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U.S. annual inflation rate drops to 8.5%

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

#691
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CPI is like GDP CPI collects certain things some people have decided represent the economy as experienced by ordinary people. How well it works in general and for your experience in particular depends on the choice of items in the basket and how well they match your reality. edit: There's a Planet Money series on GDP. I wouldn't be surprised to see a follow-up on CPI soon.

Except that they are constantly changing the basket to be a basket of cheaper goods. It's pretty bold to be so open about it, but that's what they do - it's manipulated.

You should provide evidences for your claim — What have been changed, over how long period, and how are they cheaper goods compared to what they used to be?

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

#692
post #172

How easy this value can be verified? In other words, do we have all inputs public and the algorithm (with all its "hedonistic adjustments") is fully accessible? Can we track changes in the algorithm? Even with the effect of high base, I am getting increasingly suspicious of official numbers (same with the unemployment statistics). Energy costs have skyrocketed and they get into almost everything an economy produces.…

The number the authorities give out is far removed from reality. Just head over to the grocery store. Try buying electronics. Inflation is still raging and I'm afraid they are just going to tell people suck it up. There is absolutely NO WAY inflation suddenly drops like this

Inflation is still positive so yeah, you'd expect prices to keep going up.

Negative inflation would mean prices are going down

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

#693
post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal was 100% of the country, not 20%. They've been stalled with little progress over the past month.

I've never heard the goal was 100% of the country. Can you point to a source?

Putin's speech on February 24th, the day of the invasion

> "To this end, we will seek to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine, as well as bring to trial those who perpetrated numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the Russian Federation."

How do you demilitarize a nation by taking only 20% of it? The only way to do this would be to capture the entirety of the country.

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

#694

Drops, while accurate, feels so disingenuous. The messaging should be that it’s slowing down

Price levels actually did drop compared to June. If anything I bet people are more likely to interpret this incorrectly by believing that prices are still rising compared to last month, just at a lower rate. They are not, it's just that with a n indicator that compares current price levels to price levels a year ago it takes a while for the rate to come down, even if prices stay still or slightly decrease.

Did prices actually drop or did they just go up more slowly? 8.5% is still a price increase

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

#695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you pick the situation that is clearly impossible when we're talking about inflation? Of course costs have increased. If prices go up by 50%, and then you subtract the increase in cost, then any measure over 0 is potentially a greed-driven number. It seems unlikely that zero companies are riding the wave of inflation acceptance in the population. At least some companies must be increasing their costs becaus…

I feel like there is an opportunity for an app here that lets you input what you buy and see how the price has increased compared to the competition. There seems to be a lack of automated price comparisons here. I guess people can compare prices when shopping in store but if all companies raise their prices, I'd imagine some people would just stop buying if they knew about the price collusion more easily. I thought a…

I was thinking about something similar for a personal meal plan app.

I want the ability to keep a list of recipes, and when I chose meals for a day/week, have the app take the ingredients list and scrape price sources (supermarket websites, etc.) and then give guidance on exactly where I should purchase each ingredient I need. Then simply track the scraped prices over time for the nominal inflation that you've mentioned.

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

#696

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…

Cat food has almost doubled and they’re still having problems stocking it.

I was shocked when I went to buy my last 3.3lb bag of cat food and found it had gone up $4. My cats eat a 50/50 mix of baked chicken and dry food. At $3/lb chicken breast is way less expensive than the $7/lb dry food. I can only imagine how much people are spending on their medium to large dogs to feed them.

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

#697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also, live in a tent, and avoid electricity all together! But for those who like protein packed meals in a comfortable environment an additional deep freezer is a great investment. You can deep freeze extra veggies/fruit if you have a beef with meat.

Or you can buy beans and rice. More protein. More cooking options. No need for freezing.

Protein quality matters as much as quantity. I like beans and rice, but the protein in red meat is more digestible and has the optimal ratio of amino acids that humans need.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Protein-quality-assessme...

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

#698

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…

So I know I can make 65 an hour with side jobs. I've got a few side gigs where I can set my own schedule and work those hours at any time. I could probably push higher if I wanted (75-100 an hour). When I need to pad my savings I cut some costs but mostly I just work extra hours in side gigs. I couldnt imagine its worth going to multiple grocery stores to compare prices. Shop at 1 store, pay more for some items, work…

There's a lot of friction to finding and landing side jobs.

Ones that let you hop in just whenever you feel like it and do one hour of work, with no commitment to minimum hours per week? And that you can put in a single productive hour every so often, without ramp-up time eating that entire hour with nothing to show for it? And that pays enough to make it worth it (i.e. not Mechanical Turk or whatever)?

I don't even know what such an ultra-flexible, low-context (= near-zero ramp-up time even if you only do it an hour or two a week, and some weeks not at all) but still high-paid gig would look like, or how to go about finding it.

Meanwhile, you can value-shop if you feel like it, or not if you don't. Entirely optional and no commitment or outside expectations. You can do it very seriously one week, then not do it at all the next.

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

#699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

India has had many many vegetarians for a long long time. We don't need to eat bugs. We can just eat less meat, like our ancestors did.

Historically, people at a lot of meat. > The researchers studied ten other comparable food lists from southern England and discovered a remarkably similar pattern: a modest amount of bread, a huge amount of meat, a decent but not excessive quantity of ale, and no mention of vegetables (although some probably were served). https://www.medievalists.net/2022/04/who-was-eating-meat-in-... Simply put, you have an animal w…

Literally the next paragraph says:

“The scale and proportions of these food lists strongly suggests that they were provisions for occasional grand feasts, and not general food supplies sustaining royal households on a daily basis,” says Lambert. “These were not blueprints for everyday elite diets as historians have assumed.”

“I’ve been to plenty of barbecues where friends have cooked ludicrous amounts of meat so we shouldn’t be too surprised. The guests probably ate the best bits and then leftovers might have been stewed up for later.”

Leggett adds,: “I’ve found no evidence of people eating anything like this much animal protein on a regular basis. If they were, we would find isotopic evidence of excess protein and signs of diseases like gout from the bones. But we’re just not finding that. The isotopic evidence suggests that diets in this period were much more similar across social groups than we’ve been led to believe. We should imagine a wide range of people livening up bread with small quantities of meat and cheese, or eating pottages of leeks and whole grains with a little meat thrown in.”

The researchers believe that even royals would have eaten a cereal-based diet and that these occasional feasts would have been a treat for them too.

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

#700
post #367

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…

Where did you get a vehicle only 10% more expensive? New Jeep Cherokee Latitude 4x4 was $21k in January 2021. The cheapest new Cherokee now is $35k. 3 years old is $25k. Seattle,WA.

It's a wee bit more than 10%

With a $38,635 starting price, the entry-level Odyssey now costs $4300 more than last year

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