I think closer to - $5 to $11+ here!!
I used to use KCl instead on NaCl in our softener, but quit that. Potassium Chloride went from around $24 to now pushing $50 for a single sack. In less than two years!!
Inflation of common items since 2021
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I used to use KCl instead on NaCl in our softener, but quit that. Potassium Chloride went from around $24 to now pushing $50 for a single sack. In less than two years!!
Some say that the effective CPI is about 2/3 of the official number, due to there being some elasticity in consumer spending.
E.g. If yams go up 25% in cost but potatoes stay at the same price, people will buy more potatoes and fewer yams. (This is a totally made-up example, but you get the idea.)
Personally, I've recently negotiated with our telecom provider to cut the cost of home internet and two phones by about $50/month, and have dropped our long-time subscription to the daily broadsheet newspaper ($640/year), so have experienced significant deflation w.r.t. the cost of media.
I understand that some costs are inelastic - for example the person who must drive to work, with no public transportation or carpooling alternatives, must pay x amount for gasoline.
While this is true, its not the purpose of the CPI. The CPI is a tool for policymakers to help judge the money supply - given than monetary policy can expand or shrink that supply - ie fed tightening or easing, which leads to commercial bank tightening or easing.. So tracking a consistent bundle of goods is more a policy input as apposed to any particular person's costs.
The original list was posted on X to show how a diverse group of goods with no relation to each other has increased in price - showing the money supply has likely increased too quickly.
Every good and service sold has a price elasticity of demand ranging from perfectly inelastic to perfectly elastic and everything in between. The elasticity changes over time in response to market conditions/demand. The purpose of CPI isn't to measure PEoD or even to really account for actual costs experienced by an individual - its main purpose is to provide an apples-to-apples comparison to measure change over time.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/02/fas...stomers-test-limit-of-value-meal-economy.html
Lots of people are cutting back on fast food and Starbucks.
Lots of people are cutting back on fast food and Starbucks.
Sales on various things ?
What / which sales are you looking at ?
Durable Goods, new vehicles, new homes, retail sales, etc….. ?
Starbucks is and always has been a luxury. I would say its a pretty good indicator of the wealth affect for the younger generation. If there decline continues I would take that as on the ground real news.
McDonalds prices on the other hand have risen more than most other restaurants as a percentage. There might be legitimate reasons, but I can't understand why anyone would pay $9.29 + tax for a big mac whether they can afford it or not.
"The average U.S. price of a Big Mac meal, which includes a sandwich, fries and a drink, currently is $9.29."
America's health will be better off. https://uk.news.yahoo.com/finance/news/mcdonalds-says-18-big-mac-215202494.html
Mostly my eBay items! Mid month my Amsoil sales slowed a bit after a blistering record setting year so far, then resumed HOT the last days of May. Double secret stretch goal missed last year, this year now looks within target range.
Grocery outlet more and more crowded.
Safeway finally less crowded. Their crow bar inflation is CRAZY.
Malls, D-E-D. Nothing new there.
Business failures, the usual dreamer restaurants, up in smoke gone. Watch the food from the folks taking over. They must be cutting corners somehow.
Business starts in the way of borrowing money from BDC's seems to be money, will at least for the share holders, but slower than before.
Yeah, you guessed It. I don't trust those industry gov numbers.
Does not impact us, but the cost of childcare. This could impact some house decisions.
https://kpmg.com/us/en/articles/2024/may-2024-childcare-crisis-state-work-america.html
https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/rises-in-child-care-expenses-double-that-of-inflation-kpmg-5661005
"
Child care costs in the United States increased nearly twice as fast as overall inflation over the past three decades, according to a recent report by accounting firm KPMG.
“The childcare crisis, which was simmering prior to the pandemic, has come to a boil,” the May 28 report says. “A baseline estimate of childcare affordability is when the cost comprises up to 7 percent of family household income. Today, childcare costs are often in the 10-20 percent range.”
According to the report, in the 30 years between April 1994 and April 2024, overall inflation grew by around 112 percent, but during the same period, inflation for day care and preschool jumped by roughly 207 percent."
https://kpmg.com/us/en/articles/2024/may-2024-childcare-crisis-state-work-america.html
https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/rises-in-child-care-expenses-double-that-of-inflation-kpmg-5661005
"
Child care costs in the United States increased nearly twice as fast as overall inflation over the past three decades, according to a recent report by accounting firm KPMG.
“The childcare crisis, which was simmering prior to the pandemic, has come to a boil,” the May 28 report says. “A baseline estimate of childcare affordability is when the cost comprises up to 7 percent of family household income. Today, childcare costs are often in the 10-20 percent range.”
According to the report, in the 30 years between April 1994 and April 2024, overall inflation grew by around 112 percent, but during the same period, inflation for day care and preschool jumped by roughly 207 percent."
There was a time when daycare was not as prevalent. Seems to me that if you decide to have children, having a grandparent or trusted family member is the way to go. I realize that this is not always possible for parents... maybe then perhaps you should hold off having children until you can provide safe and adequate care instead of shelling out thousands to a daycare facility?
Thing is that you will also always have changes in relative price for any given good which makes any market-basket approach to measuring inflation somewhat unreliable.
Examples?
How about everyone's favorite, fuel prices?
These prices are typically quite volatile in both directions for reasons having little to do with any underlying inflation.
An increase in pump prices is mostly a change in relative price, not inflation while a decrease is simply the same type of change and does not portend a dis-inflationary trend.
The very broadly based GDP deflator might be a better measure of inflation than any index based upon a limited selection of goods for use in making fiscal and monetary policy decisions.
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Personally the narrative is so far different than reality. Almost always has been for myself . I’ll stop there.
This is why you have CPI and core CPI (less food and fuel due to volatility).
GDP is a conjured number that isn't really all that accurate until about a year later. Go look at current GDI and GDP, which are supposed to be the same, but have not been for some time.
As for the GDP deflator, that is even worse because imports are not measured, which makes no sense to me in a global economy.
Given the fed is already driving based on a rear view mirror, I would rather they be looking back a month or two instead of a year. I assume that is why they use CPI - they can use actual numbers that are actually fairly accurate and fairly recent - not that it doesn't have its problems.
Of course now there using core PCE - which is just another change in process.
If you go back pre volcker they used to use money supply, not CPI. Not sure why the switch.
Without crossing any BITOG lines, different in which direction? I ask because my brother lives in Salem, Cow Hampshire and all seems well there too. I was just at a family reunion there with a ton of family from all over the US and there was a bit of chat about work and everyone was busy and doing well. I'm perfectly open to the idea that I may live in a bubble then my bubble extends through most of New England down into North and South Carolina and out to Illinois.
Well, it is the Gross Domestic Product deflator, so it wouldn't include imports.
Data typically gains resolution with time. Early economic data is never as accurate as what we can view in hindsight.
Policy makers are trying to forecast impacts based upon looking at analogous situations in past periods and so are trying to plan based upon what has happened and what policy interventions might be favorably employed to lessen undesirable outcomes, like a deep and prolonged contraction, which benefits nobody.
In terms of driving by using the rearview mirror for guidance, what alternative is there?
If it were simply a matter of killing inflation, Paul Volker wrote the playbook in dealing with a much worse level of embedded inflation and it was none other than one James Earl Carter who had the courage to appoint him as Fed chair. The result was a deep and prolonged contraction and the quick cure may have been worse than the following prolonged illness.
https://www.reuters.com/technology/...oud-unit-business-insider-reports-2024-06-03/
https://www.geekwire.com/2024/micro...-other-units-in-latest-move-to-control-costs/
Big layoffs at Microsoft Azure cloud business.
No job is safe…… I repeat no job is safe.
Microsoft's global workforce is 220 000 people with 120 000 in the US. This is 0.8% of their workforce in a business unit that has strong competition where other companies do a much better job.
Canada decided to jump the gun and lower the bank rate. It not necessarily good news over all. We are starting to stall out.
Unfortunately that's pretty typical of tech giants, and big-company IT in general.
