Inflation evidence

[dismalist]

OK, so, sort-of partly right, with corrections?

How would "expected" inflation differ from "unexpected" inflation, then?

I don't recall at all its being predictable, but that was a loooonnnggg time ago I took that course...

M.

Are you kidding? That's an A for the times! Way more than half right for the present.

The Phillips Curve I described wasn't yet around for Samuelson's 6th edition.

The Federal Reserve had a target inflation rate of 2%. It usually undershot a little. It was eminently predictable, hence expected. And in spite of low inflation we had very low unemployment.

The current experience, on the other hand,  was hard to predict, not least because of the Covid shock, and the unknown response of the Fed and the government deficit to that shock.

More generally, if the Fed jumps around a lot, then inflation is hard to predict.

[mamselle]

Are you kidding? That's an A for the times! Way more than half right for the present.

Gwarsh....<blushes>...thanks!

M.

[Anselm]

Just today I saw a medium bottle of Listerine being sold for $6.  That seemed a bit high to me.   

A few months ago I found a website with prices for about 100 commodities.  All but 5 items were up over 10% YoY.  The only exceptions that I recall were shrimp and potassium chloride.   Personally I would prefer that stores raise prices for item in short supply rather than have empty shelves.  Right now I am not seeing bare shelves.  Things should get really interesting come Christmas time with the current container ship pile up at the ports.

Precious metals prices are down from a few months ago.  Maybe all of this excess liquidity is going into stocks  and real estate.   

[mahagonny]

'Warning: this topic has not been posted in for at least 120 days.'

So there's a lot of inflation news to catch up on. I went to a sub shop today. Fish and chips and a soda, $22.50. An extra tiny little plastic thing with tartar sauce, another 75 cents. I have never been charged for extra tartar sauce. How tacky can you get?
Thing is, they stay busy. I'm working more hours per week than I've ever worked since my early 20's, so I don't have much time for cooking or grocery shopping. I have to eat out. But I don't understand why everyone does. If they didn't have business, they would have to lower their prices.
Wife still believes none of this inflation has anything to do with Joe Biden and the democrats. Then again, all of her news comes from left-biased outlets.

[clean]

Eggs!!

I tested COVID positive in the end of june and was positive for 3 full weeks!  In that time I was a good boy and stayed home.  I didnt get to grocery shop.  After that, My Bride did most of the shopping, so I didnt shop again until very recently. Then I noticed that eggs were 30 cents each ($3.65 a dozen!)  When did this happen??

These are not 'cage free', organic, or 'cruelty free' eggs. These were for store brand, caged, industrial produced with full cruelty included eggs!!

Then this afternoon, I looked up what the Social Security wage cap would be!  $160,200  a year!!  (compared to 147000 in 2022)
That means that the SSi Cap goes from $9114  to $9932!    (So someone making 147000 would have needed a 13,200 raise to keep up with inflation!  I sure as hell didnt get anything close to that in ANY of the 20 years I have been employed at my current job!  In fact, I would not be surprised that it would take 5 years of the raises we have had to total 13, 200!)


this just hits hard as an illustration of how slowly faculty/state employees wages have changed compared to the price level! 

My employer has noted that we will NOT get a raise this year. We will get a 'bonus' in December equal to 2% of our salary.  But as the admincritters  can not be sure that they can sustain the raise, they are not committing to it. 

Still 2% is the most we have had in several years, with many of those years being 0.  Now, I have a reminder of the cumulative loss of my purchasing power!  And Im trapped here until 2024 when I qualify for health care coverage in retirement (unless the law changes just before I get there!!)

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

Eggs have gone up. Actually, we needed eggs last week, but I looked ahead at the food store ads and noticed that they're on sale this week- $1.99 for 18!!! I have had to strategize my grocery shops lately.

[mamselle]

We need an "eggs" thread, like the "gas" thread.

The eggs I just got (cheapest, no-frils) yesterday were 5.75 a dozen, and that's down from 6.05 a few weeks back.

Do you guys all live beside farms?

M.

[clean]

https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2020/04/14/egg-stat-ic-about-eggs

That site (2019 data) showed that Iowa, Indiana and Ohio are the top 3 egg producing areas.  My area of the state, Im sure, gets too hot to be a good egg producing area.  I do have a coworker that has a portable (mobile/moveable ) chicken coup.  But they are not for egg production as much as a preference for a freezer full of chickens.  (He has 15 acres I think, and also fills his freezer with a fresh lamb once or twice a year). 

anyway, I dont know my nearest industrial egg producing area.  I would not be surprised it is in MS, AL, or Ark, but I could be wrong. 

[clean]

https://unitedegg.com/facts-stats/


This link has the top 10 producers  (and none are MS or AL!) 

[mahagonny]

More inflation evidence: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2022-election-forecast/

Two weeks ago the democrats were projected to win 55 and the republicans 45.

I've never seen an election season where higher inflation did not harm the party in charge.

[Langue_doc]

Eggs have gone up. Actually, we needed eggs last week, but I looked ahead at the food store ads and noticed that they're on sale this week- $1.99 for 18!!! I have had to strategize my grocery shops lately.

Ha! That's the pre-pandemic price. They were more than $6 a dozen a week ago. Half and half which used to be below $3 is now well above $4. Produce too has gone up significantly. Broccoli rabe, which sells by the bunch is now almost $4--used to be $2-something pre-pandemic.

[marshwiggle]

Slightly tangential, but am I the only one that finds this automatic scrutiny of prices unusual? In reality, I'm thankful my income is sufficient that I don't have to choose whether or not to buy some ordinary item based on price, so I don't really pay attention. Some people, like my *wife, pay close attention to things like gasoline prices, but I don't because I'm always going to buy gasoline when I need it, so the fact that it's gone up or down a few cents since last week doesn't really matter.

Am I a unicorn?

(*who is, unsurprisingly, in a similar financial situation to me)

[dismalist]

Slightly tangential, but am I the only one that finds this automatic scrutiny of prices unusual? In reality, I'm thankful my income is sufficient that I don't have to choose whether or not to buy some ordinary item based on price, so I don't really pay attention. Some people, like my *wife, pay close attention to things like gasoline prices, but I don't because I'm always going to buy gasoline when I need it, so the fact that it's gone up or down a few cents since last week doesn't really matter.

Am I a unicorn?

(*who is, unsurprisingly, in a similar financial situation to me)

Scrutiny of individual prices is not weird when the item to be purchased is a large part of your income -- like a car or a house! :-)

For  everyday things as long as the  extra expenses for keeping your original  bundle don't add up to much, it doesn't pay to pay too much attention. If the extra expenses got big, one would have to pay attention.

Some prices are salient to many, like gasoline, even though gas eats up only 2.6% of the average budget. That's because we buy the same thing regularly, and we can't avoid noticing the price. And everybody writes about it.

In either case one gets benefits from adjusting to relative price changes -- egg prices up, eat more cheese; heating oil price up, wear a sweater. You see, wool and heating oil are substitutes.

[By the by, one mustn't confuse inflation with changes in relative prices. Inflation is an average of all price rising. Put differently, rising prices on  average is the definition of inflation, not the cause.]

[mythbuster]

My barometer is breakfast cereal. Pre-pandemic  the "good" breakfast cereal (Basic4 is a staple at our house, grains and fruit mixed in) ran ~$5 a box, with frequent BOGO specials. The good but cheaper was ~$4 a box. Now the "good" cereal is $7 a box. Too expensive for us, and I haven't seen a BOGO special for the good brand at the grocery store in months.
   If we go to Target, the prices tend to be ~ $1-2 less per box for most anything.  I'm now making much more frequent Target runs primarily for cereal, which means I also buy other things at Target more frequently as well. The Walmart is a poke away, so I'm less likely to comparison shop there.

We are bracing for grain prices to get even worse this winter with the Ukraine situation.

[clean]

[By the by, one mustn't confuse inflation with changes in relative prices. Inflation is an average of all price rising. Put differently, rising prices on  average is the definition of inflation, not the cause.]

I just typed in a question to see what portion of the population makes more than 160,000 (the new Social Security Income Cap).  The answer was a range, but it showed only 6.44.  At the old cap it was 8.37.
Now I know that some of those folks will get raises, but THEY likely dont work for a state government! 

Just sayin that as a state employee, I am now really feeling the increase in the general price level (that I am not offsetting by increases in my nominal wage.... BIG inflation, and NO Raise.) 

Anyway, Inflation Is Real!