30 year mortgage rates just hit 7.29... make that %7.34.
I should have done more investing in real estate about 20 years ago.
I should have done more investing in real estate about 20 years ago.
Last edited:
OT: CPI comes in hot - +3.5% year over year
- Thread starter alumnidawg
- Start date
- Status
Don’t think anyone questions that prices for all that is up vs. late January 2021. It’d all be up even more if you went back to March 2020. But ultimately the question is what are all those prices relative to April 10th, 2023?
Biden assumed power in the midst of the recovery from the most deadly, disruptive, and economically taxing global historical event since World War II. It was never going to be smooth sailing for him or anyone else, from either side of the aisle. Doesn’t mean I like him or agree with his policies, but that’s reality. The perfect storm of irresponsible Fed policy for 5+ years and a pandemic has created this mess.
What people don’t realize is that inflation will never go negative in this country. Ever. If it ever does, that’s when you really do need to find as many firearms and ammo and canned goods as you can, because the apocolypse is afoot. All it can do is decelerate. Outside of your acute shortages for specific goods, there’s a new price shelf happening everywhere, all the time. If cereal is $7 a box now, its going to be at least $7 a box from now until the end of time. That’s just what has to be accepted by everyone.
Is it decelerating in the areas outside of housing? That is the real question.
I don't expect negative inflation. And I don't absolve the previous administration, either.
If you want to use April 10, 2023 as a benchmark, well, that's kinda not fair since it's allowing for a reset to the "new normal" first.
We've seen numerous large-scale spending bills pass in the last three years. There was a huge infrastructure bill and an alleged inflation reduction act. There's been large omnibus bills stuffed with pork. We're still sending hundreds of millions of dollars to Ukraine (we're spending more there annually than our own marine budget). Biden is literally breaking the law and defying SCOTUS to pay for student loans. We have an illegal immigration problem that is also having a huge negative impact on this economy and nobody is talking about that.
And to be clear, it's not just a Biden problem. Plenty of republicans are endorsing some of this stuff too.
It's going to take something catastrophic to get everyone's heads right again, and I fear what that looks like because it's going to be painful.
It would be a stretch to say that it will never go negative. There may even be a time where it's necessary that it goes negative. The problem with making economic projections in the future based on the past is that we have a very limited data set for economic fluctuations in the technological environment we're currently in. What happened 50,100, 150 years ago has no bearing on anything happening today. The variables are all too far apart. We have no idea what we're dealing with now and we'll have no idea how today's variables will be applicable to the US or the global economy that exists in 50 years.
What we do know is that staying diversified in your investments, and choosing a career path that projects job security now and in the future is the best overall course of action to take for financial security. Too many people are focused on getting rich and impressing others and make dumb decisions with their income.
Congress gets criticized a lot but theres plenty of blame to go around for careless financial decisions in the general public.
The problem is not really that there is a leadership vacuum. It's a combination of not really having a cohesive coalition that makes sense and having a bunch of morons.
It used to be that Senators were smart and representatives were considered dumb but mostly weren't. Now senators aren't smart on average and we have a lot of representatives that actually are dumb. If you make less than say $175k and have flexible morals and little to no shame, you should feel like a complete moron because that's how much representatives make before graft and trading off of info they get from their job. If you're not a moron and don't make $175k, you should really be gearing up to run in the next election.
A Georgist tax system wouldn't be political feasible, but it would help some if we just taxed land value and not improvements. Bat **** crazy that we punish people that generate productive assets with higher taxes. I can understand not wanting to levy punitive taxes on people for sitting on undeveloped or underdeveloped property, but at least tax them the same amount as the ones that are adding value to society.
Read carefully. I have not claimed that ALL cost increases are due to higher corporate profits and profit margins. I said that it can explain SOME of the cost increases that consumers are experiencing. I have actually said some version of 'some' multiple times now.
Groceries cost more for many reasons. You mentioned some of those reasons. Another reason is that corporations have increased prices beyond their increased expenses. That is what increased margins means.
I have not even suggested that corporations should eat their higher costs and make less money. F17S, do you read the posts you respond to? I have clearly stated that I do not begrudge corporations for increasing profits when they have the power within markets to do so.
I would say it doesn't really explain anything in the context of a discussion on inflation. Because we've rapidly expanded the money supply, price levels are up in general and almost everything costs more. That is to a first approximation, the reason groceries cost more; we're rapidly expanded the money supply and their costs have inflated just like most everything. Relative prices are changing as they always do, so market conditions may result in the excessive increase in money supply pushing some prices up more than others, but I'm not sure what it adds to point that out unless you have an explanation of what those market forces are.
Eggs have gone up faster than inflation in general because of a bird flu outbreak is explanatory. I don't think just saying margins are higher explains anything without some reason stores/producers can charge enough to get greater margins. I think one not really testable hypothesis is that 3% margins (which is what I generally heard for grocery stores; not sure about producers like Kraft or General mills), were always sort of paper thin and it's not surprising that a market shakeup would result in margins settling at a higher level (much higher by percentage, but not much on an absolute basis). Another possibility is that they got hammered by inflation for a couple of years and now it's bouncing back. I know a few people that had record losses in 2021 and 2022 because they couldn't or didn't escalate pricing with inflation, and now that they have had a year, year and a half of big price increases with moderating inflation, they are experiencing record profits. I think because everybody was mostly in the same boat and somewhat scarred by their losses in the prior year or two, they are more concerned about undershooting their costs with price increases than they are with losing business because of high prices. I assume their margins are going to get compressed over the next few years if inflation is level and they get less worried about inflation and more about competing for volume.
"That's a great point, Jim. And we have some breaking disinformation right now..."
These 2 paragraphs don’t really align. The whole point of inflation not ever going negative is that each new high IS the new normal. That’s what it means. And really not even the long term normal, because even the next year its gonna be 2% higher, best case scenario.
So if inflation is in fact stable compared to pre-COVID times for all commodities except housing - which is a problem decades in the making - then it can very reasonably be argued that the Fed policy is negligent and irresponsible in many ways by keeping millions of Americans from tapping into home equity by selling their homes. This is regardless of whether they are trading up or not. Its also forcing millions more young professionals to rent and not build that equity even when they easily make enough money to afford what would be a very nice first home if the prices were the same as they were only 2-3 years ago. That’s going to create a huge wealth shortfall for a new working generation of 3 years and counting until the problem is fixed.
We’ve seen numerous large scale spending bills in every presidential administration since W took over. This isn’t exclusive to Biden or Trump, as you have noted below.
Bingo.
Well the last 2 catastrophic events in 2008 and 2020 did nothing to get people’s heads right. It only exposed the cracks in the system that were years in the making. The next one, I’m guessing, is going to be the same. You take tens of thousands in spending power away from millions of young Americans, for 3,5, 10(?) years via lack of home equity…..that next recession is going to be a beast. Whenever it is. Those are the current cracks. That and the exploding cost of college tuition.
If things don't change Biden better hope voters in swing states vote before going to the grocery store or filling car up with gas.
I’d say Biden is toast, but with the millions of illegals being registered to vote, never say never.
Cereal is high enough that it is worth adjusting your taste to whatever Sam's sells.
If you consider the cost of beef, I would be surprised if that was NOT right.
^ Obviously never 17d a nun before. Just saying.
housing is crazy. I heard an CRE guy out of CA discussing big city commercial who anticipated that up to 30% of commercial real estate will be vacant and worth nothing. His position was that for CRE that was suitable for conversion to residential it would take some kind of government subsidy of around 25% to not lose money. I know someone looking to build a house in Starkville right now and builders are quoting $225/ft.
Do you guys have children under 8 years of age?
Who the H3LL even eats cereal anymore much less throw your money away on it?
Who the H3LL even eats cereal anymore much less throw your money away on it?
The Biden Admin did the exact opposite of stupid: they didn't do what didn't work the last time. They didn't assume that if they were underestimating how bad things were, that they could come back to Congress for more aid because Congress is noble and would do the right thing rather than play politics. They LEARNED that it's better to overshoot than understood. Props to them. Better to be judged by Monday morning qbs who are never satisfied over some inflation than preside over another Great Recessoon.
You just gotta love the absolute complete lack of critical thinking skills here. Hey guys, let's go back to the robber baron monopoly days, it's cool cause corps are always greedy! So dumb to complain that the lack of good policy led to market inefficiencies that allowed corps to jack up prices beyond normal market fundamentals, cause corps are always greedy yall! Derp de derp derp!!
They are supposed to eat it because competition will force them to. Competition is supposed to keep them from seeing record profits. Newsflash: if ANY industry is seeing record profits at ANY time, let alone one of high inflation, then there's a clear lack of competition. And what policy decisions could have resulted in a lack of competition?
NARRATOR: "Competition does not exist to prevent companies from seeing record profits."
NARRATOR CONTINUES: "And why the hell did it take Boom Boom so long to come running to the rescue?"
That's dirt cheap compared to what is being asked for existing home sales. I've been looking at places in Starkville and they're north of 250/sq ft.
Starkville is one of the highest areas in MS. Real estate is way ridiculous but...that's the market
Wait till green policies exacerbate this further.
Competition doesn't exist to prevent record profits. It's an effect of a free market, the result of rational actors seeking their own profits. Policy worked to undercut it. But you clearly don't understand any of that and don't want to learn, so good day.
They already are, but yes, it's going to get a lot worse with this bunch in power.
You literally said in the the post I quoted "competition is supposed to keep them from seeing record profits."
Competition exists to give companies opportunities to maximize profit. Companies are competing with each other to win more customers. And it's not just prices that drive that competition. If you build the perfect mousetrap, you reap the free market rewards until someone else comes along and builds a better and/or cheaper mousetrap. And the cycle continues.
There also are federal laws in place to encourage competition and prevent monopolies; there are also federal laws that protect against price fixing among competitors.
#themoreyouknow
Mother17ing USA Today sure ain’t helping things….
Ah, Paul Krugman. The Washington Post's Gaslighter-In-Chief.
Just got back from the grocery store.
Large Eggs $2.69
Pound of ground beef $8.79
Gallon skim milk $3.69
Family size corn flakes $6.99
Large size corn flakes $6.49
Tropicana OJ $2.99
Six pack Budweiser $7.9
Rao's Brick Oven Frz Veggie Pizza $12.99
Large Eggs $2.69
Pound of ground beef $8.79
Gallon skim milk $3.69
Family size corn flakes $6.99
Large size corn flakes $6.49
Tropicana OJ $2.99
Six pack Budweiser $7.9
Rao's Brick Oven Frz Veggie Pizza $12.99
Last edited:
- Status
Get unlimited access today.