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US Consumer Price Index up 4.2%

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Re: US Consumer Price Index up 4.2%

#301

Post by danaris »

SirMaster wrote: post #219
bluGill wrote: post #7

Remember this next time you get your yearly review/raise. 4.2% is what you need to stay even, anything less is a pay cut.

This never made sense to me. Doesn't this assume you are spending ALL your income though? If I make 100K and get a 3% increase, that's $3000 more. But if I only spend 30K to live, and my living expenses go up 5%, that's only a $1500 increase to my living expenses while I earned $3000 more that year. So how is that a pay cut if I actually have even more money left over that basically just goes into my investment accou…

But a huge percentage of Americans are spending all, or approximately all, of their income. (I don't know offhand if it's technically a majority, but if not, then it's not far under 50%.)

And these are the people who are going to be most affected by inflation and other price shocks.

Re: US Consumer Price Index up 4.2%

#302

Post by danaris »

bachmeier wrote: post #213
jr3592 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This actually makes 0 sense. Like, do you even understand what you're saying? The value of your savings is decreasing at a faster rate than ever before, so its a good time to stop saving and spend it? The stock market increasing is not the same thing as inflation. What you're saying makes sense only if you are referring to stock market valuation... strictly retiring because inflation is high makes no sense.

> This actually makes 0 sense. Like, do you even understand what you're saying? It makes perfect sense if the decision to work is based on real, after-tax income. Change the comment to say "the tax rate keeps climbing so I quit working" and it would not occur to anyone to challenge it. Once you have enough saved to generate income covering the very basics (probably somewhere around $30k/year in a LCOL area in the US)…

> Change the comment to say "the tax rate keeps climbing so I quit working" and it would not occur to anyone to challenge it.

Um, what?

Many people would challenge that, because it's absolutely bonkers.

The only way it could possibly make sense is if you're already wealthy enough to be able to retire. Which cuts out nearly everyone, even on this hopelessly-skewed forum.

Re: US Consumer Price Index up 4.2%

#303

Post by danaris »

jr3592 wrote: post #244
fluoridation wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

??? "All" it incentivizes? Uh, no. The vast majority of people don't treat their salaries as an investment opportunity, they have to live off it. If you need to fix your water heater, you might get it fixed now while inflation is high than wait until winter (not a great example given the time scales involved, but it gets the point across). Even if you have nothing that you desperately need, if inflation is really hig…

??? OBVIOUSLY if you absolutely HAVE to spend money because your life depends on it (ex: hot water) then you're going to be incentivized to spend it sooner rather than later in an inflationary market. I'm referring to discretionary spending. Eating out. Buying a new laptop. Traveling. Etc. This statement: "it pushes people to get rid of currency by any means they have available." is just flat out wrong. If you're dra…

> OBVIOUSLY if you absolutely HAVE to spend money because your life depends on it

Food. Clothing. Shelter.

For most people in the world, all or nearly all (or, in some cases, more than all!) of their annual earnings go toward these absolute necessities.

The way you talk here makes you sound incredibly out of touch, as if you think everyone has vast amounts of disposable income they can just chuck toward whatever investment opportunity looks best at the time.

Re: US Consumer Price Index up 4.2%

#304

Post by aaomidi »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #140
aaomidi wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not this report specifically but the other stuff the admin has done with the BLS.

It's unfortunately not limited to the current administration. We've had the government telling us to not trust our lying eyes about inflation at least since the Biden administration. At the time government officials were reassuring everyone that there wasn't inflation while everyone could see the prices going up everywhere.

BLS was not gutted then.

I have no love for Biden. I didn’t vote for him/kamala in the last election.

However I can also recognize that these two are not the same situation.

Re: US Consumer Price Index up 4.2%

#305

Post by fragmede »

inigyou wrote: post #262
jr3592 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Inflation does incentivize spending, yes. All inflation incentivizes is finding an asset class that isn't devaluing. If that is what you mean by "spending" then we align. But does inflation incentivize spending money on depreciating assets? Only for fools.

Everything depreciates in a long enough term. What would you rather own?

Does it? Outside of a couple of rich island city-states, they're not making more land, so on a long enough timeline, that asset class is bound to go up eventually. Same with gold – there's a limited supply of it on Earth, so at some point we'll mine it all, and then what? The question is how assets perform on a given timeline, and how it does relative to inflation. I could guarantee you 1% a year returns if you give me money, but no one would do that because that's less than inflation, as well as a number of other classes of assets.

Re: US Consumer Price Index up 4.2%

#306

Post by ajross »

hereme888 wrote: post #137
ortusdux wrote: post #23

The worst part of this report is my diminished faith in the numbers.

In an age when one opponent says "the economy is great!" and the other "the economy is doing terrible!", I just tune out and keep my own thoughts.

This kind of deliberate both-sides-ist ignorance is PRECISELY why those arguments work. You aren't being smart, you are giving your overlords permission to lie to you.

These are tractable (if complicated) questions with real (if imprecise and inevitably debatable) conclusions. Ignoring them because you don't like argument and are confused by the talking heads on the news is, to be blunt, destroying society.

Re: US Consumer Price Index up 4.2%

#307

Post by nonethewiser »

vkou wrote: post #295
nonethewiser wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it's been gamed for a long time. Did you know teh inflation metric can actually go down when staples it tracks goes up? Yup. If steak is tracked and it doubles in price, they can adjust the basket weights to reflect what they assume consumers will do: buy less beef and more chicken instead. So if Q1 steak=10 and Q2 steak=20 they might change the weights so that it's essential comparing Q1 steak to Q2 chicken. Wh…

> Yeah it's been gamed for a long time. Did you know teh inflation metric can actually go down when staples it tracks goes up? I mean, a horse buggy ride has significantly increased in price relative to the 19th century, but if it were tracked as part of a basket of goods, it absolutely makes sense to replace it with the equivalent automobile taxi.

Yeah but I'm not arguing it's never necessary to change the weights.

Im saying if steak is in the index and it doubles in price the index should go up (all else being equal).

Re: US Consumer Price Index up 4.2%

#308

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

khuey wrote: post #287
asdff wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget prop 13 in california, probably many beneficiaries of that policy on this forum.

Prop 13 is the other way around, inflation is to the taxpayer's advantage.

Important distinction: to the "HOME OWNER"s advantage.

Re: US Consumer Price Index up 4.2%

#309

Post by tennfown »

loudmax wrote: post #86
23ahgfqa wrote: post #10

The Iran conflict will continue on a low flame (occasional pinpricks like now) forever. It serves the US Energy Dominance Agenda against China, Japan, India and the EU. The Trump administration does not care about "its" population. There were already rumors early in the Trump term that Trump would not mind a recession so that his real estate cronies could buy cheap foreclosures. So it is all a double win for the olig…

That is ascribing far too much strategic thinking to this administration. They're just not capable of the kind of planning and foresight that would require. The administration's planning is much more along the lines of, Will this look cool when they announce it on Fox News tomorrow? If you think there's much beyond that, you're ascribing strategic clarity where there isn't any. They're continue to flail around and TA…

[dead]

Re: US Consumer Price Index up 4.2%

#310

Post by fluoridation »

fragmede wrote: post #305
inigyou wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything depreciates in a long enough term. What would you rather own?

Does it? Outside of a couple of rich island city-states, they're not making more land, so on a long enough timeline, that asset class is bound to go up eventually. Same with gold – there's a limited supply of it on Earth, so at some point we'll mine it all, and then what? The question is how assets perform on a given timeline, and how it does relative to inflation. I could guarantee you 1% a year returns if you give…

The price of land is approximately correlated to the total population, because that's the variable part of the supply-demand equation. If there's fewer people there's less need to grow a lot of food, less space needed to manage waste, less space needed to house them, etc. etc. There's nothing productive you can do with land that would justify a very high price if there's only 50 thousand humans in the world; if one parcel of land is too expensive just go find and claim a different one for yourself.

So, yes, on a long enough time frame, land also goes down in value, because human population is likely to at some point go down.

>I could guarantee you 1% a year returns if you give me money, but no one would do that because that's less than inflation

What do you mean, "no one would do that"? If you're guaranteeing that ROI, someone who's investing with you instead of holding currency at 2% inflation would see their savings depreciate by only half as much, at no risk, perhaps with just some liquidity loss depending on what your terms are for pulling out. I assure you there's people out there who would take that deal.

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