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US annual inflation declines to 7.7% in October vs. 7.9% expected

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Re: US annual inflation declines to 7.7% in October vs. 7.9% expected

#101

Post by lotsofpulp »

dawnerd wrote: post #77
elil17 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a lie, it's just not so simple that you can stop reading after the headline. This very post includes information about category-by-category inflation. Inflation for food has been about 10% YOY. Dairy is 15% and fresh milk is 14.5% (13.2% for whole milk and 15.4% for 0, 1, and 2% milk).

Also depends on the geographic region. Soft beverages for example in some places haven’t changed much but out here on the west coast have done from 4 for 10 dollars on sale to 3 for 15 for 12 packs.

Water is dense, and needs a lot of energy to transport. It makes sense that if energy costs go up, the price of beverages will go up more in places where distances are larger.

Re: US annual inflation declines to 7.7% in October vs. 7.9% expected

#102

Post by roflyear »

_aavaa_ wrote: post #34
throwawayosa wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflation here means a very specific thing. You can check which prices they are looking at. How could it be a lie?

> You can check which prices they are looking at. How could it be a lie? By excluding prices which make the number look bad despite them potentially being the numbers regular people actually care about. The same is true of including prices which look good but don’t matter as much. And then by marketing that average number as a realistic approximation of price increases in day to day life.

Who markets the number like that??? This is a way to communicate inflation to people. The context is the previous reports. If you change the methodology that context is garbage.

Re: US annual inflation declines to 7.7% in October vs. 7.9% expected

#103

Post by Victerius »

redox99 wrote: post #90
Victerius wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the mathematically inclined among us, dp/dt is still positive. It's d^2p/dt^2 that is slightly negative.

Not really. It means CPI_oct22 - CPI_oct21 d^2p/dt^2 isn't necessarily negative.

Oh, right. I mixed it with month-on-month inflation.

Re: US annual inflation declines to 7.7% in October vs. 7.9% expected

#104

Post by contravariant »

Victerius wrote: post #50
lunaru wrote: post #31

It bears repeating because this is a common mistake in inflation discussions: a decrease in inflation metrics means price increases are slowing down, it doesn’t mean that prices are going down （that would require a negative CPI print). Also, this number is year over year, so the decrease just means the price increases between Oct 21 and Oct 22 are not as steep as between Sept 21 to Sept 22, which is not hard to achie…

For the mathematically inclined among us, dp/dt is still positive. It's d^2p/dt^2 that is slightly negative.

Though the mathematically inclined should also know that we're not looking at dp/dt, we're looking at p(t) - p(t-T).

The difference is important, especially because we're looking at a yearly increase every month. The derivative of the annual inflation is not d^2p/dt^2 but (dp(t)/dt - dp(t-T)/dt).

Re: US annual inflation declines to 7.7% in October vs. 7.9% expected

#105

Post by nine_zeros »

guiriduro wrote: post #17
InTheArena wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably too strong of a statement. I don't view this as a huge miss (.2%), and ask anyone you know on a fixed income what this is doing to their retirement. Ulitmately, it's the glut of cash out there (IMHO) that is going to need to resolve itself before inflation gets back to a normal level.

But it does argue to permit the current tighter fiscal and monetary position to work as it appears to be doing, perhaps too well/quickly, rather than tightening more out of a dangerous over-abundance of caution.

Likewise, it gives the FED a chance to say that they'll only raise rates by 50% next time and maybe only 25% in January. Then they can keep high interest rates for a long time while layoffs continue to cause demand destruction.

Re: US annual inflation declines to 7.7% in October vs. 7.9% expected

#106

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

nashashmi wrote: post #70
lunaru wrote: post #31

It bears repeating because this is a common mistake in inflation discussions: a decrease in inflation metrics means price increases are slowing down, it doesn’t mean that prices are going down （that would require a negative CPI print). Also, this number is year over year, so the decrease just means the price increases between Oct 21 and Oct 22 are not as steep as between Sept 21 to Sept 22, which is not hard to achie…

Also it is worth mentioning that part of the major reason accounting for inflation is car price. It’s going down now as chip makers produce more and prices go down further.

It's also going down because it's a debt market and financing is more expensive w/ used car interest rates at 9% instead of 4% and new cars at 5% instead of 0%...

Re: US annual inflation declines to 7.7% in October vs. 7.9% expected

#107

Post by starkd »

throwingrocks wrote: post #27
fasteddie31003 wrote: post #16

RANT: This inflation and coming recession is entirely on the hands of the current leadership in the Fed and Treasury. Their super-low interest rates over the years are coming full circle. We live in a centrally planned economy. My advice to the Fed is to set the Fed Funds Rate to equal inflation! This will stop the wild swings in the economy and keep inflation in check. When the Fed Funds Rate is lower than inflation…

Yeah....and the inflation we're seeing elsewhere in the world is just a coincidence.

The US Dollar is a world currency.

Re: US annual inflation declines to 7.7% in October vs. 7.9% expected

#108

Post by giantg2 »

lottin wrote: post #91
lunaru wrote: post #31

It bears repeating because this is a common mistake in inflation discussions: a decrease in inflation metrics means price increases are slowing down, it doesn’t mean that prices are going down （that would require a negative CPI print). Also, this number is year over year, so the decrease just means the price increases between Oct 21 and Oct 22 are not as steep as between Sept 21 to Sept 22, which is not hard to achie…

Year-over-year inflation doesn't tell us anything about whether prices are going up or down right now .

No historical data is going to tell us the future. But it can give us an idea of the trend, which is useful since in a large system like the economy the trend tends to change relatively slowly as compared to individual compentents.

Re: US annual inflation declines to 7.7% in October vs. 7.9% expected

#109

Post by lukas099 »

napoleon_thepig wrote: post #87
Prunkton wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you are describing pretty much the Big Mac Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index

The main objective of the big Mac index is not to measure inflation, it's to measure purchase parity power by using the price of something that is available in almost every country and has a very standard quality.

Just consider the same country at two different points in time as two different countries and the distinction disappears.

Re: US annual inflation declines to 7.7% in October vs. 7.9% expected

#110

Post by theyeenzbeanz »

hnburnsy wrote: post #94

Anyone notice that brand name soda (looking at you Coke) has increased almost 100% while the generic/house brand has had slight increases. I feel like Coke is testing the pricing limits of its customers especially with the smaller packaging and these prices will not come back down.

A 20oz bottle is easily 2.29 now compared to roughly 1.79 not long ago.
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