Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

U.S. annual inflation rate drops to 8.5%

bls.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

441–450 of 918 posts

Re: U.S. annual inflation rate drops to 8.5%

#441

Post by Dylan16807 »

propogandist wrote: post #331
manimino wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who exactly is "they"? The... Big Bug industry?

Insects are being promoted as a way to hit UN’s sustainable development goals [1] 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...

Is there actually anything wrong with normalizing eating bugs? Like, get meat if you want but don't be a baby about insects?

Re: U.S. annual inflation rate drops to 8.5%

#442

Post by sangnoir »

RC_ITR wrote: post #194
post_break wrote: post #36

Good news I guess. But my electricity price literally doubled. My house insurance is up 30%. My gas bill is up by a lot. Have you seen the price of oreos? The $5 box at Taco Bell is my splurge and I'm trying to cut back on everything I can.

One thing about inflation is that it will never go back down. Best case scenario is it stops growing.

Do you mean prices, perhaps? Inflation is a derivative and can go down to zero with prices being unchanged

Re: U.S. annual inflation rate drops to 8.5%

#443

Post by LocalPCGuy »

hansvm wrote: post #393
weberer wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you live in the USA, a Costco membership is very worth it.

Definitely true, but I'll add that you still need to do price comparisons. Even supposed staples like pasta are often substantially more expensive than at nearby grocers.

I don't buy a lot of pasta, so can't speak directly to that example, but in many cases if you compare like quality, Costco will tend to be cheaper or equivalent, I've found. Although maybe for some of the staples there just isn't really that much difference in quality.

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.

Re: U.S. annual inflation rate drops to 8.5%

#444

Post by banannaise »

nradov wrote: post #410
scottLobster wrote: post #266

Great. All I know is I'm trading a lot more time for money this year. Way less takeout, avoiding toll roads unless it saves at least 30 minutes, fewer streaming services (will renew on a show-by-show basis), and food is getting so crazy I might start going to multiple stores to try and save money instead of my one consolidated trip to Wegmans. I'm also stuffing my freezer with meat and have a year's supply of non-per…

Buying extra meat when it's on sale and storing it in a chest freezer is probably the best "investment" that most families can make. It usually has a higher ROI than buying stocks or whatever. Even during inflationary times, retailers occasionally end up with excess supplies of some cuts of meat or advertise loss leaders to boost store traffic so you can buy a lot if you have freezer space to store it. Just be carefu…

You should also have a high-rated chest cooler ("marine coolers" are great for this) in case of power outages. Move the freezer contents to the cooler, pack with dry ice, place in a cool shaded area, do not touch. It will stay frozen for close to a week.

Re: U.S. annual inflation rate drops to 8.5%

#445

Post by nradov »

galdosdi wrote: post #395
pojzon wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When ppl talk about EVs overtaking petrol all I can do is shake head. 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…

I don't see what the problem is. (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 lo…

Your numbers are way off. The MSRP for the cheapest Nissan Leaf with 200+ mi of range is $36K (plus sales tax and registration fees, so total cost out the door is significantly higher). And that's if you can even find one; most dealers are out of stock, or are gouging customers with additional mark-ups. Federal EV tax credits can bring the net price down for some customers but that depends on their individual income tax situation.

https://electrek.co/2022/07/29/which-electric-vehicles-still...

Re: U.S. annual inflation rate drops to 8.5%

#446

Post by suplywut »

adamdusty wrote: post #242
suplywut wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is food, energy, medical care, housing subject to supply and demand? 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. “Gathe…

Everything is subject to supply and demand. Why would those four things not be? Even if the money was coming from the government they would all still be subject to supply and demand. Even if money didn't exist those things would all be subject to supply and demand. What exactly do you propose to change that?

It’s pretty simple; stop coddling some peoples figurative identity. Rather than make a social game of merely “seeing” normal humans who are “special” in politically correct traditional terms, end specialness.

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.

Re: U.S. annual inflation rate drops to 8.5%

#447

Post by xvedejas »

mirker wrote: post #416
xvedejas wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm riding my bike a lot more to get places, rather than just for recreation; and it seems this is true for many around me as well.

But when you think about it, what’s the benefit of driving? For reasonably short drives you don’t save much time with parking in cities and you don’t get any exercise.

Ah, in my case this is mostly replacing buses, so really not the biggest monetary impact either. Still, I will try not to let the excuse to be more active go to waste.

Re: U.S. annual inflation rate drops to 8.5%

#448

Post by sanderjd »

pojzon wrote: post #180
rootusrootus wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like EV uptake rate, while still just a fraction of total sales, is probably high enough to contribute to demand destruction. Gas prices have come down pretty fast. I wonder if EV adoption goes fast enough that we'll see a period of time when gas prices just crater for a while. A sweet spot of owning an ICE vehicle, but then gas stations will start to close up and ICEV owners could face the same problem EV owne…

When ppl talk about EVs overtaking petrol all I can do is shake head. 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…

50 years, ha! People who talk like it's all gonna happen next year are wrong, and people who talk like it's going to take 50 years are also wrong.

Re: U.S. annual inflation rate drops to 8.5%

#449

Post by Jalad »

xvedejas wrote: post #372
scottLobster wrote: post #266

Great. All I know is I'm trading a lot more time for money this year. Way less takeout, avoiding toll roads unless it saves at least 30 minutes, fewer streaming services (will renew on a show-by-show basis), and food is getting so crazy I might start going to multiple stores to try and save money instead of my one consolidated trip to Wegmans. I'm also stuffing my freezer with meat and have a year's supply of non-per…

I'm riding my bike a lot more to get places, rather than just for recreation; and it seems this is true for many around me as well.

I'm planning on getting a bike to commute to work. I don't have a car right now and also don't really want to buy one because it's a huge expense. My only regret is that it's much harder to get groceries with a bike so I might end up walking instead for that.

Re: U.S. annual inflation rate drops to 8.5%

#450

Post by boole1854 »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #392
snapcaster wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they have to do something like this right? I mean, consumption patterns have obviously changed since the 1960s. I understand maybe the way they adjust isn't correct but if you think this is a really easy problem you probably haven't considered it enough

Eric Weinstein says it better than I could, with helpful pictures that make it obvious why the inflation metric we see must always be bunk. https://twitter.com/EricRWeinstein/status/155093416819585024...

And par for the course for Weinstein, he makes an interesting point while wrapping it in a vale of needless conspiracy mongering.

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.

Post reply on HN