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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

#141

Post by [deleted] »

infecto wrote: post #61
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…

Had trouble following your core point. Do you have references regarding 900 bases with many bordering China. I have never seen such figures or that they border China.

[deleted]

Re: US Wholesale Inflation Rises by Most in 3 Years

#142

Post by IAmGraydon »

isbwkisbakadqv wrote: post #4

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

I mean no offense, but it's a bit surprising that someone on HN would not understand what's wrong with this statement. It takes a very basic understanding of math to know why the YoY says very little about rapidly changing inflation metrics. MoM is what you need to pay attention to.

Re: US Wholesale Inflation Rises by Most in 3 Years

#143

Post by amanaplanacanal »

9rx wrote: post #125
gosub100 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People didn't need to go to college before the death of the middle class. A couple generations ago you could rent an apartment and have a decent life working at a restaurant or warehouse or factory. Now most entry level jobs pay poverty level wages.

People didn't need to go to college because nobody cared. Employers were able to look at qualities of the actual person, not some outside attribute bolted onto the side. What changed was Griggs vs. Duke, which outlawed effectively all filtering mechanisms except a college degree, forcing the hand of employers. That still didn't mean the workers had to comply, though. What do you think would happen, with respect to em…

That's not true though. We keep hearing about coding tests given to applicants in high tech, and those are still legal. The decision said that the test had to be reasonably related to the job, not that they couldn't be used.

Re: US Wholesale Inflation Rises by Most in 3 Years

#144

Post by gosub100 »

9rx wrote: post #125
gosub100 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People didn't need to go to college before the death of the middle class. A couple generations ago you could rent an apartment and have a decent life working at a restaurant or warehouse or factory. Now most entry level jobs pay poverty level wages.

People didn't need to go to college because nobody cared. Employers were able to look at qualities of the actual person, not some outside attribute bolted onto the side. What changed was Griggs vs. Duke, which outlawed effectively all filtering mechanisms except a college degree, forcing the hand of employers. That still didn't mean the workers had to comply, though. What do you think would happen, with respect to em…

A 1970 court case doesn't explain why my childhood friends' parents could afford to own 3 bedroom houses and have 1-2 kids while working at chain restaurants, distribution centers, and hospitality. This was in the 1990s. People cannot have this life now with the same jobs. Even with college degrees, it's barely attainable. People are doing the same amount of work but what would have been their wages are being diverted to the rich. To the point that they can barely afford to survive.

Re: US Wholesale Inflation Rises by Most in 3 Years

#145

Post by saghm »

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.

That's wild, I had no idea they had gotten that high. When I was in college (2012-2016), the most expensive places were in the $50k-60k range, which already was quite absurd. The fact that they've grown so much even in the past decade is mind-boggling.

Re: US Wholesale Inflation Rises by Most in 3 Years

#146

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

Tesl wrote: post #123
jfengel wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In November 2024, inflation was at 2.7%. Inflation for the whole year was 2.9%. The public was so incensed that they threw out the government.

We all know Trump voters didn't give two shits about the price of eggs. That's not why they vote for him.

If eggs were about inflation, why did the price drop back down?

Re: US Wholesale Inflation Rises by Most in 3 Years

#147

Post by sjsdaiuasgdia »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #86
infecto wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had trouble following your core point. Do you have references regarding 900 bases with many bordering China. I have never seen such figures or that they border China.

Google Gemini 2.5 Pro just estimated 200 military bases close to China (I used “close” in my prompt, not very precise, so that number is likely including bases in the general area.) Gemini estimated 750 to 800 total military bases.

Why would you think those are good sources for a question like this?

Re: US Wholesale Inflation Rises by Most in 3 Years

#148

Post by vel0city »

elzbardico wrote: post #93
jahnu wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. The public in general can be really bad at perceiving the truth. I might take note of people's feelings to go and recheck something but I would not trust peoples feelings with stuff like this to make any sort of conclusion. Verifiable metrics…

Let's unpack this. The real, objective reality of people living their lives is not the Truth. But, instead a single index based on what is basically a bunch of arbitrary choices of a bunch of bureaucrats, subject to all kind of agendas and political/economical/social pressure, and based on an simulacrum of science that stands upon a bunch of questionable premises and unfalseable propositions is Truth. The pythagorean…

> The real, objective reality of people living their lives is not the Truth.

People usually aren't objective though even when looking around at their own lives. When evaluating inflation in groceries they'll point to a few things that have had some pretty massive spikes (beef, eggs, soda) and ignore a lot of the other things in their shopping cart that hasn't had anywhere near as much inflation (grains, pastas, lunchmeats, pork, lots of vegetables, potatoes, lots of fresh fruit, etc).

It can be pretty difficult for most people to actually be objective when looking at the world. Tons of people let emotions dominate what they see.

I'm not arguing the BLS price index numbers are entirely perfect measures of reality, but the number of times I've had people tell me things like eating out is 10x more expensive than it was a few years ago is quite high. Is that an objective reality?

Re: US Wholesale Inflation Rises by Most in 3 Years

#150

Post by infecto »

vancroft wrote: post #134
mark_l_watson wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Gemini 2.5 Pro just estimated 200 military bases close to China (I used “close” in my prompt, not very precise, so that number is likely including bases in the general area.) Gemini estimated 750 to 800 total military bases.

Al Jazeera reports around 750 US military bases, across the world but concentrated in Europe, Japan and South Korea, and the Middle East. Not quite bordering China. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/10/infographic-us-mili...

This is not wrong but the term base is click baity but probably an accepted definition from the pentagon. It’s include all facilities no matter or large or small and even those that are part of another base but not on the main campus. It’s almost like a count of buildings.
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