161–170 of 461 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
I want to be able to read flagged comments.... why is it no longer possible, /u/DANG? Because most of the time I don't agree with the flagging anyways.... and it is important to look at opposing views.
So depending on what we want to measure we'd chose different weights. If say for low income population interest rates play a bigger role (i.e. due credit card debt), than that may have significant weight.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I want to be able to read flagged comments.... why is it no longer possible, /u/DANG? Because most of the time I don't agree with the flagging anyways.... and it is important to look at opposing views.
Yeah the moderation is absolutely atrocious these days. I got flagged for quoting the IMF a few weeks ago lmao.
I recommend people use many different indicators to get a mental model of inflation, and you will notice that CPI does not represent inflation well. The memes of Arby’s 5 for $5 becoming 4 for $10 are more informative than the CPI numbers. Don’t let the shock at the grocery store wear off – it’s real and painful despite what the news tells you. True inflation would measure the amount of prosperity achieved per hour w…
This was unfortunately a deliberate consequence of the dot com boom, not something that happened in previous tech booms. Until around 2000 Palo Alto actually had a lower median income than some surrounding towns due to a policy of promoting section 8 housing, some SRO residences for the homeless etc. Those prior booms didn't suck in as many outsiders and mostly were nerds making fun tech (think of the mac). NYT amusingly published an article were they said how weird the SV was because people who drove mercedes cars still shopped at Costco rather than at "proper" shops appropriate to their "station".
Dot com sucked in a bunch of people who came only for the money ("I'm starting a company -- need a tech cofounder" is the complete opposite of those days when it was "I'm starting a company -- we're big enough that we need some business people"). Then we started to have fancy restaurants and pretentiously-named magazines about how to spend your money.
And then in 2000 the real estate people got control of the city council. The SROs were turned into boutique hotels and the city was re-organzied for the lucky.
PA used to be a town where the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and the like got started. Harold and Maude was (partially) filmed here. But such things are now inconceivable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Pick whatever word you like if "inflation" is reserved for economists because regular people are "just too dumb to understand". Regular people understand inflation just fine. How useful it is to them is debatable, but it doesn't have to be for everyone. It's okay if some measurements are only useful to scientists and economists. The measure of the speed of light doesn't mean much in my day to day life either, but w…
> what most people are looking for is simply cost of living measure You may have cracked the conundrum right there. People use inflation as a gauge of COL. That is incorrect, but understandable given the lack of a well-publicised national COL metric.
Which is interesting as you'd think actually living, and incurring the costs that go along with it, would be a much more useful gauge.
Probably goes along with my suspicion that most people, especially those not already accounting for business activities, don't keep any meaningful record of their transactions. Hard to calculate COL without data.
But at the same time, there isn't much effort in publishing national COL metrics as it is presumed that people will already know their own situation, which is always going to be way more telling. Individual COL can vary widely, even between neighbours, let alone on a national scale.
I recommend people use many different indicators to get a mental model of inflation, and you will notice that CPI does not represent inflation well. The memes of Arby’s 5 for $5 becoming 4 for $10 are more informative than the CPI numbers. Don’t let the shock at the grocery store wear off – it’s real and painful despite what the news tells you. True inflation would measure the amount of prosperity achieved per hour w…
> True inflation would measure the amount of prosperity achieved per hour worked. I think this isn't a measure of inflation per se, because productivity changes are big over the decades. But I do think looking at costs in terms of hours of work is really helpful. I think back to an event in some HS extracurricular when a group of students got to ask questions of a gubernatorial candidate, and one kid asked if he was…
It's then interesting to see how that looks in different economic brackets. Maybe in one bracket a car costs 1000 hours, and in another the same car costs 350 hours (so might as well get a 700 hour car. Still cheaper).
It remains absurd to me that the many ways inflation is measured and presented for the purpose of its impact on regular people is based almost entirely on its impact on funds with no meaningful component reflecting the impact on the overwhelming majority of distinct legal entities impacted by it. My opinion is that if there are changes to monetary policy based on the effect of inflation, the policy should be centered…
This might help. Idk enough about the topic to really interpret this in a helpful way. "When people talk about inflation, they usually refer to ordinary goods and services, which is tracked by the Consumer Price Index (CPI). This index excludes most financial assets and capital assets. Inflation of such assets should not be confused with inflation of consumer goods and services, as prices in the two categories are us…
What I am saying is that it does not make sense that the measurement that influences policy, is the one that only meaningfully measures a subset of the economy that is the minority of the all people impacted by that policy, and as a result the policy decisions are made to benefit entities that represent a minority of participants in the economy, that already have a disproportionately large amount of capital, and for whom the real world impact of bad policy changes is negligible.
If a government wants to make policy choices that impact economic outcomes for everyone, the measurement used to control that policy should reflect the actual economic reality of the majority of entities impacted that policy, and the policy choices should be based on ensuring the best outcome for the majority of those impacted by the policy.
The current use of "inflation" as a driver for fiscal and monetary policy, is BS: the definition of inflation that is being used to drive policy is one that does not reflect real world costs for the overwhelming majority of entities impacted by the policy, and the targeted outcome is "best outcome for a minority subset of the economy that are not subject to any the monetary or financial stressors or margins experienced by the majority". If we insist on a definition of "inflation" that does not reflect cost inflation for the majority of entities, then monetary policy should not be determined by "inflation".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> because it shows inflation is worse nowadays than in the 1980s. Obviously you didn't live through the 1980's, because that is obviously false to anybody who has.
>If these facts are so right, why do they sound false to me? Again, this appeal to the vibe you're getting right now is not compelling to anyone who actually cares about economics.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Meat was already expensive a year ago, it isn't unlikely that the price increased about 3.5%. And then of course, they often report monthly numbers on an annualized basis.
We’re at a point where my bigtech six figure circles are starting to notice and switch to chicken. But by all means do please continue to deny reality. Because by the looks of it we’re headed into a Carter style stagflation for the next 15 years.