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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

#441

Post by fundad »

phpisthebest wrote: post #51
nivenkos wrote: post #26

The US has it easy, since the inflation was largely caused by lockdown stimulus, and also benefits from being the global reserve currency so it can leverage cheap imports as the interest rate rises increase the value of USD. I wouldn't be surprised if it's better in a few months, especially with the growing protectionism in the anti-inflation act, etc. and acts against Chinese competition, etc. keeping more industry…

There was no Anti-Inflation Act, there was a spending... SPENDING bill they claimed would lower inflation because it also included a very limited amount of deficit reduction which 1 week later they had spent like 3 times on new programs including the Student Loan Cancellation which reversed any inflation reduction the original bill could have had (which was nill in the first place)

raising corporate taxes is anti-inflationary

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

#442

Post by danielmarkbruce »

dcow wrote: post #427
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same x axis - time. CPI is a time series, you get a point every month. Everyone is trying to draw conclusions, it's the point of this thread. >> The instantaneous slope would be negative if the last month happened to observe a slight decrease, true This is sloppy. It's fine, it's a forum, we aren't writing academic papers. Nobody is trying to figure the slope of the straight line between the two points, that's what i…

Sigh. Obviously we’re talking time here. The scale on the X axis, the interval that appears on the graph between two points, is different if every unit is a month vs a year. Months and years are different units of time. IDK… nobody is really trying to figure out how to interpret the data. People were just commenting that “declines to X%” actually still means that it’s gone up YoY and not that it’s declining YoY and h…

Scale is the same. The CPI reports every month. It's one chart, a single index, one point per month.

They just take the recent point and the point from a year ago and do the math and report the change. For mom they do the recent point and the one before that, do the math and report.

Some people actually know what the CPI is, how it gets reported, and understand the shortcomings of said reporting. If you aren't one of those people, it's silly to go around correcting others.

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

#444

Post by Dylan16807 »

dcow wrote: post #437
MobiusHorizons wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Everyone. Just about every report is talking about how the yoy numbers are changing each month.

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

#445

Post by deathanatos »

randomdata wrote: post #217
jklinger410 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> since the inflation was largely caused by lockdown stimulus This is a widely disproved myth.

The first order reason for inflation is, of course, a willingness to spend more. Prices flat out can't rise if buyers balk at a seller's higher expectations. Plain and simple. But it is well understood that said willingness changes on what buyers believe[1]. If they believe that lockdown stimulus is causing inflation, it will cause inflation. The mere existence of lockdown stimulus won't cause inflation, but the emot…

One can only balk so much at the cost of housing, energy, and food, before one is homeless, cold, and hungry.

Housing has been hard to balk at for a decade for the same reason that nobody politically wants to address: a lack of supply in the market. Renters are now doubly stuck in renting, as home ownership as an alternative market is now rendered unaffordable by spiking mortgage rates. (I.e., the very "demand destruction" the fed desired. And my landlord knows it!)

Energy prices are spiking due to … a lack of supply in the market.

Still, the rate is allegedly +7% YoY, apparently, and my rent goes up +9.5% YoY "due to economic conditions", and my salary is -1% YoY.

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

#446

Post by ChicagoBoy11 »

passwordoops wrote: post #193

Funny how markets and analysts lose their minds when the numbers don't match exactly the predicted when there are no error bars associated to either the estimate or the value. Coming under or over is a lot different when we're talking +/- 0.05 vs. 0.5... And yes, I tried checking. The Fed does put out their data, but nary a precision factor to be found

I'm always reminded of economists wonderful sense of humor whenever I start seeing decimal points on some of these forecasts!

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

#447

Post by Dylan16807 »

dcow wrote: post #435
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That data was picked by someone out of all the data in the world. That's where the agency is.

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

#448

Post by shawabawa3 »

eatsyourtacos wrote: post #337
llbeansandrice wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment sounds like you're getting a piece of that $4bn

Not sure what that is supposed to mean. I'm pointing out that it's a high quality product. There's a reason Coke absolutely dominates everything else out there. I guess to you I'm just a Coke shill though. Ok!

He means the reason you think it's a high quality product is that the $4B of advertising has had an affect on you subconsciously

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

#449

Post by dcow »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #301
dcow wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is still stupid to even be arguing about. It’s like people are trying to find a problem with data that is objectively reported by arguing that if you change the x axis you get an entirely different conclusion. No shit… that’s how data works.

No one is suggesting there is a problem with the data. They are discussing how best to interpret it. And nobody is suggesting changing the x-axis. It's still time. The distinction people are making is which points does one use to calculate the slope? The most recent two? The most recent one and the one from a year ago? What are the implications of each?

From what I can gather you’re trying to suggest that prices are going down because “recently” they have been (which isn't even true MoM they’ve still increased). That’s a pretty sloppy and inaccurate statement without a very precise definition of recently, which has been omitted. And YoY it’s not true.

I didn't see any thread of discussion that you’re alluding to where people were trying to interpret what the data actually means. There was simply a word of caution about making sure not to let the headline confuse you. Then some incorrect and sloppy comments appeared like “actually this is incorrect data because the price is trending down MoM don’t be fooled”. That’s an entirely different thing. Hence why you see all the people trying to explain how it’s silly. I didn't introduce confusion by changing the slope calculation… I’m just responding to it trying to clean up the mess it’s made.

I’m seriously confused: what is your actual point?

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

#450

Post by Dylan16807 »

dcow wrote: post #273
rflrob wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The conclusion that “prices rose” is the correct one. What you should not conclude, even though the inflation has been at 20% all year is that “prices are (still) rising”.

But they have risen since last year. YoY they are still rising .

You can't use "rising" to strictly talk about the past. You need to expect it in the future too. If you don't expect the price to be higher a year from now, then it's not "rising YoY", it merely "rose YoY".
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