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

theguardian.com

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

#141

Post by rsj_hn »

coding123 wrote: post #134
m0llusk wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not a lot of information, though. Processed food has been harder hit than real food and areas that are entirely dependent on trucking because of a lack of ports or rail also have seen much greater impacts.

I could go to the grocery store later today and catalog about 400 items for you that have jumped 2 or 3 dollars like that. I am telling you it's insane right now.

You don't need to do that because we have a whole team of people whose jobs it is to measure this in a more systematic way - by checking prices all over the country and in a large number of different stores and for many different goods. They report that dood prices have climbed from 260 to 277 over the last year (all items). Within that group, the biggest climbers were meats, poultry, fish, and eggs (+12%).

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.t01.htm

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

#142

Post by long_time_gone »

snarf21 wrote: post #81
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #17

Interest rates really should have went up a couple of years ago. Not just for the sake of stemming inflation, but what good is the tool of lower rates in bad times when they are already at bottom in good times? If something goes wrong (or more wrong) we will have no effective economic tools available because they are constantly running as if we are in crisis already.

You are right but they have only one tool left and that is to print money. Which is what the Fed has been doing for 18 months and why the stock market is only up and up as all this money is chasing equities. We are really about to find out what MMT can and can't do. If it can't, we could end up in a depression (not recession).

> Which is what the Fed has been doing for 18 months

More like 13 years.

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

#143

Post by argentinian »

ChrisLomont wrote: post #93
argentinian wrote: post #8

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

Still, that specific article in the mises.org link is informative even outside of the context and knowledge of austrian economics.

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

#144

Post by option_greek »

starkd wrote: post #123
wbsss4412 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

6% inflation is nothing to panic over. People equate the fed not hitting their 2% target with hyperinflation and it’s absolutely maddening to see the level of discourse drop to astounding lows when this happens.

It doesn't have to reach hyperinflation to have a seriously disabling influence. People look ahead for potential impediments to being able to get the goods they need. Hopefully, it won't amount to inflation, but historically, hyperinflation always tends to come out of nowhere. It's very hard to control once it gets going.

Not even as difficult as that. As the prices rise with a regular periodicity, people stock up more goods with expectation that in future their money will buy them less. Which causes more price increases and corresponding increase in stocking.

Obviously 6% won't do that but at higher levels its the complex dynamics driving inflation than good old supply demand balance. And don't think that exports will solve hyper inflation because at that point other countries will also expect devaluation in currency which becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Again not applicable to dollar and USA for the moment but at higher inflation levels anything is possible.

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

#147

Post by wbsss4412 »

starkd wrote: post #123
wbsss4412 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

6% inflation is nothing to panic over. People equate the fed not hitting their 2% target with hyperinflation and it’s absolutely maddening to see the level of discourse drop to astounding lows when this happens.

It doesn't have to reach hyperinflation to have a seriously disabling influence. People look ahead for potential impediments to being able to get the goods they need. Hopefully, it won't amount to inflation, but historically, hyperinflation always tends to come out of nowhere. It's very hard to control once it gets going.

Hyperinflation just shouldn’t be entering into this discussion. It’s not happening, it’s not close to happening.

Now, im not trying to downplay the fact that elevated inflation can cause issues, but it so so challenging to keep that nuance when every discussion devolves into “we are on the precipice of +1,000% inflation” when the inflation rate went from 1 to 6.

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

#148

Post by podgaj »

simonsarris wrote: post #13

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 live in disability. And I can tell you the inflation is serious.

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

#149

Post by kyleee »

r00fus wrote: post #140
zzleeper wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happened in 2019?

Politics. Rates had to go down for the re-election effort.

I think that is probably naive, they can't raise rates for many reasons including the fact that it would basically immediately blow up significant parts of the economy that are only enabled/possible due to rock bottom rates

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

#150

Post by jjk166 »

abeppu wrote: post #117
dubcanada wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea what you are saying. Also what is "just math" and why can't it be reversed? Inflation can go down, it's not a purely up percentage, you can have negative inflation. What do you mean by "number of dollars approximately doubles in 2"?

You can have negative inflation, but don't central banks work really hard to avoid that because (the theory goes) deflation will kill spending?

Pretty big difference between "we want to but we can't" and "we can but we don't want to"
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