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U.S. annual inflation rate drops to 8.5%

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Re: U.S. annual inflation rate drops to 8.5%

#231

Good news I guess. But my electricity price literally doubled. My house insurance is up 30%. My gas bill is up by a lot. Have you seen the price of oreos? The $5 box at Taco Bell is my splurge and I'm trying to cut back on everything I can.

> My house insurance is up 30%.

Shop around

Re: U.S. annual inflation rate drops to 8.5%

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like EV uptake rate, while still just a fraction of total sales, is probably high enough to contribute to demand destruction. Gas prices have come down pretty fast. I wonder if EV adoption goes fast enough that we'll see a period of time when gas prices just crater for a while. A sweet spot of owning an ICE vehicle, but then gas stations will start to close up and ICEV owners could face the same problem EV owne…

EVs are ~1% of cars and ~5% of new car sales. It seems like we have another 5 years until those scale effects start to really kick in.

Price is set at the margin. If demand is 101% of supply, the price goes up. If demand is 99% of supply, the price goes down.

Re: U.S. annual inflation rate drops to 8.5%

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The inflation on food due to high fuel and fertilizer prices won’t really kick in until October -> February during harvest. Next year food will be far higher, largely due to - people skipping fertilizer a second year in a row - the feed price increases from year prior will impact next years meat - much of the cow herds have been reduced due to hay prices skyrocketing (but beef rates staying far lower, due to sell off…

I'm not trying to be glib or intentionally controversial, but: is this a "market correction" for beef not really being as sustainable at recent consumption levels? Is it a bad thing if beef becomes significantly more expensive?

They’re pushing all kind of narratives to make cattle seem like they’re terrible for the world, and linking everything to climate change.

No one wants to accept the push to start eating bugs. Don’t give into the WEF propaganda

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/18/cows-sea...

Re: U.S. annual inflation rate drops to 8.5%

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar in Florida with FPL(the utility company) [0]. We are now paying more. These are the new rates [1]. [0] https://cleanenergy.org/blog/fpls-holiday-surprise-810-milli... [1] https://www.fpl.com/content/dam/fplgp/us/en/rates/pdf/res-ju...

I've heard from friends in the Gainesville area (GRU) that their bills have been in the 800 - 1100 range!!! Before I moved in 2010, I had a almost 500 bill and even that was just insane. When I look at the population of that area, I ask, "how many of your customers can actually afford rates like that? That's like a mortgage payment!"

At those prices won’t investing in solar make sense? Most likely it will yield a massive savings?

Re: U.S. annual inflation rate drops to 8.5%

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The inflation on food due to high fuel and fertilizer prices won’t really kick in until October -> February during harvest. Next year food will be far higher, largely due to - people skipping fertilizer a second year in a row - the feed price increases from year prior will impact next years meat - much of the cow herds have been reduced due to hay prices skyrocketing (but beef rates staying far lower, due to sell off…

I'm not trying to be glib or intentionally controversial, but: is this a "market correction" for beef not really being as sustainable at recent consumption levels? Is it a bad thing if beef becomes significantly more expensive?

Production of beef is at sustainable levels, provided cheap energy.

But increase fertilizer 3-10x and fuel 3-5x and you’re going to adjust in prices. And you’re going to get a new sustainable level.

Btw when I say “sustainable” I mean market conditions, not environment. The environment can likely handle far more cattle, but it requires input (fuel, fertilizer, etc) for us to produce said cattle.

Recall, there used to be millions (probably tens of millions) of bison roaming the Americas. We basically replaced them with cattle. Cattle are constrained to a region and fed food from farms. Environmental wise, I don’t see much issue with cattle (when comparing to other pollutants)

Re: U.S. annual inflation rate drops to 8.5%

#236
post #194

Good news I guess. But my electricity price literally doubled. My house insurance is up 30%. My gas bill is up by a lot. Have you seen the price of oreos? The $5 box at Taco Bell is my splurge and I'm trying to cut back on everything I can.

One thing about inflation is that it will never go back down. Best case scenario is it stops growing.

This is the one thing which pisses me off when corporate brass justify not adjusting pay because "inflation is just transitory".

Re: U.S. annual inflation rate drops to 8.5%

#237
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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It’s costs me about $100-$160 a month in the winter for gas to heat my home in the Deep South. My area is upgrading gas lines and now the base surcharge is $35. However that’s not a forever charge. My price per therm has more than doubled when I renewed this year. That won’t mean my bill doubled as there about $40 or so in fixed costs before gas use is accounted for. Edited winter numbers above: December: $100 Januar…

To make you feel a little bit better:

For similar size house in energy-efficient building tech we pay around 300$ per winter month for heating.

And its “cheap” because house is well isolated. (EU)

Re: U.S. annual inflation rate drops to 8.5%

#238
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Sausage McMuffin and a coke used to cost $2.12 at most locations near me two years ago. Today it varies from $2.95 up to $3.85 (strangely this high value is in Detroit proper where income is lowest vs the burbs). I notice this price varies even at the same locations sometimes, but it's WAY up in general by a solid 50 percent in 2 years.

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Inflation - value of currency going down - would also drive stock prices up even if the underlying value is stable.

Re: U.S. annual inflation rate drops to 8.5%

#239

So the year over year CPI increase each month this year (starting from January) was 7.5%, 7.9%, 8.5%, 8.3%, 8.6%, 9.1%, 8.5%. So this value has been jumping around a bit as it has been going up. This drop is being taken as good news -- but I worry whether this is really a meaningful drop or whether we are just over interpreting what could be a fundamentally noisy metric?

I don't think anyone serious is taking this as anything more than mildly encouraging.
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