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US inflation jumps to 31-year high amid global supply chain crisis

theguardian.com

91–100 of 304 posts

Re: US inflation jumps to 31-year high amid global supply chain crisis

#91

Inflation reduces the value of debt and an era of increased inflation stands to benefit a lot of households. Of course, it helps if wages go up alongside prices, and they have. But even without wage increases, the value of debt lost to inflation is likely worth more than the value of salary lost to inflation for many households.

Wait until the banks raise interest payments to compensate. They're going to make their money back somehow. You can't game economics like that. There's always a cost.

Re: US inflation jumps to 31-year high amid global supply chain crisis

#92
post #61

Reading this article and going through these comments make me realize that while I know what these words are I have a real lack of understanding how this stuff works. This may not be the best place to ask but do any of you guys have any recommendations on where to learn more about economics? Preferably something with good historical context.

Basic Economics - Thomas Sowell Economics In One Lesson - Henry Hazlitt The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War - Robert Gordon

>Basic Economics - Thomas Sowell

I can't recommend this book highly enough. And for those with a short attention span, 30 Second Economics gives a nice overview of many economic concepts (a few paragraphs per concept).

Re: US inflation jumps to 31-year high amid global supply chain crisis

#93

Some journalists must be happy with this news. https://mises.org/power-market/inflation-celebration

There's a reason exactly zero of top econ journals or economists[2] are Mises.org Austrian economists - they don't have a track record of anything resembling accuracy, predictions, or theory that works.

In fact, it's hard to find much even on Google Scholar....

[1] https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.journals.all.html

[2] https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.person.all.html

Re: US inflation jumps to 31-year high amid global supply chain crisis

#94
post #26

You need to take this seriously. the reason you should be concerned about these prices in relation to their 2008 crisis prices is because the countermeasure that resulted in 2008 relief --Quantitative Easing-- cannot be used again because we effectively never quit using it to prop up the last decade of commercial market performance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing#US_QE4 the Federal reserve also has…

> the Federal reserve also has no leverage to modify the prime interest rate to combat this inflation, as it already sits near-zero ...huh? If you want to lower inflation you'd typically raise interest rates... (These sorts of stupid-simple mistakes are pretty typical from inflation fearmongers in threads like this one... a lot of words that make it sounds like they know what they're talking about but sprinkled with…

> you need to take this seriously

> in a low-gravity environment, everything becomes much heavier to lift

> brb hold my cryptobags

Re: US inflation jumps to 31-year high amid global supply chain crisis

#95
post #38

I've mentioned before [1] but these prices still don't seem that serious. Most prices have still not beat their highs made in 2008-2014 (crude oil, global energy price, eggs, milk, sugar, rice, chicken, pork chops). Ground beef is an outlier, however. And US price per kwh is back at its peak, though it declined in these October numbers to be below... 2014 numbers again. [2] So while the climb up is bad, the prices th…

I'm not sure where you are getting your numbers. Food prices are 30% above where they were in 2010 in the CPI for example.

2010 was the bottom that came after a rather devastating recession. Everything was abnormally cheap in 2010.

Re: US inflation jumps to 31-year high amid global supply chain crisis

#96
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If we get hyperinflation This isn’t hyperinflation, nor is it on the precipice. It’s not in the same ballpark, it’s not in the same league. The only way the US experiences hyperinflation is if the petrodollar system completely collapses along with several other shocks to the system at the same time. Not impossible, but completely separate and distinct from current fed policy.

It currently isn’t, hence the ‘if’.

There are a lot of ‘if’s’ in the world. In the context of this conversation it was pretty clear that this if was indicating some level of real likelihood. My point was that it just isn’t likely at all. No more than it was before this year anyway.

Re: US inflation jumps to 31-year high amid global supply chain crisis

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm told that NYT, WaPost and others are all solidly Blue Team and yet they seem to be running stories about inflation and how much it's risen daily. It's not a good thing in my opinion, but who's to say it's not transitory?

Yes, they are running stories about inflation. I think the key difference is how they're going about doing it. I sense that they are intentionally covering the situation in non-inflammatory way. This is a departure from how the NYT and WaPost will cover a story when they have an ideological axe to grind. For instance, they bring on experts to talk about inflation in an clinical and analytical way. They talk about the…

> I sense that they are intentionally covering the situation in non-inflammatory way.

We want more of this though right?

I sense that many people can't understand the difference between opinions or editorials and news.

I sense that many people actually enjoy the inflammatory way news is sometimes covered unless it's different from the way they'd like to see it.

I sense that people can't understand how a single new outlet can have varying opinions and points of view on a single issue and will choose a single one out of many to make their point.

Imagine how different things would be if people were intelligent consumers of news.

I don't think you can have a news industry dependent on clicks and profits and have no sensationalism. I also don't think you can have a completely unbiased media when people, based on their consumption, don't seem to want it. It's unrealistic given the different biases and motivations that people have.

Re: US inflation jumps to 31-year high amid global supply chain crisis

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's incredible. It's the same strategy that some politicians use in Argentina: they find any kind of thing to blame for inflation, except for monetary policy. Americans, please don't imitate Argentina, keep a healthy economy.

I know that if Red Team had won the election Blue Team would be running news stories every day about the dangers of inflation and how it is hurting the middle class. Instead, we are seeing pundits downplay inflation as either something 'transitory' or something beneficial: "Why the inflation we're seeing now is a good thing" -MSNBC tweet that got deleted. Edit: "Yes, inflation is back, and you should probably be reli…

This sums up the country as a whole.

If the party in power is the one the media outlet favors then the party can do no wrong. If the media outlet doesn't support the party then every step the party takes is wrong with no exceptions.

Maybe that's how its always been.

Re: US inflation jumps to 31-year high amid global supply chain crisis

#99
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Setting aside my other issues with this analysis, this is just flat out incorrect: > it can’t just be reversed I don’t know where you’ve gotten this idea from. The fed can destroy money just the same as it can create it.

That's an interesting point, has that ever been done?

The fed was in the process of lowering its balance sheet pre pandemic.

You only have to look back to 2019. [1]

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/the-fed-continues-to-reduce-its...

Re: US inflation jumps to 31-year high amid global supply chain crisis

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm told that NYT, WaPost and others are all solidly Blue Team and yet they seem to be running stories about inflation and how much it's risen daily. It's not a good thing in my opinion, but who's to say it's not transitory?

Yes, they are running stories about inflation. I think the key difference is how they're going about doing it. I sense that they are intentionally covering the situation in non-inflammatory way. This is a departure from how the NYT and WaPost will cover a story when they have an ideological axe to grind. For instance, they bring on experts to talk about inflation in an clinical and analytical way. They talk about the…

This was a trending topic on Twitter last week, and some of the criticism was how the story ignored the hundreds of dollars this family would have received from the Child Tax Credit to offset the costs.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/people-are-having-a-cow-ov...

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