The Inflation Thread 2021-22

[kcmets]

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

Give yourself a raise! Win-win.

[Lefty Specialist]

Gas prices by me have dropped by about 50 cents a gallon, but I'm still waiting for the first article giving Joe Biden credit after all the ones blaming him.

Now either the rise or the fall has really anything to do with him, but that never stopped Republicans or Fox 'News' before.

[Edgy MD]

Yeah, that's the tradition with inflation. The spikes are reported but not the rebounds.

[whippoorwill]

I’m not ready to applaud for $4.50 gas

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Yes but gas is a grudge purchase at any price. You hate it at $2, you hate it at $3, you hate it anywhere. I don't mean you, you, I mean we.

Google is always watching me. I get monthly reports on where I've been. In June, when I banged up my knee in the first week and haven't been on a bike since, I went 40 miles by bike, 20 miles by foot and 55 by car. I didn't go any further from my home than citi field, or about 5 miles. Gas, schmas

[Ceetar]

it's going slightly down so that it can drift out of the public consciousness. They can keep it at ..say $3.50-4 and it'll drift out of the zeitgeist, and no one will call for something to be done to the oil companies. (Not that they really did anyway, even though they were 100% the issue)

[kcmets]

+9.1% for the year. New 40-year high.

It'll be fine.

Got gas over the weekend for $4.55 so that's dropping a bit here. It occurred
to me getting a bottle of vodka on Saturday that the brand I buy is still the
same pre-Covid price. Guess they're "supply-chain-issues" proof or whatever.

[Ceetar]

2-3 regular (and not at all weird) items i buy have been unavailable at two different stores this week (1 for months, maybe they stopped making it) and I'm tired of the supply chain issue lie. Fucking capitalism.

[Frayed Knot]

We should go to socialism, they never have empty shelves.

[Ceetar]

we should yes. Fully on board there.

[MFS62]

"Every intelligent boy of 16 is a Socialist" - George Orwell " Keep the Aspidistra Flying.

My wife just came back from the super market and said that rice is still a good price.
My thought was if the cost of rice starts to climb, a lot of people around the world are going to starve.

Later

[kcmets]

A lot of what I post sometimes is sarcastic. *the room gasps*

Some things are crazy cheap lately. I bought 5-600 plain napkins over
the weekend for $2.98. They were like $12.00 during the peak 'shortages'
of paper products. Then you go to the deodorant aisle and it's $7.00.

There's something going on, if anyone figures it out please let us know.

[MFS62]

Got gas over the weekend for $4.55 so that's dropping a bit here. It occurred
to me getting a bottle of vodka on Saturday that the brand I buy is still the
same pre-Covid price. Guess they're "supply-chain-issues" proof or whatever.

No, probably 86 proof.

BA-BAM!
I'll be here all week.
Later

[Ceetar]

There's something going on, if anyone figures it out please let us know.

[kcmets]

I've never uttered the Brandon thing, don't really get it nor want to.

If what you say is true, and I have no reason to doubt you, why isn't it
more newsworthy? I have the news on a lot. Every channel.

[kcmets]

No, probably 86 proof.

Vodka is generally 40% alcohol so 80 proof.

[Ceetar]

that's just the meme, but regardless, the numbers are true.

I don't know the second part. because the news is stupid, biased, and conservative? because IT IS the same corporate profits?


https://www.bbc.com/news/business-62148662

here's a bbc news article, talking about inflation, blaming brandon, and not mentioning corporate profits once.

The same way the 'news' talks about gas prices constantly, despite that also being mainly the fault of corporate profits.

Some economists have also blamed president Biden's Covid spending programmes for exacerbating price increases

Like, damn. Reading between the lines this is basically "fucking Biden and his forgiving student loans and giving money to the Ukraine now we all suffer!" which is the fascist party's talking points, but not based in fact in any way.

[kcmets]

because the news is stupid, biased, and conservative?

MSNBC is hardly conservative. They slew out hour after hour of agenda-
driven liberal news. Which I'm fine with, I watch that station the most. They
have not reported anything about the corporate profit thing when talking about
inflation. I mean never.

[MFS62]

I think Stephane Ruhle has mentioned Corp profits a few times, and she is their Business/ Economics maven. But not too often and not lately.

Later

[Ceetar]

I dunno, I don't watch much tv news, I don't know how to 'rank' how liberal/conservative they all are.

But, are they talking health insurance for all, defunding the cops, excusing all student loans, decreasing the military, pushing for real abortion protections, etc, or are they just aligned with the democrats for the most part?


Regardless, it's not exactly a leap. "gee, if the oil companies are making 50 billion more, where did that money come from? hmm..."

Or "hey, look, companies laid off employees and now their products are only sporadically on the shelf...but somehow the _corporation_ is making record money.."

This stuff isn't happening in a vacuum. There are no covid restrictions. unemployment is low. So why are stores still not stocked like it's 2019 and how are companies making record profits if they're selling less and claiming they can't find workers?

[Frayed Knot]

we should yes. Fully on board there.

Shortages solved!!

[Ceetar]

probably, yeah. Obviously you can't snap your fingers and change economic systems, but pushes in that direction would certainly alleviate a lot of these problems.

[Frayed Knot]

It's worked everywhere It's been tried!

[Ceetar]

not everywhere, but yes, it's worked.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

The nutty thing is that despite the rapid inflation at this point there really hasn't been a meaningful reduction in demand yet, except among the poorest who aren't filling their tanks when they go to the gas station anymore, and have begun making hard choices about feeding themselves. That itself ought to be a concern and a warning.

But thanks to lots of stimulus and covid lifestyle impacts (people didn't travel, go to bars, restaurants or baseball games and so they saved more for more than a year) plus the shift in spending throwing efficiency-optimized supply chains out of whack (systems built for X level demand weren't capable of adjusting on a dime to X times 10 demand, or X minus 10 depending on what was made or distributed) making availability inefficient again since in normal times every one thing's normality depends on every other things normality. Things got more expensive yet, people could still buy.

I'm no economist but read last week bloomy predicted a 38% chance of recession in 12 months. That seems low because most people seem to think inflation will stick around. The fed last year thought it was a "blip" though