Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

U.S. annual inflation rate drops to 8.5%

bls.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

591–600 of 918 posts

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

#591

Post by eertami »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #263
mynameishere wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha ha, no. That's where the money is. They have like 90 percent margins on those syrup/water mixes. ... I like discussions about inflation though because everyone brings up a particular item from their own budget. For instance, have you priced Little Debbie Zebra Cake Rolls lately? Did you even know they exist? It's like a mixture of a Swiss Roll and a Zebra Cake and they are completely awesome and I'm pretty sure th…

> They have like 90 percent margins on those syrup/water mixes. Not really. There's this myth that it only costs a few pennies to fill a cup with soda. I was a manager at a Subway from 2006 to 2012, so I got to see the costs of all our food. I did the math and found it cost about 1.7 cents per ounce dispensed, so a 32 oz soda cost 54.4 cents to fill assuming no ice. The cup/lid/straw cost us about 12 cents. At the ti…

> 32oz soda ... $1.69

I'm sorry, what? People drink a whole litre of soda with their lunch? I don't understand this on multiple levels. Who would buy this, why would anyone sell it, and should that even be legal?

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

#592

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

c22 wrote: post #351
Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They have like 90 percent margins on those syrup/water mixes. Not really. There's this myth that it only costs a few pennies to fill a cup with soda. I was a manager at a Subway from 2006 to 2012, so I got to see the costs of all our food. I did the math and found it cost about 1.7 cents per ounce dispensed, so a 32 oz soda cost 54.4 cents to fill assuming no ice. The cup/lid/straw cost us about 12 cents. At the ti…

Okay, what was the margin on sandwiches?

The cost of ingredients for sandwiches was 22-35%, depending on what sandwich it was. Of course, that's only for the ingredients themselves.

About 20% of revenue went to labor. I'm sure you're thinking, "But if you can make a sub in under a minute, and you pay $10/hr, shouldn't it be less?", but there's a lot of time spent not making sandwiches, such as cleaning, baking bread, and other food prep. Sure, the lettuce came pre-shredded in bags, olives and jalapenos are pre-sliced, but we had to slice the tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and green peppers.

And then of course, there's the cost of rent and utilities, plus franchising fees. Overall, our profit margin was under 10%.

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

#593

Post by failTide »

jcranmer wrote: post #403
hajile wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an artifact of dumping 30% of the strategic oil reserves into the market to drive down prices. Maybe the prices stay low, but with Europe warning of fuel shortages this winter, I can't see that happening.

The prospective fuel shortages in Europe are mostly to do with natural gas, not oil and oil derivatives, no?

If Europe ends up with a massive shortage of natural gas for heating, would that significantly increase the demand for heating oil?

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

#594

Post by jpadkins »

schemescape wrote: post #530
jpadkins wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 1980 and prior CPI calculation is still calculated here: http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts As inflation was measured in the 1970's, we are experiencing ~15% consumer inflation.

ShadowStats claims ~8% inflation since 2000, i.e. a 5x cumulative increase in cost of living. I don't buy it.

Case Shiller home price index is another measure that shows 4X increase in housing costs since 2000. housing is a large component of cost of living.

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/case-shiller-home...

See fork above, shadowstats is probably overstating but BLS data is probably understating consumer inflation.

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

#595

Post by ncallaway »

bialpio wrote: post #564
hunterb123 wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or pull your generator out and power your cooler and other essentials. Much easier than trying to get and find dry ice in an emergency.

Where does one normally find dry ice in the US, even when there's no emergency? Is it a commonly stocked thing?

Costco or Walmart will often carry it. Many grocery stores (but definitely not all) will have it so it’s worth asking.

My favorite use is sparkling grapes. https://sciencenotes.org/how-to-make-fizzy-fruit-with-dry-ic...

Put (food grade) dry ice at the bottom of a bowl, then a clean cloth or towel (for insulation), then grapes. Ideally our a loose fitting cover over the bowl.

As the dry ice sublimates, it passes through the grapes which will capture some of the CO2 and carbonate the grapes.

Very fun, and much less practical, use of dry ice…

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

#596

Post by DubiousPusher »

xvedejas wrote: post #372
scottLobster wrote: post #266

Great. All I know is I'm trading a lot more time for money this year. Way less takeout, avoiding toll roads unless it saves at least 30 minutes, fewer streaming services (will renew on a show-by-show basis), and food is getting so crazy I might start going to multiple stores to try and save money instead of my one consolidated trip to Wegmans. I'm also stuffing my freezer with meat and have a year's supply of non-per…

I'm riding my bike a lot more to get places, rather than just for recreation; and it seems this is true for many around me as well.

If possible, spending a few years without a car can be a great way to save a lot of money.

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

#597

Post by adamisom »

88913527 wrote: post #461
AlwaysRock wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I know I can make 65 an hour with side jobs. I've got a few side gigs where I can set my own schedule and work those hours at any time. I could probably push higher if I wanted (75-100 an hour). When I need to pad my savings I cut some costs but mostly I just work extra hours in side gigs. I couldnt imagine its worth going to multiple grocery stores to compare prices. Shop at 1 store, pay more for some items, work…

Not everyone is interested in performing side jobs, and comparing weekly ads and sales prices can be a 'fun' optimization problem. It's a more productive use of time than whatever the alternative would've been (social media, watching television, etc). Moderately large grocery stores have real web apps these days so you can get pricing data and track it over time. Combine that with the personalized deals / digital cou…

The elephant in the room for any analysis like "It's a more productive use of time than whatever the alternative would've been (social media, watching television, etc)." is that, y'know, maybe people need to find good uses of their time other than working.

But that sounds elitist so nobody says it. Doesn't make it any bit less true.

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

#598

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

eertami wrote: post #591
Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They have like 90 percent margins on those syrup/water mixes. Not really. There's this myth that it only costs a few pennies to fill a cup with soda. I was a manager at a Subway from 2006 to 2012, so I got to see the costs of all our food. I did the math and found it cost about 1.7 cents per ounce dispensed, so a 32 oz soda cost 54.4 cents to fill assuming no ice. The cup/lid/straw cost us about 12 cents. At the ti…

> 32oz soda ... $1.69 I'm sorry, what? People drink a whole litre of soda with their lunch? I don't understand this on multiple levels. Who would buy this, why would anyone sell it, and should that even be legal?

I take it you're not American.

We Americans love our soda far more than our friends around the world.

I had sticker shock when I went to Italy a couple weeks ago and if I ordered a soda at a restaurant, I'd pay 3-4 euros and get a tiny 8 oz can.

In America, at a restaurant, if you order a soda, it's $2-4, and you'll usually get a 12 or 16 oz cup and get free refills.

At least I stick to the Diet/Zero-Sugar varieties so I'm keeping the calories down.

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

#599

Post by jader201 »

iflint wrote: post #175
radioactivist wrote: post #97

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?

Be careful using the YoY number, you need to factor in the base effect. (i.e. the change in YoY number each month factors in the new month of data but also the month 13 months ago that is no longer included) MoM is a cleaner way to look at things in volatile times like these.

This should be higher.

I realized when monitoring COVID data that rolling numbers like this can be heavily impacted by the number that’s rolling off.

Take, for example, a 7-day COVID case count of 100. The next day this drops to 90. That’s great, right?

Well, if yesterday’s 7-day values were all 100, and today’s are 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 30, then yes, that’s great!

But if yesterday’s 7-day values were 700, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, and today’s are 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 630, then that’s potentially very bad (depending on other context).

This is obviously a hyperbole, but it shows that looking at and comparing rolling numbers can be tricky, and you need to look at other context to get the full picture.

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

#600

Post by wonderwonder »

nradov wrote: post #410
scottLobster wrote: post #266

Great. All I know is I'm trading a lot more time for money this year. Way less takeout, avoiding toll roads unless it saves at least 30 minutes, fewer streaming services (will renew on a show-by-show basis), and food is getting so crazy I might start going to multiple stores to try and save money instead of my one consolidated trip to Wegmans. I'm also stuffing my freezer with meat and have a year's supply of non-per…

Buying extra meat when it's on sale and storing it in a chest freezer is probably the best "investment" that most families can make. It usually has a higher ROI than buying stocks or whatever. Even during inflationary times, retailers occasionally end up with excess supplies of some cuts of meat or advertise loss leaders to boost store traffic so you can buy a lot if you have freezer space to store it. Just be carefu…

I have a friend that bought half a cow from a farmer. Fully butchered he spends approx. $5 a pound for the meat.
Post reply on HN