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

US annual inflation declines to 7.7% in October vs. 7.9% expected

bls.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 566 posts

Re: US annual inflation declines to 7.7% in October vs. 7.9% expected

#71

Post by germandiago »

throwingrocks wrote: post #27
fasteddie31003 wrote: post #16

RANT: This inflation and coming recession is entirely on the hands of the current leadership in the Fed and Treasury. Their super-low interest rates over the years are coming full circle. We live in a centrally planned economy. My advice to the Fed is to set the Fed Funds Rate to equal inflation! This will stop the wild swings in the economy and keep inflation in check. When the Fed Funds Rate is lower than inflation…

Yeah....and the inflation we're seeing elsewhere in the world is just a coincidence.

there is some truth in that rant. The inflation, btw, can be imoorted via currency exchange.

For example, anything for which you pay in dollars (a strong dollar now) is more expensive. If you add the exchange rate to the fact of the inflation itself you end up paying the sum of both differences.

The strong dollar is also the reason why EU has no choice but to follow the interest rate escalation from dollars: if they do not do it, people run away to buy follars because the euro suffers depreciation.

Complex topic, with more ramifications than it looks at first.

Re: US annual inflation declines to 7.7% in October vs. 7.9% expected

#72

Post by [deleted] »

substation13 wrote: post #25
transcriptase wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you’re saying you don’t buy a new TV every time you get groceries?

Even if you did, the stats are suspect. They include the screen area of the TV in the calculation, so TVs are getting better for the price, but not cheaper to the extent being suggested.

[deleted]

Re: US annual inflation declines to 7.7% in October vs. 7.9% expected

#73

Post by bt4u »

nivenkos wrote: post #26

The US has it easy, since the inflation was largely caused by lockdown stimulus, and also benefits from being the global reserve currency so it can leverage cheap imports as the interest rate rises increase the value of USD. I wouldn't be surprised if it's better in a few months, especially with the growing protectionism in the anti-inflation act, etc. and acts against Chinese competition, etc. keeping more industry…

No post body was provided.

Re: US annual inflation declines to 7.7% in October vs. 7.9% expected

#74

Post by lotsofpulp »

Spivak wrote: post #45
bombcar wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no possible way to make an inflation number that works for one person, let alone a whole country. The best you can do is have a statistic that you stay with and compare.

Yes but that doesn’t mean we can’t have different baskets and look at that. Because “staple inflation” which covers food, water, electricity, gas, transportation, rent, and healthcare would be more useful measure for most Americans. 7% inflation with the current basket is meaningless to everyone but economists, but 20% inflation on the major household expenses tells you how much your bills are going to go up in real…

No one is forcing anyone to use one basket.

Re: US annual inflation declines to 7.7% in October vs. 7.9% expected

#75

Post by tharne »

elil17 wrote: post #32
namelessoracle wrote: post #7

Quoted post unavailable.

It's not a lie, it's just not so simple that you can stop reading after the headline. This very post includes information about category-by-category inflation. Inflation for food has been about 10% YOY. Dairy is 15% and fresh milk is 14.5% (13.2% for whole milk and 15.4% for 0, 1, and 2% milk).

The numbers are a lie, or at the very least, vastly understate the impact. For example, if I used to buy grass-fed beef, but am now buying the grade D crap because prices are so high, that doesn't get captured in the inflation numbers. And there are a whole host of things like that; you'll notice many hotels have scaled back on cleaning frequency but the price of a room hasn't gone done, so you're paying the same for less. Again, that's not reflected in the inflation number.

Re: US annual inflation declines to 7.7% in October vs. 7.9% expected

#76

Post by calmlynarczyk »

namelessoracle wrote: post #7

Quoted post unavailable.

That's why the BLS provides data for broken-down categories that make up the overall CPI calculation. Groceries saw a 12.4% increase in prices from a year ago, with dairy products at 15.5%. Restaurant food is up 8.6% for the year. And since you don't provide a reference point for when your anecdotal price data was taken, there's no way to say if it's in line with the official CPI data.

If you follow the official data 3 years back to pre-COVID/loose(r) fiscal policy in October 2019, then restaurant food prices are up 18.8% according to BLS, which is right in line with the Dollar Menu datapoint you provided.

Re: US annual inflation declines to 7.7% in October vs. 7.9% expected

#77

Post by dawnerd »

elil17 wrote: post #32
namelessoracle wrote: post #7

Quoted post unavailable.

It's not a lie, it's just not so simple that you can stop reading after the headline. This very post includes information about category-by-category inflation. Inflation for food has been about 10% YOY. Dairy is 15% and fresh milk is 14.5% (13.2% for whole milk and 15.4% for 0, 1, and 2% milk).

Also depends on the geographic region. Soft beverages for example in some places haven’t changed much but out here on the west coast have done from 4 for 10 dollars on sale to 3 for 15 for 12 packs.

Re: US annual inflation declines to 7.7% in October vs. 7.9% expected

#78

Post by hnburnsy »

jeffbee wrote: post #43
namelessoracle wrote: post #7

Quoted post unavailable.

In the last USDA retail market report, the national weight average advertised price of milk was $2.98/gal, and last year it was $2.98/gal. In 2014 it was $3.78/gal.

Yeah milk is a horrible product to base inflation on as the market is not a free marker due to Federal marketing orders. I believe its called the Eau Claire rule as Eau Claire was once the center of the dairy industry.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_orders_and_agreeme...

Re: US annual inflation declines to 7.7% in October vs. 7.9% expected

#80

Post by matwood »

lunaru wrote: post #31

It bears repeating because this is a common mistake in inflation discussions: a decrease in inflation metrics means price increases are slowing down, it doesn’t mean that prices are going down （that would require a negative CPI print). Also, this number is year over year, so the decrease just means the price increases between Oct 21 and Oct 22 are not as steep as between Sept 21 to Sept 22, which is not hard to achie…

And to add to your explanation, because inflation jumped so quickly and then slowed we'll eventually hit a YoY number that plummets. If milk is $4/gallon today and still $4/gallon 12 mos. from now, that's 0% YoY inflation.

This will inevitably lead to people saying the numbers are fake because milk used to be $2/gallon.

Post reply on HN