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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

#251

Post by WarmWash »

legitster wrote: post #104

BTW, the conflict is unlikely to resolve soon. The US has literally never honored a deal with Iran. Iran has no reason to negotiate with the US. The US either has to back down, put boots on the ground, or sit and wait. If the government survives, they had a quiet infrastructure investment from China they can activate to rebuild their damaged facilities.

Iran has Trumps balls in a vice.

Trump took a high risk gamble, that he would destabilize Iran and the people would overthrow the remnants. That didn't happen, and now Iran gets to inflict severe pain on the US.

I myself am delighted though, because everyone needs to get the fuck off oil, even if it's economically painful for a few years.

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

#252

Post by parineum »

newaccountman2 wrote: post #40
parineum wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There was literally no evidence voting for Trump would have reasonably led to less wars, and enough evidence, in fact, to the contrary.

There is a long history of evidence that voting for establishment candidates leads to more wars and Trump didn't start any new wars in his first term and reduced troop deployments in places where existing conflicts were active so I'm not sure what you mean by no evidence. Supporters were happy about that aspect of his first term.

But, like I said, desperate people make desperate choices. If you're a person who feels strongly about something the establishment wing of both parties agrees on, anti-establishment candidates look very appealing, warts and all.

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

#253

Post by mint5 »

giantg2 wrote: post #135
pastel8739 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> only 1% attributable to food and fuel What do you mean by this? If adding food and fuel raises CPI by 1%, then the food and fuel prices have necessarily raised by _more_ than the combined 3.8%.

"What do you mean by this?" Pretty simple - an overall increase of 1% inflation is attributed to food and fuel.

Umm okay so many other aspects of the cpi respond slower and this is a recent shock…

Food and fuel are more sensitive and respond first. There’s been no time for the effects to really get into the others.

And Food and fuel having huge jumps in inflation is major visible pain for consumers.

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

#254

Post by WarmWash »

bix6 wrote: post #109

What I don’t understand is how the stock market can be so decoupled from reality. It’s a game at this point and completely disconnected from reality. Everything should be down 20%+ given oil is an input to everything and yet stocks are ATHing.

Lesson from 2021:

Stocks (naturally) price in inflation before inflation becomes headlines everywhere. People uncertain about the dollar trying to shelter their wealth from inflation will move to stocks to shield themselves.

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

#255

Post by AntiUSAbah »

b40d-48b2-979e wrote: post #183
AntiUSAbah wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? This is not US politics. Its global politics and it affects me as well. Independent of this, hn is not a platform the avg person is visiting. It requires a certain amount of high tech expertise to understand the conent of hn which statistically pushes the avg hn reader above the avg person. You do know how much impact the USA has around the globe right? right?!

You are wildly overestimating your own self-worth with the "above the avg person" statement. hn is just a website. People browse and read whatever.

the context is it. it requires a certain amount of knowledge and skill. IT people earn above avg.

Its not far fetched.

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

#256

Post by toasty228 »

dwa3592 wrote: post #17

I understand it is a complicated calculation but to me personally, inflation feels much more than that. I have been tracking the price of milk. Around 3 months ago, i was getting a gallon of milk at $2.97, then it went up to 3.07, then 3.25. Yesterday I paid 3.40. That's like 15% gain on something as basic as milk. All numbers from the same store.

Inflation numbers are a scam, that's all, really.

They apply random multipliers to many products to account for "quality" and "performance", it completely skew the numbers and doesn't reflect the life of most people.

They even give you an example showing how the same car but with 3 more speeds, "smartphone integration" and "keyless entry" should be 3.6% inflation but actually counts as 0.6%

Same for computers, mobiles, etc.

https://www.bls.gov/cpi/quality-adjustment/vehicles.htm

https://www.bls.gov/cpi/factsheets/wireless-telephone-servic...

https://www.bls.gov/cpi/factsheets/personal-computers.htm

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

#257

Post by WarmWash »

bix6 wrote: post #214
AntiUSAbah wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably very true, very simplified. The best strategy then would be to know when the retirement fund money stops doing this due to age pyramid collapse i would assume.

Aren’t we approximately there? The boomers are all starting to draw down for retirement.

On paper the US is good for another 20yrs, boomers had lots of children and the US had very generous immigration policies.

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

#258

Post by dualvariable »

WarmWash wrote: post #153
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…

The saving grace is that China (well modern living CCP members) have never had an armed conflict. China's military ranks are people who got there by playing politics and bending exercises to their benefit rather than showing battlefield competence. There are no war vets or experienced players. So while they might have incredible man power and manufacturing capability, everyone in that first battle will be seeing batt…

The flip side is that the US isn't used to fighting anything other than asymmetric warfare / insurgencies / terrorism against people who can't project force and can't really hit back. We park valuable assets out in the open on military bases and installations around the world, and don't do anything to shelter them or even move them around during a conflict because of hubris.

Iran also basically just fought us to a stalemate, with an arguably long-term strategic victory going to Iran, just by being willing to absorb more punishment in the short term. Once we depleted our stocks of expensive weaponry we had to stop. We could win every fight and still lose the war.

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

#259

Post by mint5 »

giantg2 wrote: post #156
HumblyTossed wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most Americans (aka: not the top 5% like SWEs), food and fuel increases hurt a lot.

Most SWEs are not top 5%. The median is about $135/yr, and a significant portion of us make under that. The point was that a 1% increase in inflation due to food and fuel wasnt the end of the world. Does a 1% cost of living increase hurt? Sure, for many people on the margin of making ends meet it can be bad. For most people, $1 more out of $100 is survivable.

You do realize food and fuel didn’t just rise 1% on an annual basis? Right?

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

#260

Post by squibonpig »

JeremyNT wrote: post #196
bparsons wrote: post #88

Frankly, it is a miracle that inflation is this low. Markets have not fully metabolized the impact from the closure of the Persian Gulf.

I keep thinking this but... line keep going up. I've seen reporting that energy prices won't return to pre-war levels this calendar year, even assuming an immediate return to the status quo basically right now (which seems unlikely). I find the whole thing really confusing. The facts I can see with my own eyes suggest high inflation and this surely means no substantial rate cuts (which... the market has expected) if…

We probably aren't missing anything. It just can't happen right now because if the stock market capitulates then it does so for years and everyone loses a bunch of money. Their only option is to hope for some kind of end or bailout or whatever that keeps getting further away, and they've pushed that hope way past reason.
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