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U.S. annual inflation rate drops to 8.5%

bls.gov

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

#621

Post by spoonjim »

inflationish wrote: post #512
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…

Just read about the inflation trimming. It is one of the ways the government make inflation to appear lower than it is, making people happy. In US, the 31% of the goods with highest inflation are excluded, but only 24% of the goods with lowest inflation, making the inflation appear much lower than it is.

Trimmed inflation is a better measure than non-trimmed for goods with substitutes. Bacon going up 1000% in price is not as bad as all food going up 5% in price because you can just stop eating bacon, but you can't just stop eating.

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

#622

Post by s1artibartfast »

Balero wrote: post #528
ailef wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what kind of bubble people are in if they think Russia is about to surrender soon. According to the Western media they were running out of ammo in March, April, May and June. Meanwhile, with an incompetent army running out of supplies, they were apparently able to occupy 20% of Ukraine's territory.

To be clear. I agree with you, I doubt Russia will surrender any time soon. The conclusion as far as food goes is that globally, plans should be made that do not count on any food from Ukraine, or Russia entering global markets. I just took umbrage that OP was seemingly (and probably unintentionally) putting the blame for the situation on Ukraine and not Russia.

Innocent victims surrender all the time. I didn't read it as assigning blame or a moral position .

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

#623

Post by adamrezich »

weberer wrote: post #332

"In the fall of 1972, President Nixon announced that the rate of increase of inflation was decreasing. This was the first time a sitting president used the third derivative to advance his case for reelection." - Civ5

apparently the actual source of the quote is Hugo Rossi

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

#624

Post by hello_moto »

AlwaysRock wrote: post #405
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…

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…

It does make sense depending on your situation. In a typical US car-dependent cities, yeah, maybe commute is a big productivity killer. Having said that, pushing work all the time also lead to burn out so at some point the mundane tasks become decompressing time (only if you can appreciate sitting idle in traffic; everyone is different).

I live in a city where multiple grocery stores exist within 5 minutes of each other and I do enjoy doing mundane tasks outside my professional life. Those tasks made me pause, clear my mind, and escape the bubble that we called "work" (yes, work itself is a bubble).

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

#625

Post by RC_ITR »

jonnycomputer wrote: post #281
RC_ITR wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Of course it goes down. Take a look at this chart, expand to 10y or max; inflation was about -0.75% in early 2020. In fact, it went into negative territory many times in the last decade. Prices go down during recessions, particularly. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/inflation-rate-mo... OTOH, the Fed has goal of maintaining a 2% inflation target; so in the long run you can expect it to go up. For many many…

Prices are an index and very rarely is the index not at an ath. Even in The periods you mentioned, the index was only off ath for a month or 3 and that’s mostly noise from Energy prices, so no it never reached a new equilibrium below where it was (that would be disastrous)

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=SF8B

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

#626

Post by sleepydog »

hunterb123 wrote: post #513
banannaise wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should also have a high-rated chest cooler ("marine coolers" are great for this) in case of power outages. Move the freezer contents to the cooler, pack with dry ice, place in a cool shaded area, do not touch. It will stay frozen for close to a week.

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 I live the local power utility distributes dry ice in the summer during power outages.

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

#627

Post by zo1 »

ghaff wrote: post #481
Consultant32452 wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should be suspicious of any metric that attempts to whittle inflation down to a single number. The purpose of single number measures of inflation is so that the people who get judged by those metrics can manipulate them.

Yes, any single number that measures unemployment or inflation can be misleading which is why there are in fact multiple measures. However, the public generally is used to a specific unemployment measure and a specific inflation measure which is what's generally reported in the news.

They're used to half ass analysis from news outlets that report on that single number instead of doing their job and adding detail/nuance to the discussion.

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

#628

Post by dragonwriter »

jpadkins wrote: post #594
schemescape wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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

Case Shiller measures home prices (asset cost), not housing cost (rent expense, actual or forgone by choosing not to rent out a property you own.)

Also, the repeat sales method it uses has structural biases that favor increases.

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

#629

Post by RC_ITR »

werdnapk wrote: post #247
RC_ITR wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Deflation can occur; it's rare, but it's not a never scenario.

It has never occurred for more than a few months in The past 50 years and has never returned to a new equilibrium below where it was.

This is also a data resolution problem. Sure we measure in months, but is that a reasonable resolution? Why not days? Years? Etc.

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

#630

Post by daemoens »

ailef wrote: post #569
Balero wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right there are lots of real information out there. You have picked a 1. random unpopular youtube channel (which might be good, I couldn't verify anything from it, as I couldn't find who ran it, if you know I am happy to be proved wrong) and 2. A disbarred barrister https://twitter.com/markgaleotti/status/927087181532991489?l... . There is much better information to pick than this! Any information will have a…

> Your assertion that you can't see anyway for Ukraine to win is based on "If Russia loses, it would be the end of Russia". Well, if Ukraine loses it will be the end of Ukraine, so I guess by your logic Russia can't win either? (TBF, everyone losing to some degree is right with war). One big difference here is that Russia has nuclear weapons and Ukraine does not.

Nuclear weapons are too taboo to use for anything other than existential crises. Losing the war would be incredibly destabilizing, but as long as Ukraine doesn't suddenly start advancing to Moscow, they won't be used.
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