Inflation Part 2
shailynn
They never tell you what you need to know.
My god, please stop!
Prices crept up during COVID. Okay, I can live with that. Now it’s just out of hand, some items have almost doubled in price. I was never one to pay much attention to grocery prices but now I do, because the increase is so significant!
Some highlights.
I eat a lot of fish, and one grocery store would put small lobster tails on sale for $6 about at least once a month. Now they sell them 2 for $18.xx
I bought a bag of scallops and 2 small bags of shrimp and it was $32.xx, that used to be around $18.
Case of Dasani or Aquafina water was $3.xx now it’s $7.xx
12 pack of Coke products was $3.xx now it’s $6.xx
$32 to fill my gas tank in my company car in 2020. $42 in 2021. Now it’s $50
Also when I go to the grocery store there’s always at least 2 items I’m unable to get and it’s always something basic like garbage bags or strawberries.
Prices crept up during COVID. Okay, I can live with that. Now it’s just out of hand, some items have almost doubled in price. I was never one to pay much attention to grocery prices but now I do, because the increase is so significant!
Some highlights.
I eat a lot of fish, and one grocery store would put small lobster tails on sale for $6 about at least once a month. Now they sell them 2 for $18.xx
I bought a bag of scallops and 2 small bags of shrimp and it was $32.xx, that used to be around $18.
Case of Dasani or Aquafina water was $3.xx now it’s $7.xx
12 pack of Coke products was $3.xx now it’s $6.xx
$32 to fill my gas tank in my company car in 2020. $42 in 2021. Now it’s $50
Also when I go to the grocery store there’s always at least 2 items I’m unable to get and it’s always something basic like garbage bags or strawberries.
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92 comments
https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/6783716001
…But if health inspectors are facing threats, then it’s understandable.
What you're calling a "trade," most nations would call an "attack."
Pork, beef, chicken, dairy products, other food staples - all jumping by double digits and in some cases north of 30%. I've always been price conscious about food given that I grew up food insecure during the inflationary periods in the 70s and early 80s, so even as my income has risen I still pay close attention.
Now granted beef and seafood were a luxury item for some people even during good times, but now pork has become as expensive as beef was 2 years ago. Chicken is about the only remaining "affordable" meat for working class folks, so now the chicken cases in every market I go to are constantly picked apart.
I won't even get into the odd shortages in items I haven't been able to find for weeks. it's a real shit show right now.
This is why I bought and am paying less than I would have renting, because I knew all the money we dumped into the economy was going to come back to haunt us.
The Dems are all like cOrpOrAtE gReEd!!!!!!111 right now, like corporations have changed their behavior in the last year. Stupid.
62 oz. jar of M&M's from $8.99 to $14.98
and so on. I'm sure it's just Transitory.
Higher energy costs, hiring bonus', wage increases..... those costs are going to end up in price increases.
You might check the expiration date on the batteries. That’s one reason the 99 cent store’s prices are lower.
Yiu don’t have to have your heat above 70 degrees in the winter or below 80 in the summer, so cut corners when you can. Yiu don’t need to make a quick run to the grocery store for that can of spam or package of ho hoes, just stay home and wait it out. As for me, I’m sticking to only one visit a Month to the strip club, and only will I part with my cash if the girl is willing to put forth some genuine effort. This inflation will force people to get back to consciously purchasing their needs instead of their wants, and then prices will level out.
It's all supply and demand. Sure, the supply chain crisis and production shortages caused by a global economy is part of the story. Biden and the other democrat party hacks in DC who do not understand what life is actually like in the rest of the country do not recognize nor care about what we live on a daily basis. However, there is also the supply and demand of the dollar.
Bill Clinton forced banks to give mortagage loans to people who could not afford to pay it back. Banks made these impossible loans plausible through mortgage-backed securities and ARMs. Unfortunately, these devices became so popular that there were soon too many and too little cash to back all of that credit and the whole things fell down. To prop up the banks, and give the illusion that Obama was "fixing" the economy, the Treasury just printed more money. After they had printed all the money needed to pay for the toxic debt of the mortgage collapse, they kept printing to give an illusion of increasing GDP. So yes, our GDP increased by trillions of dollars. But that did not equate to trillions of dollars more goods and services being created, that equated to more trillions of dollars being assigned to the value of the same items. Oversimplified example: you have $10,000 and want to buy a used car, you have valued that car at $10,000. You have $20,000 and want to buy the exact same car, the same product is now valued at $20,000. There is no difference in the car, but you buy less with the dollar. They kept this charade up, until the pandemic.
The pandemic is a perfect storm of unemployment, decreased GDP which cannot be hidden, massive government overspending and deficit-building, and supply chain crises. Clinton overtaxed us and called it a budget surplus. Bush cut taxes and increased spending. Obama complained about Bush's deficit spending, then spent even more and accrued more debt than every president before him combined. Trump cut taxes, gave additional refunds, and deficit spent like there was no tomorrow. Yes, he built the most inclusive labor market in American history, but he could have done it with a smaller government and less spending. Biden is spending even more, and frittering away our heritage by ignoring the crisis at the southern border and importing illegal immigrants literally by the planeload, shredding our constitutional rights, failing to manage his adminstration and hold them accountable, giving free reign to Russia, China, the Taliban, and Iran, ignoring the supply chain crises, ignoring the energy crises (solve an oil shortage by buying electric cars?!), and more.
Ask anyone who grew up in the Warsaw Pact, Soviet Union, or Cuba what is happening. They will tell you, as I have heard multiple times for Cubans, Polaks, Ukrainians, and Russian expats, that this is starting to look more and more like "home" for them. They are not happy about it.
TL;DR This is the socialist Utopia that the leftists have been learning for. All is going according to plan.
Fuck me, no more liquid lunches on my Friday off.
Then, you are shocked when inflation kicks in. So, the solution is Build Back Better ( by spending trillions more ).
Let's Go Brandon
Yet senile Brandon wants to double-down and blame everyone else for it from Saudi Arabia to meat producers to "white supremacy"
But y’all the economists here, sounds like you guys got it completely under control.
https://www.npr.org/2022/02/18/108182594…
And yes, I get it that society keeps falling apart and basic institutions aren’t able to function and all. Carry on
The bail out money and paycheck protection money were really stupid.
Since the Work Ethic Squirrel Cage was stopped, we should have gone to Universal Basic Income, and made the mortgage lenders and land lords eat.
As it was, all that money did was prop these clowns up, while at the end leaving working people with nothing, and destroying our treasury.
Real Stupid.
SJG
SJG
I do not think it would be accurate to say the government does not care. They do. They care that the most basic necessities of daily living are becoming unavailable to most Americans, and soon we will all look to the government to provide everything for us. They care that this is all going according to plan.
Just like defunding the police is a silly idea but here we are with record crime and record murders
Asshole... what idiot would go to bonds with interest rates about to skyrocket?
People are going to be fucked coming down the road here. That car that they otherwise would’ve payed 20k for now it might be more like 30k. In a couple years they’ll be underwater on that car loan. How are they going to keep up between gas (keystone pipeline killed no hope on the horizon) food, housing, there’s no way this doesn’t get bad.
I haven't clubbed at all in a few months, and haven't gotten extras in longer than that. Overdid it, and got bored of it. Will return with my main clubbing buddy next month. We'll see on prices.
And he’ll yes I’m standing pat might buy a few things during the sale period, but I believe in my portfolio and have more than enough cash to weather the storm
I touch the hoes though lulz
Another thing I had been hearing for some time was how the market was being kept afloat mostly b/c of the high-flying FANG stocks but that o/w most of the other companies in the index have been mostly dogs for a while now – supposedly these high-flying FANG stocks are more susceptible to rising interest-rates and why many have been getting hammered as of late.
Doesn’t seem to be a safe-place to be right now – but history has shown that those that get out of the market in the long run end up losing more-$$$ vs riding out the tough-times – w.r.t. being in cash, someone was making the point that it’s not the terrible thing that many make it out to be – sure there is the inflation angle but this person was making the point that being in cash for a short period of time is not a huge deal – at the end of the day those pedaling stocks have an incentive to tell you to not be in cash – being in cash one has $$$ to invest when stocks are cheaper and perhaps on the rebound – but of course no-one knows when it’s the best/right time to get out and when it’s a good time to get back in and just like one can possibly get out at a good time and avoid losses, and can also miss out on good gains – if one is young enough it seems the advice is often to ride things out or keep an eye for some sectors doing a little better like value/dividend-paying-stocks or perhaps some international-funds but it seems often times when the market goes down sharply it takes everything down w/ it.
ETFs are pretty-much the same thing but have more flexibility - the way I understand it is that ETFs trade like stocks that one can buy/sell instantly whereas mutual-fund orders only execute at the end of the trading-day which can be a problem if the market is taking a severe dive during the trading day and one wants to get out/sell - with ETFs one can also put stop-orders to automatically get out/sell at a particular price which can help in a black-swan event during the trading day - but AFAIK 401Ks only work w/ mutual funds and not ETFs but some companies have Roth 401Ks but IDK much about those but perhaps those allow ETFs?
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CDCAB…
^^ Go away, Cacaplop
But I do agree that the Dems are not solely to blame. Trump got this whole ball rolling and was advocating huge spending blowouts even as he was on his way out of office. Now sure the Dems do what they always do - triple down on it once they get the ball. But Trump started it.
The closest this strategy came to failing was in the 1930s when the government refused to allow market forces to bring things back to balance. Instead, it tried to legislate, regulate, and spend our way back. It wasn’t until WWII that we pulled ourselves out of it.
Maybe Biden will make the same mistake that FDR did. So far, he has. That means we’ve got 3 more years of this shit.
Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is a heterodox macroeconomic framework that says monetarily sovereign countries like the U.S., U.K., Japan, and Canada, which spend, tax, and borrow in a fiat currency that they fully control, are not operationally constrained by revenues when it comes to federal government spending.
Put simply, such governments do not rely on taxes or borrowing for spending since they can print as much as they need and are the monopoly issuers of the currency. Since their budgets aren’t like a regular household’s, their policies should not be shaped by fears of rising national debt.
Democrats governing philosophy is a belief that government should spend as much money as possible using the printing press to pay for it. They believe this will generate prosperity and have no downside. If some of this money falls into their families pockets, so much the better.
It's a post hoc justification for their desire to spend, spend, spend.
"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it."
- Frederic Bastiat
See Clinton, Obama and now Biden
Sick of being the custodians cleaning up after you louts.
However, a financial analysis at the most basic level shows that you couldn’t pay for any of these freebies even if you taxed every rich person at 100%. It’s wishful thinking that a handful of people could pay for everyone else’s life.
P.J.O’Rourke
$250 for a single weekly maintenance trip. Imagine that. I had even split the trip between Walmart (for grocery items and steak) and Publix (other meat, dairy, produce) in order to shave some of the cost down and this is where I ended up.
Now of course I could have bought everything from Walmart and/or used generic brands instead of the ones we like, but I struggle to see how I could have made it below $200 without having to rely upon canned and processed foods. I have to imagine that Ramen and Chef Boyardi sales have spiked in recent months.
And I am someone who cooks, which is always cheaper than buying prepared foods. I can't imagine what the carts and final weekly tallies look like for those who rely upon others to do most of the cooking.
Unreal.
Fair questions 25. Two years ago a typical weekly maintenance trip, without the high end frills, cost me about $160 and that was for 5, not 4. Even a year ago it was still under $200. Now I'm spending about $240-250 per week on the essentials.
My income has gone up, but not because I have been able to raise fees to existing clients. I won't get into the details, but my income bump is nether pandemic nor inflation-related.
As I indicated above, the conditions I grew up in have always made me conscious about food costs, long past the point where I needed to be. Meat, dairy and produce price spikes account for the bulk of those increases. When ground beef is $5 per pound and a chuck roast now runs per pound what a good steak did 2 years ago, shit is out of hand. Pork is getting expensive now too and even chicken is no bargain.
In order to help defray costs I used to buy good sale meats in bulk and drop them in the deep freezer but the good sales are few and far between nowadays. Look at your local Publix circular and see what's on sale in the meat section - it's thin pickings and has been that way for many months now.
I know everyone isn’t in the same circumstances as myself, but crying about being broke on a strip club website for folks that piss money away on these things is more than a bit off in my opinion
But, if you ask the proverbial man on the street, $2 Million would be a typical response.
But, money does play a role. If inflation prevents you from being able to provide for your family’s safety and security, it’s a big deal.
This matches up with the Buddhist belief that all suffering comes from desire. Live in the moment. Don’t condition your happiness on an external event.
I don't like to brag on Twitter about my expensive trips, but I just got back from the grocery store..."
And what makes you think that this is temporary of that our assets are going to retain their inflated values? Inflation is showing every sign of becoming entrenched, which means that sooner or later this house of cards is going to collapse, either due to inflation smothering demand (stagflation anyone?) or the Fed aggressively pumping the brakes. You were around for the 70s and early 80s, no?
Today many people are in debt and have very large mortgages and are often paying 2 (sometimes more) car loans/leases; etc - in many ways life today is a lot more expensive, there's a lot more stuff to spend $$$ on that has become part of daily life - the more you have, the more it take$ to maintain it - and sure we can all live more basic/frugal lives but modern life often requires certain expenditures; often times working professionals have little free-time and often gotta pay for things that previous generations did not; etc.
I think the actions of the government that in large part caused this rapid inflation, can be reversed if they stop spending so much – but some analysts fear that the fed may slam on the breaks too hard and instead of slowly decreasing inflation we may end up in a recession.
But real estate prices have been goosed, and fewer people have been able to take advantage of prosperity. Look at the number of people and skill levels employed by GM back in the day vs. Facebook now. Globalization has shafted the common man in the name of cheap goods, and made it easier than ever for the most talented (like 1% of 1%) to make incredible wealth. That's caused by technology, not policy.
We need to re-shore jobs for the working class. Not everyone can "learn to code." If we want to go green, we need to mine an assload of lithium (https://amp-interestingengineering-com.c… ). And a lot more like this.
Those were very tough times for working class folks. They were also tough for the economy and the stock market, which is why the 70s is called the lost decade.
It never ceases to amaze me how we never seem to truly learn the lessons of the past. History always seems doomed to repeat itself.
Pandemic profiteering
https://youtu.be/vnvBcR5Z3lI