Welcome to Thunderdome

GORDON wrote: ↑Tue Nov 14, 2023 12:02 pm Inflation being down to 3.2% means that inflation is still happening, while most people haven't adjusted yet to the big increases of the last 12 months.

It isn't good news. It's just more news slightly less bad, relatively.

Inflation is always happening. I assure you, deflation is much worse. 3.2% is dramatically lower than the 1980s. In facts, it's our long term average for the past 35 years. ie: It's normal.

To be honest, I don't think inflation is the issue anymore. It's just straight up greed due to the Wall St. model.

Just a reminder. Inflation going down doesn't mean prices are going to go down. Or, the lack of prices going down doesn't mean that inflation isn't going down. The damage has been done. Prices are up, and they are staying up. They just aren't going up as fast as they had been. If prices DID go back down, I'm pretty sure things would get really bad.

Inflation going down is good, and we should be happy about it. Nothing we can do about prices now.

What Cake said.

Wages are up 5.31% year over year. Inflation is up 3.2%. That's a win.

The producer price index declined 0.5% for the month, the biggest monthly decline since April 2020. Wall Street had been expecting a 0.1% increase.

More good news.

What is PPI? I googled it, and it doesn't really explain it.

Cakedaddy wrote: ↑Wed Nov 15, 2023 2:56 pm What is PPI? I googled it, and it doesn't really explain it.

It's inflation, but for the companies who make things. So it tends to be a leading indicator of where consumer inflation is going.

ie: What is Toyota paying for raw materials? Whereas CPI asks "What are consumers paying for a car?"

Funny, but not funny because it's true.

Really it's the poor who are the problem.

You won't believe this, but home prices remaining high and climbing, low inventory, and high mortgage rates have lead to what is shaping up to be the worst year for home sales in 30 years.

And let's not forget the big realtor scandal that broke last month.

Yay for unpunished greed!

Criminal punishments need to be tied to financial crimes or this shit will never end.

Counter Catt? I like to hear all sides. Obviously, Biden's job claims are complete horseshit, but what about what this dude says?

Most of the #s that person is using are nominal numbers, which are dumb. Of course XXX is at the highest ever, that's how numbers work. They don't go backwards.

To understand inflation and its impact you need to understand that when the inflation numbers come out higher than the year before that number doesn't account for the prior year jump. What this means is that inflation is 3% higher than last year, which may be 3% higher than the year before which means inflation is up 6% over two years ago.
...
Every time Biden and the Democrats talk about inflation coming down, they neglect to tell you that the affected prices are still going up, albeit at a slower rate.

This might be the dumbest thing I've read on the internet today, and I even visited twoXchromosomes briefly.

TheCatt wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2023 3:33 pm This might be the dumbest thing I've read on the internet today, and I even visited twoXchromosomes briefly.

Well, I would prefer it if you didn't kill your credibility in the last sentence, but thank you.

Leisher wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2023 3:43 pm

TheCatt wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2023 3:33 pm This might be the dumbest thing I've read on the internet today, and I even visited twoXchromosomes briefly.

Well, I would prefer it if you didn't kill your credibility in the last sentence, but thank you.

The biggest concern is inflation, and he's right that's it's been bad for a lot of people, but most of his writing is just fluffly crap.

But, as even he noted, wages have outpaced inflation lately.

React first, then read the spoiler.

Only issue is that the lawsuit was initiated in 2011, and related to egg prices from the late 90s through 2008

"The cured meats" part is the truth. In Kroger the other day some of that stuff was $14 per pound. That's the price of prime-quality steak from Costco. This Kroger also had $9 12-packs of pop. Yeah, only 3.2% this year. Totally accurate.

The data is entirely out there for you to examine, but go ahead and make shitty conclusions from shitty data.

Real income is higher than it was pre-pandemic (so inflation adjusted) using median (50th percentile) earnings.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q

Interestingly, there was a huge spike at the beginning of covid thanks to all the stimulus, then went down as inflation went up + payments left. I wonder if that's a large part of what's making people feel like things have been worse. Crazy how stagnant things were from 2000 to 2015.

TheCatt wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2023 3:49 pm But, as even he noted, wages have outpaced inflation lately.

Serious question, and really just discussion, I'm not countering any points made:

If inflation outpaced wages for 28 months and wages outpaced inflation for the past 3 months (just making up the numbers to ask the question), how is that good? I mean, sure, the last 3 months are good, but don't we need another 25 months to catch back up (assuming all numbers are equal...again, just making them up to ask the question)?

As for Gordon's example of corporate gouging...

TheCatt wrote: ↑Wed Nov 22, 2023 9:51 am The data is entirely out there for you to examine, but go ahead and make shitty conclusions from shitty data.

What data?

I guess what I'm saying is what are you looking at? Tradition economic indicators and models? What data takes into account the "Feed Wall St" model? How do the traditional indicators account for "every publicly traded company has to show a profit every quarter or its C suite takes massive personal financial losses"?

I'm not being snarky, I promise. I'm just wondering if we are looking at the same economy through two different perspectives/terminologies/whatever?
-"Corporate price gouging" vs "inflation"
-"these models show the economy is fine because that's how it's always been" vs "here are legit examples of how prices are not dropping and every poll shows people are struggling"

Commodity pricing might drop, but consumers are not seeing it. Poll after poll is proving that, and I'm not sure why that data doesn't matter?

A majority of Americans say the economy is a dumpster fire and they can't buy everything they used to even 4 years ago. Homes are completely unaffordable to most Americans, including current home owners who are trapped. Are they all wrong because some economic models indicate otherwise?

Again, not snark, seriously asking.

Just seems concerning. Feels like everyone's racing to not be the person holding the bag. All of our corporate overlords and their political stooges don't seem to give two shits about us or the system. They just want to be paid and probably have escape plans once the country tanks.

Financial news these days seems to be: "Hey, us in the top 10% are doing great! Fuck the poors!"

Sorry, but I really don't understand why I'm supposed to be excited by fluff news on the economy when people are struggling, can't buy homes, grocery costs are through the roof, homelessness has skyrocketed, etc.

As the saying goes, don't piss on me and tell me it's raining.