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US Wholesale Inflation Rises by Most in 3 Years

bloomberg.com

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Re: US Wholesale Inflation Rises by Most in 3 Years

#171

Post by jjice »

Buttons840 wrote: post #151
neuroelectron wrote: post #104

Whatever the problem is, it's everything but unicorn funding. We can be sure of that on this forum.

When I was about 20 I started listening to Sean Hannity, and while I no longer agree with anything he says, I do appreciate the glimpse I got into his way of thinking. I mention this because... I can't tell you how many times I've heard the idea that success in free market capitalism comes from offering goods and services to customers with the right balance between quality and price, and that good quality and price i…

I see what you mean, but I believe that's more so directed towards the massive scale businesses. Companies that get measured in billions and not millions.

At a smaller scale (the majority of business, but maybe not the majority of revenue), that existing wealth and power is often much smaller and eliminating competition is much less feasible.

Like a local coffee shop, for example. Or a small industry specific software company.

Maybe they matter less in the grand scheme, but they're still a big part of things.

But I do agree with the idea that VC subsidized services to then grip the market and wring them later seem counter productive to a "free market".

Re: US Wholesale Inflation Rises by Most in 3 Years

#172

Post by mendelmaleh »

ferguess_k wrote: post #71
elzbardico wrote: post #51

Frankly, I haven't seen a single country where I spent any significant amount of time, where official inflation numbers were not seeing as a complete joke by the common folks. And my experience usually matched it. There's plenty of space to hide reality when building a price index. Price index do not capture the reality of most people cost of living. They don't capture the family that have to buy margarine instead of…

Yeah. Most people should build their own inflation index. It's not hard whence you realize the biggest expenditures are usually 1) mortgage/rent, and 2) food. I wouldn't be surprised that given the rate hiking in recent years going along with higher food price, some people see dramatic "inflation". Ofc one can always say that No this is not the academic way to define inflation, but who cares?

In 2022 I scraped the current prices for things I bought on amazon the year before, and got a 7% increase.

Unfortunately amazon stopped providing order reports recently...

``` $ inflation -y 2021 -f items.csv 86 successful items, 30 failed items 2256.76 total 2021 2427.62 total now +170.86 (+7%) difference ```

Re: US Wholesale Inflation Rises by Most in 3 Years

#173

Post by sjsdaiuasgdia »

temp_praneshp wrote: post #108
jcranmer wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently, they've decided to go with "just not report the numbers." (Source: https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/trumps-bls-pick-could-p... ).

That interview was unfortunately timed (taped before nomination, broadcast afterward). My takeaway was that they are not trying "just not report the numbers" _yet_.

Do you think his position has changed since that interview?

Re: US Wholesale Inflation Rises by Most in 3 Years

#174

Post by [deleted] »

abtinf wrote: post #129
mbfg wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe less than a quarter of the defense budget is for salaries and compensations.

All spending everywhere is essentially “salaries and compensation”. It’s not like you get to the end of the supply chain and suddenly are paying God. Money always goes to people.

[deleted]

Re: US Wholesale Inflation Rises by Most in 3 Years

#175

Post by monkeyelite »

abtinf wrote: post #129
mbfg wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe less than a quarter of the defense budget is for salaries and compensations.

All spending everywhere is essentially “salaries and compensation”. It’s not like you get to the end of the supply chain and suddenly are paying God. Money always goes to people.

But when you get to the end of the supply chain the US gov has very little control of who is getting that money.

It’s not an obvious stimulus for US citizens, and in fact taking resources that would benefit other US ventures.

Re: US Wholesale Inflation Rises by Most in 3 Years

#176

Post by thisisit »

ivape wrote: post #137
thisisit wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right. An entire category of merchants (made in USA) looked at others (importers) who now need to pay increase prices due an import tax and figured it was fine to raise prices. Those greedy businesses who figured that you can raise prices just below the import tariffs and make consumers pay. Oh wait, what were you saying about tariffs?

This was happening for years before the tariffs.

Just because something is happening for years doesn't mean there cannot be extra incentive to make it worse today. But you just handwaved tariffs away. and did the inflation go up by 0.9% in a month in those years?

Re: US Wholesale Inflation Rises by Most in 3 Years

#177

Post by Aurornis »

zug_zug wrote: post #67
mark_l_watson wrote: post #13

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…

I can't speak to this, but I suspect something is afoot. I know my mom went to a university that she paid for with a part-time job while a student. Currently that university's tuition is 80,000 a year. When I looked at what inflation figures said for college education, it wasn't enough to account for that 10x+ increase.

> Currently that university's tuition is 80,000 a year.

University tuition is a known example of an extreme inflation outlier. The cause is also known: The availability of loan dollars and the laws preventing their discharge in bankruptcy.

Tuition figures are also misleading because almost nobody pays that number. The tuition number is the maximum possible amount someone could pay without financial assistance, but when you look at the numbers you would be surprised to see that often 80% or more of students have some financial assistance. At many universities now, students with families below certain income levels have tuition adjusted down to $0.

You can’t judge university prices by the number on the website any more.

Re: US Wholesale Inflation Rises by Most in 3 Years

#178

Post by bobbylarrybobby »

diego_moita wrote: post #161
BartjeD wrote: post #10

And this is after they massaged the numbers, to avoid getting fired?

In the end, it won't matter. Only economists, policy makers, investors and people blabbing on the internet do care about stats. Ordinary people just look at price tags; that's all they need.

It's nice to have agreed-upon, citable facts though, even if only so that voters know who's full of crap during a debate. When the next R candidate says that Trump handled inflation beautifully, it's important to be able to point to an authoritative source that shows that that claim is BS.

Re: US Wholesale Inflation Rises by Most in 3 Years

#179

Post by ivape »

Lendal wrote: post #158
ivape wrote: post #21

[flagged]

That's what tariffs do though. If you have a product that competes with another that now costs more due to tariffs, you're now free to raise your prices as well, in order to maximize profit. Your product may not have a tariff, but it does have greedy shareholders that see that they can now raise their earnings because competitors suddenly aren't so competitive anymore. Try going on a shareholder earnings call. They'r…

We’re talking about a lot of domestic goods here. Why’s the BLT more expensive? It’s literally just bacon, lettuce and tomato.

Scams are scams, man. This is not economics, it’s human nature. Tariffs did not make the price of your BLT go up, it’s greed.

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