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US Wholesale Inflation Rises by Most in 3 Years

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Re: US Wholesale Inflation Rises by Most in 3 Years

#31

Over the years I have read a few articles or blogs that make the argument that if government inflation figures in the US were calculated as they do in Europe, then our reported US inflation figures would be much higher. Can anyone here verify this? Our main problems involve under the table unreported to the public military expenditures. If you look at a map of our military bases, we have many bordering China. I think…

What does debt have to do with the calculation of inflation?

It may impact inflation but you seem to be claiming debt is a component of inflation calculation, when inflation is little more than the change in prices.

Re: US Wholesale Inflation Rises by Most in 3 Years

#32
post #21

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It’s the tariffs. You’re assuming that everyone will raise the price and have the same goals. Some businesses will see it as an opportunity to undercut and gain market share.

After all, total profit = sales margin * sales volume. You can increase your profit by increasing your volume because you kept your prices unchanged while your competitors decided to increase prices.

Re: US Wholesale Inflation Rises by Most in 3 Years

#35

Over the years I have read a few articles or blogs that make the argument that if government inflation figures in the US were calculated as they do in Europe, then our reported US inflation figures would be much higher. Can anyone here verify this? Our main problems involve under the table unreported to the public military expenditures. If you look at a map of our military bases, we have many bordering China. I think…

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Re: US Wholesale Inflation Rises by Most in 3 Years

#37
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely very specious. Inflation is an emergent property. CPI is measured by looking at consumer prices which is pretty transparent. The underlying causes may be obscured and, in fact, we see a lot of debate on the causes but that is irrelevant to actually measuring CPI.

Well, look at the history of removing things like living necessities and increasing things that have dropped in price like TVs. Calculation of CPI is deranged by the cherry picking of what they measure.

What living necessities have been removed that you think should still be there?

The dataset inclusions are publicly available: https://www.bls.gov/cpi/additional-resources/entry-level-ite...

Re: US Wholesale Inflation Rises by Most in 3 Years

#38

Over the years I have read a few articles or blogs that make the argument that if government inflation figures in the US were calculated as they do in Europe, then our reported US inflation figures would be much higher. Can anyone here verify this? Our main problems involve under the table unreported to the public military expenditures. If you look at a map of our military bases, we have many bordering China. I think…

It's like 3% of GDP. Not that big of a deal.

Re: US Wholesale Inflation Rises by Most in 3 Years

#39
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely very specious. Inflation is an emergent property. CPI is measured by looking at consumer prices which is pretty transparent. The underlying causes may be obscured and, in fact, we see a lot of debate on the causes but that is irrelevant to actually measuring CPI.

Well, look at the history of removing things like living necessities and increasing things that have dropped in price like TVs. Calculation of CPI is deranged by the cherry picking of what they measure.

> Well, look at the history of removing things like living necessities and increasing things that have dropped in price like TVs.

There are many different measures of inflation. And they serve different purposes.

Core inflation, which I suspect is what you’re talking about when talking about removing “living necessities” is a measure used to try and understand long term stable inflation. Since oil and groceries tend to be extremely volatile, core inflation removes those items. No one is saying it’s the one holy measure of inflation. If you’re trying to understand how prices have changed for the consumer over a period of time it’s not a useful measure at all, so you don’t look at core inflation for that purpose.

You look at other measures.

Also, weights are indeed a complicated issue, but is it really surprising the weight of TVs may have increased over a period of time when owning a TV has gone from being a luxury to a necessity?

But anyways, if you don’t like the weights that are used, the underlying segment breakdown is available on the same webpage that contains the summarized calculated inflation figures. Feel free to look at the segment inflation itself.

Re: US Wholesale Inflation Rises by Most in 3 Years

#40
post #7

2.8% doesn’t seem that crazy to me? Don’t we target like 2-2.5?

The Fed targets 2% at PCE (consumer) whereas this is PPI (wholesale/producer). Not always 1 to 1 but in general you expect PPI to be a leading indicator for what's coming for PCE. Part of the attention is for sure people being vigilant to see the earliest effects of the tariffs and... here they are pretty unambiguously. The more significant concern it seems to me is the rate of increase. Nearly a full percentage poin…

I think you mostly nailed it. I suspected this was going to happen to with this recent filing season having most companies recognize tariffs and already state they are mostly getting passed on.
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