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US Consumer Price Index up 4.2%

bls.gov

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Re: US Consumer Price Index up 4.2%

#131

Post by anticorporate »

embedding-shape wrote: post #95
hadlock wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2% is good, anything over 3% is not good, anything over 4% is bad, 5% and higher is really bad. Hope that clears things up for you.

Can you really say that based only on the inflation? What if wages increased 6%, then 3% inflation wouldn't be as bad as if inflation raised 2% but wages only increased 0.1%? At least if you think about purchasing power I suppose. But won't claim to be an expert on this, happy to be educated by those who are :)

In general, higher inflation has a negative impact on consumer sentiment even if wage growth matches the inflation, which it rarely does.

But the bigger issue is that inflation is generally distributed much more evenly than wage increases. Very few employers offer a COLA that is automatic, so wages almost always trail inflationary pressure.

Re: US Consumer Price Index up 4.2%

#132

Post by kennywinker »

nothercastle wrote: post #105
madcaptenor wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax brackets are also inflation-adjusted, so shouldn't that cancel out?

No it pushes you into a higher tax bracket earlier so also acts as a tax increase

I think the point is the tax brackets are supposed to be inflation-adjusted. So all the brackets go up 4.2% too. Idk if the implementation details make this actually work out 1:1 but that’s the idea.

Re: US Consumer Price Index up 4.2%

#133

Post by jmull »

loudmax wrote: post #86
23ahgfqa wrote: post #10

The Iran conflict will continue on a low flame (occasional pinpricks like now) forever. It serves the US Energy Dominance Agenda against China, Japan, India and the EU. The Trump administration does not care about "its" population. There were already rumors early in the Trump term that Trump would not mind a recession so that his real estate cronies could buy cheap foreclosures. So it is all a double win for the olig…

That is ascribing far too much strategic thinking to this administration. They're just not capable of the kind of planning and foresight that would require. The administration's planning is much more along the lines of, Will this look cool when they announce it on Fox News tomorrow? If you think there's much beyond that, you're ascribing strategic clarity where there isn't any. They're continue to flail around and TA…

It's not the administration doing the strategic thinking. The administration is entirely reactive and straightforward to manipulate -- if you have money.

The people with strategic goals just send money and compliments and the administration does what they want.

Re: US Consumer Price Index up 4.2%

#134

Post by jcranmer »

mjamesaustin wrote: post #50

Prices have doubled since 1999!? Restaurant prices near me have doubled since 2015, easily. And that's not counting delivery going from free to 25% of the meal cost.

Not all components rise in cost at the same time. Overall, prices have roughly doubled since the early 2000's--things that I expect to cost, say, $10 would now cost around $20. However, some things have risen in cost much more quickly: housing prices, for one.

The things you are talking about are a phenomenon largely of the COVID era and later. The biggest wage gains post-COVID have been in the lowest end of the job market, and services where almost-minimum-wage labor is a high fraction of their cost have commensurately risen in price the fastest (e.g., fast food). Similarly, a lot of the easy money flowing into unprofitable grow-then-make-money businesses (like delivery firms) have stopped flowing in, so those services have had to actually make money from customers, which causes their costs to rise.

Re: US Consumer Price Index up 4.2%

#135

Post by ilikerashers »

dw_arthur wrote: post #93

Paradoxically, inflation has contributed to me taking a sabbatical. While I live in a LCOL area and made ~140k/year it just no longer felt worth it to work as I saw my retirement accounts start to match and exceed my salary in yearly gains. I do plan on going back to work in a part time manner, but inflation has killed any reason for me to work hard at a job for that level of salary. Furthermore, the feeling of "what…

I feel the same. Investments are shooting up and wages stink.

UK has very high taxation now so working full time doesn’t bring in as much as a decent portfolio.

Re: US Consumer Price Index up 4.2%

#136

Post by Dylan16807 »

win311fwg wrote: post #77
Dylan16807 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Food is one of the things that's going to have the least change in value.

Quite the opposite. Value is essentially a function of scarcity relative to desire. Food desire may be, for all intents and purposes, stable, but availability is most certainly not. Something like a major weather event wiping out a crop can quickly change the scarcity profile. Food is especially prone to value variances over time.

What specific definition of value are you using here? Sometimes terms with value get into the same realm as price, but the default definition of value is the benefit you're getting, and going to similar restaurants ten years apart is damn near the same benefit. Scarcity doesn't come into play.

Re: US Consumer Price Index up 4.2%

#138

Post by Eric_WVGG »

loudmax wrote: post #86
23ahgfqa wrote: post #10

The Iran conflict will continue on a low flame (occasional pinpricks like now) forever. It serves the US Energy Dominance Agenda against China, Japan, India and the EU. The Trump administration does not care about "its" population. There were already rumors early in the Trump term that Trump would not mind a recession so that his real estate cronies could buy cheap foreclosures. So it is all a double win for the olig…

That is ascribing far too much strategic thinking to this administration. They're just not capable of the kind of planning and foresight that would require. The administration's planning is much more along the lines of, Will this look cool when they announce it on Fox News tomorrow? If you think there's much beyond that, you're ascribing strategic clarity where there isn't any. They're continue to flail around and TA…

I mostly agree with you, but I do think they’re highly skilled at taking advantage of whatever messes they cause. “Chaos is a ladder” might as well be the theme of this decade.

Re: US Consumer Price Index up 4.2%

#139

Post by jeffbee »

tclancy wrote: post #73
advisedwang wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per the link, food is up 3.1% and everything else 2.9%. So energy pulled inflation up from about 3% to about 4%, but that's not "all of the increase"

How much of the food cost (and everything else) is tied to the increase in diesel prices? Do they adjust that out?

Distributor fuel costs are a really small part of the food price, with the notable exception of things that are bulky and full of air like Cheerios. The overwhelming fuel component of grocery consumption, by a margin so large you can consider it to be 100%, is the consumer's fuel. Driving 5 miles to an American grocery store to buy a few pounds of food is the most absurd scheme ever hatched. Having your groceries delivered by a van on a route is much more efficient but, perversely, by internalizing the last mile fuel cost that would show up as higher prices for food in aggregate inflation statistics.

Re: US Consumer Price Index up 4.2%

#140

Post by bigstrat2003 »

aaomidi wrote: post #36
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain? What about this report pushes you toward not believing the numbers?

It’s not this report specifically but the other stuff the admin has done with the BLS.

It's unfortunately not limited to the current administration. We've had the government telling us to not trust our lying eyes about inflation at least since the Biden administration. At the time government officials were reassuring everyone that there wasn't inflation while everyone could see the prices going up everywhere.
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