U.S. annual inflation rate drops to 8.5% • Hacker News Board

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

#661

Post by norwalkbear » Wed, Aug 10, 2022, 4:59 PM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #441

propogandist wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yea insects typically have a high amount of allergens to humans. It's why bioreactors for things like insulin, igb, etc avoid insects cells if they can.

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

#662

Post by vikingerik » Wed, Aug 10, 2022, 4:59 PM UTC

radioactivist wrote: post #97

So the year over year CPI increase each month this year (starting from January) was 7.5%, 7.9%, 8.5%, 8.3%, 8.6%, 9.1%, 8.5%. So this value has been jumping around a bit as it has been going up. This drop is being taken as good news -- but I worry whether this is really a meaningful drop or whether we are just over interpreting what could be a fundamentally noisy metric?

And remember that year-over-year metrics depend on the baseline of the previous year. The first half of 2021 was still artificially low for economic activity with pandemic-suppressed demand for many things.

At least some of the 2022 numbers are only an artifact of being compared to that low baseline. And the apparent drop in the second half of 2022 is an artifact of comparing to the second half of 2021 when demand got mostly back to normal.

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

#663

Post by fuckcensorship » Wed, Aug 10, 2022, 5:00 PM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #553

desireco42 wrote: post #174

My experience is that prices went 100% - 150% up. Things I care about went double, no amount of statistics engineering can change this fact. Fuel prices along, while it came down a little, they are still way high.

Can you point at specific goods? I can't think of a single thing that I buy on a regular basis that is twice as expensive as it was a few years ago.

I just looked at my older Walmart receipts. The cost of milk went from $1.35/gallon in February 2020 to over $4/gallon in 2022. Milk is just a quick and easy example. I’m sure I could find countless other examples if I took the time.

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

#664

Post by norwalkbear » Wed, Aug 10, 2022, 5:01 PM UTC

trebbble wrote: post #415

phkahler wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Sausage McMuffin and a coke used to cost $2.12 at most locations near me two years ago. Today it varies from $2.95 up to $3.85 (strangely this high value is in Detroit proper where income is lowest vs the burbs). I notice this price varies even at the same locations sometimes, but it's WAY up in general by a solid 50 percent in 2 years.

Everything I care about definitely seems to have gone up a lot more than the nominal inflation rate would suggest. Maybe not 50%, but... certainly more than 20% over the last two years. Then again that's been true since I started paying attention to this stuff almost 20 years ago. The reported inflation rate's never felt all that close to how much stuff I buy's actually going up in price (the reported rate's consiste…

Yea, the expert class is under idealogical capture You got fraud in many fields like social science. depression, and Alzheimer's research were the hot fraud of the last couple weeks.

Experts are just spinning things to fit their idealogies. Regular folks must start evaluating how inflation is personally affecting us and make noise.

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

#665

Post by collegeburner » Wed, Aug 10, 2022, 5:03 PM UTC

dmix wrote: post #326

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 doing the same (mostly just to buy a house) and I've been using YNAB to budget money: https://www.youneedabudget.com/ It's really good, knowing where you're money is going ahead of time removes so much guilt and anxiety.

i honestly hate when everybody's answer to inflation is "just make a budget lol". i haven't used one historically bc i'm a pretty thrifty person but i decided to take somebody up on it and actually make one. you know what i found that could easily be changed? not a damn thing. like i'm a 20 something bachelor so basically my only luxury is buying new guns (which i don't do unless i have a lot of extra cash) and going out with friends (does not eat up much $). so am i supposed to cut like my 1 luxury and just be a machine who goes to and from work? aint like i got a bunch of streaming subscriptions or whatever to remove instead. i make my own coffee at home instead of starbucks and don't eat avocado toast... your move boomers, what's your solution now?

anyway sorry for the vent/rant, but what we need to do is stop loose monetary and fiscal policy that transfers wealth to people who got assets like real estate and stock (boomers, the rich) from people who don't (young people, the poor). but nobody wants to do that...

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

#666

Post by HideousKojima » Wed, Aug 10, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

rr888 wrote: post #602

bluedino wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vehicle we bought cost over 10% what the same vehicle would have cost last year. Groceries are 40% more than they were. Utility bill is up nearly 50%. Clothes and shoes don't seem to be more expensive, they just don't seem to go on sale anymore. Our neighbors had a new roof installed and spend almost double what we did 3 years ago, we have nearly the same house and the same contractor did it. Fast food has gone w…

> We won't even talk about gas. Well that went down in price in July, and is one of the reasons inflation was flat in todays CPI.

Still more than double what it was 2 years ago, and even throughout the last decade (2010-2020) gas prices never broke $4/gallon

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

#667

Post by burnished » Wed, Aug 10, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

jjcon wrote: post #526

weberer wrote: post #332

"In the fall of 1972, President Nixon announced that the rate of increase of inflation was decreasing. This was the first time a sitting president used the third derivative to advance his case for reelection." - Civ5

Would that be third derivative or just second? My brain doesn’t want to parse that

Third I think. First is the inflation rate itself (some positive number around 8%), second is how that rate is changing (some positive number meaning we expect the inflation rate itself to increase next interval) third is how that change itself is trending (negative I think? meaning that we'd expect the still overall positive increase to the base inflation rate to be somewhat less than it was in the previous interval).

Take that with a grain of salt, I'd welcome any corrections if some one sees fit.

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

#668

Post by skinnymuch » Wed, Aug 10, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

swayvil wrote: post #433

scottLobster wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yeah, I use Mint for the same. It's really fun watching my cost-cutting measures getting eaten alive by inflation in real-time :) I also find myself slowly sliding down Maslow's hierarchy. I used to be focused on achieving my dream job, now I'm strongly considering work I don't like because it pays more (being the sole income for my family is a major factor there as well). "Good enough pay for awesome work" is not…

I'm feeling that Maslow slide too. Expect a really clever money-making idea to come along any time now.

Have you not heard of the wonders of NFTs?

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

#669

Post by jcranmer » Wed, Aug 10, 2022, 5:07 PM UTC

failTide wrote: post #593

jcranmer wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The prospective fuel shortages in Europe are mostly to do with natural gas, not oil and oil derivatives, no?

If Europe ends up with a massive shortage of natural gas for heating, would that significantly increase the demand for heating oil?

I suspect most houses don't have the capability to switch between different modes of heating: if you have a gas furnace, you're not going to be burning heating oil in it instead.

I believe the plan in case of shortage is to reduce the amount of natural gas flowing to power plants, and to make do with whatever alternatives for electricity are readily available (which is probably coal, although maybe nuclear decommissioning will be staved off).

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

#670

Post by hash07e » Wed, Aug 10, 2022, 5:07 PM UTC

moosey wrote: post #425

lettergram wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Production of beef is at sustainable levels, provided cheap energy. But increase fertilizer 3-10x and fuel 3-5x and you’re going to adjust in prices. And you’re going to get a new sustainable level. Btw when I say “sustainable” I mean market conditions, not environment. The environment can likely handle far more cattle, but it requires input (fuel, fertilizer, etc) for us to produce said cattle. Recall, there used to…

The difference between the bison and beef cows is that the bison lived longer lives than the beef cows today. Growing new animals vs. maintaining a population has significantly different energy requirements.

Cant eat a live bison..