It's not the pandemic. It's two stimmy cycles, forgiven PPP loans, and massive spending bills on top of the pandemic.
Recession incoming
- Thread starter Boom Boom
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I don't know. I get the consternation of people. The published CPI has been well below what we have experienced, and we avoided pretty much any auto related inflation (other than insurance, which granted has been high) and most housing inflation. I have trouble figuring out what spending patterns people would have that would have kept their inflation below 20%. I am guessing that most people don't substitute nearly to the extent that the BLS assumes in response to relative price changes?
I hope this does not get locked, and everyone stays civil. This passive-aggressive argument style in which no one says anything substantive is fascinating!
The alternative is to look at the primary cause of the increased prices. The expansion of the money supply is the cause, and the increased prices are its effect.
Did you think the markets were going to go straight up every quarter?
Maybe that’s the case in other areas or I’m missing it in my own circle. Any connections I’ve had that lost their job, they’ve gotten another similar job every quickly. The only ones that haven’t found a job were massive under-performers.
Even still there have been major layoffs at huge companies and the jobs report has never been bad. It’s interesting to say the least.
Everyone can run this experiment:
- Measure the rate of change of your cost of living over the long term.
- Compare to the CPI.
- Compare to the rate of change of the money supply.
I leave that up to the certified guy that manages my fund. I have had him back it down some to less riskier stocks. He might have known or sensed that this might happen because he said this month may not be good and they were expecting a rate cut to help that out. But to answer your question I sure was hoping it would continue to go straight up every quarter. For the most part those guys have done a pretty good job managing it. In 15 years it has almost tripled in value when I rolled it over from another company.
I think that it is just as simple as citing CPI being reduced is conflated with the idea that you are telling people that their reduction in purchasing power and pain isn't real, which is not true. There is real pain and financial stress associated with the higher prices that are now baked in. We haven't, and likely will not see deflation that solves the current issue of everything being more expensive.
I can see an argument to be made that companies seeing record profits while laying people off and keeping prices at levels initially established by the pandemic is having an impact, but to call that the only reason would be a gross oversimplification. Quite honestly if I had an answer to what would "fix" it, I'd be somewhere monetizing that idea.
99% of drivers believe they are above average drivers.
Pretty likely that people's "vibes" on inflation have a healthy dose of bias in them. Especially as the peeps complaining of inflation the loudest are those consuming media that tells them that, and that also believe untrue things of the economy in general.
When an effect follows a proposed cause 1 time out of 20, that's proof of cause and effect!
Let me re-phrase. No pandemic, and the inflation outliers in 2021/22 do not look like that and likely fall more in line with normal. Everything that happened from supply chain to pandemic response played a roll. Perfect storm got us those inflation numbers and without COVID and the associated worldwide implications we don't see those levels.
The part time job trend is a long term trend, that's not gonna be parsed from the data from the last few years easily. It's likely a Boomer effect, at least in large part, but also probably an effect of labor costs going up. Yet, it's an easy excuse to jump on for those that are looking for an excuse to trash the economy. The official numbers are never real when they conflict with their narrative.
I don't know why people ignore the supply chain effect. Most of our large businesses run on historically tiny margins, enabled by a fantastic supply chain that was shredded by the pandemic. It's not that their direct costs went up, it's that the inconsistency of the supply chain (and consumer behavior!) made their low margin business strategy a loser. All those overhead costs go up per unit sold when the supply chain is disrupted.
Also, Friedman conservatives have been saying for 40 years that corporate consolodation is actually good for consumer prices. Despite common sense. Well, this period has proven them wrong, without a doubt. Yet, crickets.
The few big layoffs I’ve read about were mainly accomplished by eliminating open positions…. I don’t keep up with stuff like that very often, so that could be an outlier but would explain why you see layoffs but no real change to unemployment numbers
In a few months, if Trump wins, all the people talking about inflation and the economy being bad will suddenly think it’s great….
And all the people who think the economy is awesome and inflation is under control will suddenly think just the opposite.
I think all you guys that consume this much political talk are nuts
And all the people who think the economy is awesome and inflation is under control will suddenly think just the opposite.
I think all you guys that consume this much political talk are nuts
Let me make an obvious comment. You actually track your spending and you aren't just getting a "vibe" about how much you spend and converting that to what the inflation rate of your expenditures is. But you hold yourself in such high regard that you think that's somehow rare and your overinflated opinion of yourself lets you do stupid things like just assume that you can ignore pretty common stuff as implausible, hence you assuming that other people are just getting a "vibe" on their finances, no matter how obviously stupid that assumption is. While it's a certainly a minority of people that track their spending in that level of detail, is not rare. Hell, free software will do 90% of the work for you if you use credit cards and debit cards.
Lots of people know more or less exactly how their spending has changed from year to year and can give pretty good details regarding which of those changes are due to changes in spending patterns and which are due to changes in pricing.
Trump will not win. We will all be able to maintain our current positions on inflation.
I think it's funny when I hear someone like Whoopi Goldberg tell a man that says a family of four can't go to McDonald's and that it is McDonald's fault. McDonald's fault?
Please work in how people think this but don't actually do it, then get back to me.
I like these subjects because there are some here who know more than me on things. I know it's kinda hypocritical of me to say but this thread has potential to not get overly partisan and locked and I hope it doesn't. I'm direct but try not to be nasty to others even though others may say I don't try enough.
One area I'm interested in is other things that drive basic necessities costs up other than govr caused inflation. Energy would be my first guess and "Get Off My Lawn Signs" placed where there's more oil and cheaper to extract drives prices up but to what degree? Pipelines reduce transport costs and CO2 emissions but what are the negatives of them? What Pisses me off the most is nobody's talking About WHO gets hit hardest when food, housing, gas, energy bills, clothing , etc...spike. it's known as the hidden tax on the poor and that SICKENS Me.
I miss this guy and those like him who are fun to listen to and explains it so the avg Joe like me understands
One area I'm interested in is other things that drive basic necessities costs up other than govr caused inflation. Energy would be my first guess and "Get Off My Lawn Signs" placed where there's more oil and cheaper to extract drives prices up but to what degree? Pipelines reduce transport costs and CO2 emissions but what are the negatives of them? What Pisses me off the most is nobody's talking About WHO gets hit hardest when food, housing, gas, energy bills, clothing , etc...spike. it's known as the hidden tax on the poor and that SICKENS Me.
I miss this guy and those like him who are fun to listen to and explains it so the avg Joe like me understands
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not exactly. I track my overall spending always, but often don't have time to check every bill every month. I've got spreadsheets set up to parse all spending into categories, but only rarely fill it out with every expense for a month. Plus, my family situation has changed continuously since Covid, so I wouldn't have an apples to apples comparison to make.
no. I see how people are, and apply that here. I have no doubt that food prices have affected some families much more than the 20% or so inflation weve had the last few years. I dont have as much of an idea if those most affected are not adjusting their spending wisely.
It's a lot more than the uncommon spending trackers that are complaining of inflation.
I think you overestimate.
Prices have never been reduced over time in the history of the US economy. Some level of inflation is always there and will always be there. Every 17ing thing you buy will be more expensive a year from now than this year, on average. That is the natural way of the US economy. A low, stable level of inflation is necessary and healthy, as it indicates wage growth and things like that are happening.
When its only a little bit higher instead of a lot higher, that is inflation reducing….which is good. But its a rate of change measurement that is always positive, not a flat price measurement. An alarming number of people that think that the inflation problem will not be “solved” until the prices of everything go back to what they were pre-COVID. That is absolutely never going to happen, under any presidential administration, interest rate environment, or what have you. Just like gas is never going to be $0.99 a gallon again, a Coca-Cola is never going to be $0.50 again, and a happy meal is never going to be $2.99 again.
Chaos is a ladder, and corporations use it relentlessly to lock in long term price increases on captive consumers after crazy events like COVID and 9/11. Such is the way of things with capitalism.
Expanding the money supply disproportionally hurts the poor, but it also benefits those who own assets like real estate, stocks, bitcoin, etc. It is, in effect, a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich, which, if understood by the masses, would be very unpopular.
It took Reagan two years to clean up Carter's mess, and it'll take Trump that long to clean up Joe's, unless he goes on another spending spree too.
I'm not looking for nickel Coke again. I just think it's ridiculous to have to pay the prices we have to pay today at the grocery store. Trying to tell me that we should naturally expect to pay that amount logically is really something else. I'm out. I can't argue with logic like that.
I think you downplayed the importance of "In Moderation" and overplayed capitalism's connection. What disagreements do you have with this shorter 3 min clip?
a few of us listened to an hour long presentation last week from a Chicago commodity floor trader last week....I say a few of us cause the guy next to me was reading the Pack on his phone....he showed chart after chart and his synopsis showed that everything is pointing to a recession incoming, and the earliest it could officially hit would be Q1 of 2025....IT is coming....
ive been reading for a while that whoever the next president is going to be, is ultimately going to be the fall guy for the incoming economy over the next two years, bc all models show that it isn't getting better anytime soon.
ive been reading for a while that whoever the next president is going to be, is ultimately going to be the fall guy for the incoming economy over the next two years, bc all models show that it isn't getting better anytime soon.
Based on how awful the fast spike was, shouldn't we expect some degree of correction at this point instead of cheering the fact we slowed back down to 70 mph after flooring it to 150 for the last 500 miles?
That’s all fine and good but when it goes through the roof for two years, a 2 or 3 percent inflation rate year over year doesn’t really tell the story. I’m glad it’s still not 7 percent but that 7 percent from two years ago is still kicking everyone’s a$$.
I don't accept that inflation is natural, necessary, healthy, etc. without evidence.
I recommend a book titled The Price of Tomorrow by Jeff Booth.
By the way, my unit of account is bitcoin, and everything I buy gets cheaper over the long term (priced in bitcoin).
Unexpected increases in the rate of inflation benefit debtors with fixed interest rate debt and hurts holders of fixed debt. It doesn’t help or hurt owners of assets (or really any other particular class of people) generally. just depends on people’s situations and it usually takes a while to figure out who are winners and who are losers.
FTC launches investigation into grocers over high food prices
Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan is directing the commission to look into what tactics big grocery chains are using to "hike prices and extract profits."
www.foxbusiness.com
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