121–130 of 195 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Somehow everyone seems has this experience, rents have continued to climb at a high rate for the last decade, and they manage to downplay this in statistics.
Or maybe everyone who has been having this experience is posting about it, because otherwise there's nothing to post about.
presentation bias is everywhere.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Like you said, if you at food, healthcare, education, etc., they are up way more than 3% year over year. That's how averages work
The greater point is that the cost of essentials has skyrocketed but the effect is hidden in official inflation metrics because they include a large number of nonessential items such as utility-adjusted television prices.
Looking at the chart 2.6 percent seem quite average, so what’s the big news?
Well the prices I see around me are up a lot more than 2.6%. My latest sticker shock was at Lowe's.- https://imgur.com/a/9UoXNdk
While amusing anecdata, your picture of a copper cable price is an indication of not much:
> Well, booming economies often run into temporary bottlenecks, which show up in surging prices for selected goods. For example, the price of copper tripled between December 2008 and February 2011, even though recovery from the 2008 recession was fairly sluggish.
* https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/06/opinion/us-inflation-fede...
For a history of copper prices see:
* https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PCOPPUSDM
If you look up the inflation rate 2008-2011 you'll find it was nothing to write home about.
In other news, the chocolate ration has been increased to 25 grams! Great success! /s Anybody living in the world can tell you that consumer prices are up a lot, lot more than 2.6%. Look even at this very thread. Food prices are way up, lumber prices are way up, restaurant prices are way up, clothing costs are up. Lots of goods literally just seem unbuyable at this point. Even in my city (nowhere near the southeast)…
As was predicted:
> So what’s going to happen in the months ahead? We’ll probably see a number of transitory price increases, not just because the economy is booming, but also because the lingering effects of the pandemic have produced some unusual disruptions — for example, a global shortage of shipping containers.
> The question will be whether these price increases are a 2010-2011-type blip or something more dangerous. Smart observers will look past the headlines to measures of underlying inflation — not just the Fed’s standard “core” measure but things like the Atlanta Fed’s sticky price index as well. Anecdotal evidence, otherwise known as “talking to people,” will also be important: Are businesses actually starting to set prices and wages based on the expectation of high future inflation?
> If they aren’t — and my bet is that they won’t be — then the lesson of 2010-2011 will remain: Don’t panic.
> Now as then there are people eager to denounce government attempts to help the economy. And it’s certainly possible that the American Rescue Plan will turn out, in retrospect, to have been too much of a good thing. But don’t let the usual suspects seize on a few months’ inflation data as evidence of looming disaster.
* https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/22/opinion/us-inflation-stim...
I don't how old you are, but we went through the same thing ten years ago:
> Well, booming economies often run into temporary bottlenecks, which show up in surging prices for selected goods. For example, the price of copper tripled between December 2008 and February 2011, even though recovery from the 2008 recession was fairly sluggish.
* https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/06/opinion/us-inflation-fede...
For a history of copper prices see:
* https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PCOPPUSDM
If you look up the inflation rate 2008-2011 you'll find it was nothing to write home about.
Will it actually be a problem this time around? It certainly can, and people are concerned about it. They're paying attention to it. But we had 3% inflation in the 1990s and the world didn't end.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Fed and U.S. government are rigging our economic system to backdoor tax the middle class while gaslighting all of us into thinking that this is normal. You don’t print $10T and handwave away millennia of basic economic principles. Help me understand how CPI is not a joke with respect to how it’s used to say “this is normal.” Everything I’m interested in spending money on, new hires for my company, real estate, ca…
But no one is “selling” you anything here. CPI is just data with a very public methodology. Some things go up, others go down. The Fed uses it as one input in decision making to manage inflation over long time horizons. You can look at what is measured in CPI and how it’s measured. You can have a conversation about whether that’s the most precise way to measure inflation etc. but just waving your hands about your “li…
In other news, the chocolate ration has been increased to 25 grams! Great success! /s Anybody living in the world can tell you that consumer prices are up a lot, lot more than 2.6%. Look even at this very thread. Food prices are way up, lumber prices are way up, restaurant prices are way up, clothing costs are up. Lots of goods literally just seem unbuyable at this point. Even in my city (nowhere near the southeast)…
>Anybody living in the world can tell you that consumer prices are up a lot, lot more than 2.6%. Look even at this very thread. Food prices are way up, lumber prices are way up, restaurant prices are way up, clothing costs are up. who knew that if you cherrypick from a list of items rather than using a broad basket, you can get arbitrarily higher/lower averages?
Note that Warren Buffet recently noted that his companies are seeing consistent increases in prices throughout the supply chain and will in turn need to raise prices: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/03/warren-buffett-says-berkshir... Others are taking the risks of inflation much further. Stanley Druckenmiller noted that the current spending policy and fiscal policy of the US is threatening the Dollar's status as the wor…
This is a known phenomenon:
> Imagine an economy in which everyone expects inflation to be high for the foreseeable future (Americans of a certain age don’t have to imagine this; for a while, we lived in that economy). In such an economy, a company setting its prices for the next year will do so taking into account the likelihood that everyone else’s prices — the prices charged by competitors, the costs of raw materials, the wages offered by rival employers — will be going up over time.
> Reflecting this expectation, companies will mark prices up relative to what they would have been if they didn’t expect future inflation — and by so doing, will feed the very inflation they fear. In other words, once expectations of sustained inflation are embedded in the economy, inflation becomes self-perpetuating — and bringing it down can be extremely difficult. That’s what makes stagflation — inflation despite high unemployment — possible.
> The point, however, is that short-term fluctuations in volatile prices tell us little about whether stagflation is becoming a risk. That’s why Fed policy generally ignores the headline inflation rate and instead focuses on a measure that excludes food and energy prices.
> So what’s going to happen in the months ahead? We’ll probably see a number of transitory price increases, not just because the economy is booming, but also because the lingering effects of the pandemic have produced some unusual disruptions — for example, a global shortage of shipping containers.
* https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/22/opinion/us-inflation-stim...
It can become dangerous (see 1970s), but economists have a decent understanding of it nowadays, and so can be factored into decision making.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes and no. If these (e.g., food) are the things most people consume most of the time that's not cherry picking. Furthermore, consumer perception does matter. It does have impact - even if it's misperception. Gas is up. That's naturally going to increase cost of nearly everything that depends on that mode of transportation. Certainly, that's directly or indirectly just about everything.
Oil is still under $70 a barrel though. It's gone up since being at some historical very low prices but compared to the times it's been north of $100, especially if you factor for 2021 dollars.
Well, they finally got what they wanted. Inflation, more inflation!
2.6% is not particularly high. In Jan 2020 it was 2.5%, and in May 2018 to August 2018 it was a range of 2.7% to 2.9%.