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US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war

bbc.com

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Re: US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war

#171

Post by b40d-48b2-979e »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #7

energy pricing is complex. some food for thought: if everyone believes the straight of hormuz is open, even if it is not, even if 20% less oil is being moved globally, what happens to oil prices? what happens to oil deliveries? is it possible for oil to be cheap in America while Bangladesh experiences shortages, instead of everyone paying more? is oil the same as energy? or is it more relevant to transportation? does…

    a lot of people like it.
No? We have no other option in the US outside of a few major cities because the oil lobby has ruined any public transit we can hope for.

Re: US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war

#172

Post by dirck-norman »

sosomoxie wrote: post #133
dirck-norman wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I’m a developer who has to deal with Zionism every day. We’re speed running IBM and the Holocaust. Commenting about it is the very least I can do. I have zero issue with Hezbollah.

[flagged]

Re: US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war

#173

Post by alistairSH »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #78
giantg2 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are real wages. We would expect to see that during a sudden jump in inflation. Wages tend to lag inflation. The other interesting part in that article is that excluding fuel and food still shows 2.8% inflation - only 1% attributable to food and fuel. Makes it seem like the main article and this article have different spins. Edit: Wow people are jumping on this. The point is that food and fuel increases account…

I will say, this past inflation spike has completely broken the assumptions I had from 1970s economics that employers would raise their 'cost of living' raises to keep pace with inflation. My employer seems to think 2.5% is fine, as they've done it multiple years in recent past with only one extraordinary year netting 4%. I am now very skeptical of any so called 'wage price spiral'

Employers will increase your wages just enough to keep you from leaving.

With structural disincentives to leaving (medical coverage in the US), that is almost always a less-than-inflation amount.

Do employers even call it a COL increase any more? My employer "rebranded" the annual raises as "merit increases" many years ago.

Re: US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war

#175

Post by runako »

randusername wrote: post #132
doctorpangloss wrote: post #7

energy pricing is complex. some food for thought: if everyone believes the straight of hormuz is open, even if it is not, even if 20% less oil is being moved globally, what happens to oil prices? what happens to oil deliveries? is it possible for oil to be cheap in America while Bangladesh experiences shortages, instead of everyone paying more? is oil the same as energy? or is it more relevant to transportation? does…

> is it possible for oil to be cheap in America while Bangladesh experiences shortages, instead of everyone paying more? I think the US has been ramping up domestic oil production for a while, creating an interesting situation where (global) prices are high but (domestic) supply is healthy. Prices are up at the pump in the US, but I'm not sure how much of that OPEC+ price-fixing or "risk premium".

In 2015, the US lifted its ban on exporting domestic oil. Since then, US domestic pricing has been linked to the global price.

This means that "domestic production" does not mean what you imply (which is "domestic production that must be sold in the US.") If US producers can make more money selling 100% of domestic production overseas, they will do that.

This is not price-fixing, it is the predictable outcome of a market design where US drivers bid against Asian airlines for petroleum products.

Re: US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war

#176

Post by mullingitover »

ptaffs wrote: post #8
sosomoxie wrote: post #4

A completely unnecessary war that benefits no one other than Israel and harms the rest of the world. The only positive to come from this is the annihilation of US military assets in the Middle East and an even deeper unity of the world against Zionism. It’s tough times but we will ultimately defeat this heinous ideology.

>benefits no one isn't correct. There are plenty of people on HN working in military contract industries, high tech arms manufacturing and such. They lobby Gov and benefit financially as do their employees.

The mayor's rock-throwing spree is doing wonders for growth in the town's window repair sector!

Re: US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war

#177

Post by [deleted] »

joe_mamba wrote: post #41
khriss wrote: post #32

I can't think of a single way in which the United States came out ahead in the war. We have * Demonstrated that the US simply can't offer any meaningful security guarantee to it's middle east partners. * Permanently ceded de facto control over the straits of Hormuz to Iran * Significantly strengthened the hardliners in the Iranian regime and cleared the way for them to have absolute power by eliminating all moderates…

>I can't think of a single way in which the United States came out ahead in the war. The stock market did, which is amazing if you're the top 10% of asset owners who own 50% of the country's wealth. >except Russia by heaping sky rocketing energy costs on them Russia doesn't benefit from this energy spike, since its biggest customers, China and India, have long term contracts that Russia can't just rip and renegotiate…

[deleted]

Re: US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war

#178

Post by wk_end »

cyberlurker wrote: post #115
bee_rider wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if it does benefit arms R&D folks. At least, as someone not too well informed on the military stuff, it looks like the moral of the story has been that our high-end stuff hasn’t functioned as well as the price tag lead us to expect, and a bunch of cheap drones might be the way to go. If I worked in military R&D I’d be worried that focus might shift away from the more speculative/less delivery-oriented/fun to…

I could see this happening if the point of the arms industry was defense and not a jobs program.

Domestically maybe, but international buyers aren't giving billions to American arms manufacturers to prop up American jobs.

Re: US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war

#179

Post by triceratops »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #170
zulux wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vietnam.

While Kennedy and then Johnson escalated US support to South Vietnam significantly, Eisenhower started it.

And Nixon prolonged it in order to win an election. [1] Regular people would call that treason.

1. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/06/nixon-vie...

Re: US inflation jumps to 3.8% as energy costs surge from Iran war

#180

Post by IncreasePosts »

parineum wrote: post #26
joe_mamba wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Part of the reason people voted for "no more wars" was because of the long history of more wars from both parties. Desperate people make desperate choices.

Trump would have had the same outcome if he said "more wars". People voted for the man, not his policies.
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