The Inflation Thread 2021-22

[kcmets]

Biden soon to address the nation on inflation.

"It's gonna be alright, it's gonna be ok. Hang in there we'll get through
this together."

Diesel is $5.65/gal down the street.

[Willets Point]

This should really be The Corporate Price Gouging Thread.

[kcmets]

Start one, I'll participate.

Inflation is at a 40 year high. 40.

[Bob Alpacadaca]

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/06/10 ... bec355fecf

This is bad. From the Times:

Prices climbed 8.6 percent in the year through May, a re-acceleration of inflation that makes it increasingly difficult for consumers to afford everyday purchases and poses a major challenge for the Federal Reserve and White House as they try to secure a strong and stable economy.

The Consumer Price Index climbed 1 percent from April — far more quickly than in the previous month — and by 0.6 percent after stripping out food and fuel prices, which can be volatile. That so-called core inflation reading matched April’s reading.

Fed officials are watching for signs that inflation is cooling on a monthly basis as they try to guide price increases back down to their goal, but Friday’s report offered more reason for worry than comfort. The headline inflation rate was the fastest since late 1981, as a broad array of products and services including rents, gas, used cars, and food became sharply more expensive.

From NBC's @charlieherman
According to Moody’s Analytics - compared to a year ago - American households are paying $460 more per month to buy the same amount of goods and services.

[metsmarathon]

so much of our inflation right now is due to the fact that there's not much excess manufacturing capacity out there on key products (like, for instance baby food, or computer chips) or no incentive for manufacturers to expand manufacturing capacity (cough, cough, gas) so why should we expect prices to ever fall?

the gas companies are making bank, so why should they go to the expense of adding capacity to bring down prices if it'll slash into their profits? demand is still going through the roof, so, yay capitalism. fuel prices drive the rest of the economy's prices, too.

add in the clusterfuck around computer chips and you can squarely blame most of the current inflationary pressure on the lingering massive unprecedented supply chain issues that covid put on to the world, and continues to this day.

it's a lot easier to shut down a factory due to short term drop in demand, or worker unavailability, than it is to turn that same factory back on. especially when not having that factory up and running isn't hurting the company bottom line.

but yeah, no, it's all because the dems won't build a pipeline that takes dirty, sandy sludgy crude from canada to the gulf for foreign export.

[Ceetar]

From NBC's @charlieherman
According to Moody’s Analytics - compared to a year ago - American households are paying $460 more per month to buy the same amount of goods and services.

Nobody should tweet stuff like this without tweeting the comparable (and mostly missing) cost to the company of said goods and services. But these are generally the same people ignoring a massive labor movement.

There are no "supply chain issues" companies cut staff and hours/products/lines to fit covid protocols and realize they accidentally made everything more efficient so aren't bothering to broaden hiring or manufacturing or whatever. It's why sometimes you'll see certain varieties of a product go away for a month or so. Say rainbow goldfish, or apple-guava baby pouches, or whatever goes in that empty slot on the shelf, because they focus production on a more streamlined product and then switch it up. More money for them, less employees, etc.

capitalism is toxic.

[whippoorwill]

Pizza goldfish around here.
Finally found some at Walmart

[TransMonk]

Given global trends and corporate profits (as well as several other factors), I tend to to roll my eyes at anyone who blames Biden and the Dems for current inflation or gas prices. They are parroting Repub talking points and either don’t understand or are acting in bad faith.

Trump had much more to do with where the economy is now and the Repubs aren’t offering ANY solutions of their own. Even of they wanted to help, they know there is little they can do either.

[Edgy MD]

Well, we can reinstate the legal notion that anti-competitive behavior and monopolies in the marketplace are a bad thing.

[TransMonk]

Exactly. Unfortunately, conservatives traditionally haven’t gotten in that line either.

[Lefty Specialist]

From NBC's @charlieherman
According to Moody’s Analytics - compared to a year ago - American households are paying $460 more per month to buy the same amount of goods and services.

Nobody should tweet stuff like this without tweeting the comparable (and mostly missing) cost to the company of said goods and services. But these are generally the same people ignoring a massive labor movement.

There are no "supply chain issues" companies cut staff and hours/products/lines to fit covid protocols and realize they accidentally made everything more efficient so aren't bothering to broaden hiring or manufacturing or whatever. It's why sometimes you'll see certain varieties of a product go away for a month or so. Say rainbow goldfish, or apple-guava baby pouches, or whatever goes in that empty slot on the shelf, because they focus production on a more streamlined product and then switch it up. More money for them, less employees, etc.

capitalism is toxic.

Also, companies are flat-out gouging, starting with the oil companies who are having eye-popping profits while drivers blame Biden for high gas prices.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

There are definitely supply chain issues. That's not to say that companies aren't trying to exploit it.

Part of the economic issue is blowback from covid, spending on everything plummeted, people got lots of $$ because they weren't spending it on travel and movies and restaurants and so they didn't really feel it or act differently when prices began to creep up. Now it's gotten to the point where demand is faltering especially for those with less spending power.

Read last week where Americans have spent 91 billion more on gas this year than last already.

And Not for nothing, inefficient gas guzzling cars and suburban lifestyles that cannot function without automobiles is also on the consumer

[kcmets]

And Not for nothing, inefficient gas guzzling cars and suburban lifestyles that cannot function without automobiles is also on the consumer

I forget when it started or when it ends but buses are fare-free right now
in Westchester. There's an express commuter bus that runs from Peekskill
to White Plains in the morning and then in reverse. It makes a series of stops
in my city (one is 300 yards away) and then goes to White Plains non-stop.
I took it the other day and I thought it was the cats pajamas. And you're
right, I don't know anyone on my street or in my circle of friends that would
consider taking a county bus.

(and there are very fewer than more 'gas guzzling' cars these days)

(gas here has managed to stay below $5... but it's knocking at the door)

[Ceetar]

not really on the consumer anymore than carbon emissions are on people flying too much or eating beer. It's corporate or municipal. We'd have to heavily invest in mass transit in any but the biggest cities, build more train/trolley type lines, bus lanes, etc. Also ZONING is a huge issue in suburbia. You can't just plop down a deli and a bodega on a residential corner, so unless you're purposely on one of the busier streets/areas, you have to drive there. And the US is vehemently against denser zoned areas are multi-family homes, even to the point of making overnight parking laws as a way to keep two/extended families from living in a place. Which means the total amount of people living even near walkable suburban downtowns is less than it would be otherwise.

[kcmets]

Just walked down to my convenient Sinclairmart for a 12-pack of old-man
beer the price went up ~4%. It went up ~5% in May too.

If people can't see the seriousness of this situation, they have blinders on.

[Ceetar]

drink better beer?

[kcmets]

I like better beer too. 4-packs of the good stuff are up 25% this year.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

not really on the consumer anymore than carbon emissions are on people flying too much or eating beer. It's corporate or municipal. We'd have to heavily invest in mass transit in any but the biggest cities, build more train/trolley type lines, bus lanes, etc. Also ZONING is a huge issue in suburbia. You can't just plop down a deli and a bodega on a residential corner, so unless you're purposely on one of the busier streets/areas, you have to drive there. And the US is vehemently against denser zoned areas are multi-family homes, even to the point of making overnight parking laws as a way to keep two/extended families from living in a place. Which means the total amount of people living even near walkable suburban downtowns is less than it would be otherwise.

So the exurbanites flee dense areas for lower taxes because those areas don't invest in transit or smart development because they don't have the tax base, and if/when they, furtherout they go. It's a cycle

[Ceetar]

sure. At some point you have to break the cycle. For instance, why are they fleeing lower taxes? children? job change? We can address those, maybe people don't move as much. Maybe if rent isn't crazy high 3 or 4 people families feel like they can survive in NYC without the kid living in a closet.

But I'm talking about that next step I guess. The first suburb on the cycle. Denser housing, in a mixed setting, there, with better zoning laws, and you DO have the tax base to fund these things. Especially if you're seeing an influx of people that clearly were HAPPY in a more urban environment but just want a few more SQFT. This is even more true now than it was 40 years ago I bet. There's probably a ton of people in their 30s that want a little more living space but don't necessarily want a 2-car garage and a yard to maintain. Given them a duplex type house with a little area to grill and get some fresh air, and they'd be happy.
.
I think I'm a decent anecdote here. I was in an apartment in a suburb from 2008-2013, walking distance to the train where I worked in Jersey City and NYC. Quick walk to a small downtown area (and it's even better now). We had one car, if my wife was ever at work when I wasn't, I was fine.

We moved to a house not so far away, but more than a mile from the train. (We could've prioritized that perhaps, but it would've drastically cut options) needed to buy another car.

Of course, another good partial solution is to SLASH the hell out of police budgets, which is pretty much just burning money that could be used to improve things.

[Edgy MD]

I encourage you advocate for budget cuts if you don't see them working for you, but I don't see that as a cure for inflation.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

And I'm not referring to anyone in particular it is expensive to live in a city and there are reasons to want more space and freedom, but to look at the Facebook convo from people in my feed who both live in the sticks and feel entitled to drive enormous fuel-inefficient vehicles which they need because they shop at 15-mile away Costco and have enormous pantries that need filling because of that, get pissed off because a commodity everyone understands is volatile shows the wrong kind of volatility, I'm like maybe your choices played a role here

[Ceetar]

And I'm not referring to anyone in particular it is expensive to live in a city and there are reasons to want more space and freedom, but to look at the Facebook convo from people in my feed who both live in the sticks and feel entitled to drive enormous fuel-inefficient vehicles which they need because they shop at 15-mile away Costco and have enormous pantries that need filling because of that, get pissed off because a commodity everyone understands is volatile shows the wrong kind of volatility, I'm like maybe your choices played a role here

yeah. definitely. They're also often the same type of people who get all NIMBY if someone proposes apartments or denser housing or any of the other things that tend to improve cost of living things.

But it's like universal health care. or housing the homeless or feeding the needy. The money's there, but everyone in position to push for it ends up just giving the money to rich people (And themselves) instead.

[MFS62]

The price of my haircut has gone up 37.5% in the last year, obviously because of the increases in costs of raw materials and transportation.

Later

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Barbers missed a lot of work over the past 2 years

[Edgy MD]

I know that I've been cutting my own hair since March of 2020.