grown a lot more than 2.6%. Correction: CPI does include new and used car prices, after a lot of adjustments, at 3.7% and 2.5%, respectively. It's important to note though that the median cost of cars sold has grown much faster than the CPI car numbers. This is because the BLS tries to account for car quality, so even though you're pay…

Yeah 2x4's are literally 4x what they were just over a year ago. And I couldn't find an architect to help me with my house this spring at any price.

About those prices: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei14ks5ggGo

That explains what's going on.

Re: Consumer prices increase 2.6 percent

#48

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

nkozyra wrote: post #43
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the prices I see around me are up a lot more than 2.6%. My latest sticker shock was at Lowe's.- https://imgur.com/a/9UoXNdk

The Anecdotal Price Index is historically less accurate than CPI.

Or has the CPI been fudging the numbers for a very long time?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/perianneboring/2014/02/03/if-yo... with-the-cpi/

And this article is 7 years old, I can't imagine Perianne's reaction to the current M2 money supply of 20 trillion, almost double the 10 trillion when she wrote it in 2014.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL

Seems like yet another example of Goodhart's Law. "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."

I own many homes, I see their value go up much more than 2.6%. Yes anecdotal but it is very obvious to anyone that has tried to buy anything recently.

Re: Consumer prices increase 2.6 percent

#49

Post by ksdale »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #44
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the prices I see around me are up a lot more than 2.6%. My latest sticker shock was at Lowe's.- https://imgur.com/a/9UoXNdk

Construction related stuff is way up right now everywhere due to the housing / renovation boom.

Just this morning, I read this newsletter about lumber prices that seems to provide a very plausible explanation -https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/lumber-price-faq

Re: Consumer prices increase 2.6 percent

#50

Post by drewcon »

henriquez wrote: post #34
drewcon wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CPI isn’t “rigged”. CPI measures exactly what it measures and measures it transparently. Whether you think it and it’s constituent parts are good metric for measuring inflation is a different conversation. But that doesn’t make it “rigged”.

CPI is rigged in the sense that it is one attribute that status quo-apologists trot out to say “nothing to see here” when the real cost of goods is observably higher for all but the ultra-wealthy. “It’s not hyperinflation, it’s just that everything you conceivably want to buy is coincidentally much more expensive, because [reasons].”

“The real cost of goods is observably higher”?

I don’t get how anecdotal evidence trumps repeatedly buying and measuring the cost of a vast cross section of products everyday people consume?

Help me understand the conspiracy here? Who is doing the rigging and how?

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