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

bls.gov

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

#431

Post by __derek__ »

yourapostasy wrote: post #284
riffraff wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflation linked government bonds from developed countries and your local currency or USD/EUR denomination, depending on your country you may get some tax advantages if you buy local ones. But you should probably have done this long ago, now it may be a bit late.

While that is better than nothing, for example US citizens are limited to only $10K USD in I-bond purchases per year per Taxpayer ID Number (TIN). Some people run their I-bond purchases through LLC's they control as well, but I don't know how the IRS would treat a fleet of LLC's set up purely just to get a TIN to use for buying I-bonds. Oil and copper tends to follow inflation, but they're highly volatile so you can'…

There's no need for byzantine approaches to buying Series I savings bonds when you can get 1.5% real yields on long-term TIPS.

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

#432

Post by fragmede »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #298
giantg2 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, so not mismatched prices/goods, but mismatched temporally.

It's just about how are you measuring the slope? Like, when you first learn derivatives and the math teacher draws a line between two points on a curve, then draws another from points closer together, then draws the tangent, then goes through how you get to a derivative function etc. The yoy is just using two points very far apart. The mom is using two points closer together. It would be nice but practically impossib…

I can get the prices for goods online, and then get them delivered to my house. Getting the CPI more often seems entirely feasible to me if we really wanted to.

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

#433

Post by dcow »

andsoitis wrote: post #275
dcow wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they’re citing a survey where people literally didn’t get it. That, if not made up, factually supports the claim that some people really do think 1/3 is less than 1/4. I really liked the 1/3 pound “thickburgers”. I don’t think it was just some dying chain trying to spread rumors about how stupid people didn't understand their marketing and that’s why they “died” (they’re still very much alive last I checked).

> But they’re citing a survey Then it should be possible to point to said survey…

If you had the survey in hand you could point to it. Proprietary information is not news and exists even in academia (cf. scihub).

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

#434

Post by rufus_foreman »

roflyear wrote: post #379
slaymaker1907 wrote: post #356

MoM inflation is still unfortunately 0.4% which is about 5% annualized. I think it's unfortunate that reporting focuses around yearly inflation which isn't really useful for talking about inflation in the moment.

5% is not that much higher than historic averages. 1990 had 5.4% inflation, and 2008 close to 4%.

5.4% in 1990 was the highest rate in an almost 40 year stretch. In 1991 it went down to 4.2% and then wasn't above 4% until last year.

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

#435

Post by dcow »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #322
dcow wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the last time you looked was last year, then yeah. They went up this year. What’s misleading about reporting yearly percentage increases in prices? I’m baffled.

You appear to be saying: factually reported data cannot be misleading. This is wrong, but so obviously so that you must be making another point?

Misleading implies the data has some agency. Data cannot be misleading. People can make whatever conclusions they want based on data at hand and it’s just bad analysis if it’s wrong. The data didn't mislead them.

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

#436

Post by fullstop »

aabceh wrote: post #382
fullstop wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thankfully you're no longer earning negative interest on your bank account.

It's funny how people freaked out over the -0.1% interest rate but don't care about having money in the bank when the inflation is at +10%.

Absolutely.

I don't live where negative interest is a thing, but it seems like that would encourage people to keep money outside of banks.

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

#437

Post by dcow »

MobiusHorizons wrote: post #287
dcow wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the last time you looked was last year, then yeah. They went up this year. What’s misleading about reporting yearly percentage increases in prices? I’m baffled.

The misleading bit would be reporting yoy price increases every month. Still not necessarily misleading to someone trained in reading this data, but the average lay person would probably interpret yoy statistics reported monthly incorrectly when comparing adjacent months

Who’s doing that?

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

#438

Post by danielmarkbruce »

mlyle wrote: post #423
macksd wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet that's the same kind of distinction that you need to understand to be able to make decisions about household debt. If we're honestly at the point where this is considered too confusing for the masses, I think I've stopped thinking democracy is a good idea.

If there's a true step change that happens once (and nothing else), inflation looks like: 0% 0% 0% +10% +10% +10% +10% +10% +10% +10% +10% +10% +10% +10% +10% 0% 0% 0% If there's a .8% price increase per month, every month, it looks like: +10% +10% +10% +10% +10% +10% +10% +10% +10% +10% +10% +10% +10% +10% The upside of reporting this way: * Seasonal effects are (mostly) removed The downside: * You have to have a lo…

And it's not even a theoretical issue. Look at the energy component of CPI. And then consider how that flows through to food and transportation. It is very possible that the vast majority of what we are seeing is the result of a big jump in energy prices over a few months, 8-10 months ago.

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

#440

Post by reducesuffering »

claudiulodro wrote: post #402
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.

The biggest crock is the increase in price of sparkling waters. Literally just carbonated water with a squirt of flavor, somehow more expensive than soda nowadays.

That's probably because the people drinking La Croix aren't too price-sensitive. However, if you actually care about buying them with little margin, Costco has em for $0.30/can and Trader Joe's for $0.40.
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