Inflation hits new 40 year high with report out July 13th. another on July 29

Raising interest rates is stupid. Makes no sense. The issue is supply. Less investment will make gearing up production harder. Huge mistake in my opinion.

 

Finally saw gas drop below $4 in Jacksonville

 

The other side of the inflation debate that most fail to appreciate. The federal government borrowed and overstimulated, causing a point or two of inflation. Much of that went to state and local governments on anticipation that their tax collections would crater due to Covid, which didn’t really happen, meaning the cash was surplus.

Suddenly state and local governments were no longer under budget crunches, and could fund projects and give raises to police and fire, which they do even when they have no money, but did bigger this year, as well as other municipal employees. Our Governor can cut taxes, fund projects and brag about historic reserves.

And most state and local officials make these announcements applauding their own wise stewardship of public resources and later decrying the wasteful federal government contributing to inflation.

So totally American, back to the Founding, when we begged Parliament to fund frontier wars for our benefit, then were incensed to the point of revolt when taxed on it.


Raises for city’s union employees - Tampa Bay Times

 

Fed's Favorite Gauge of Inflation Surges to New 40 Year High (breitbart.com)

Personal Income and Outlays, June 2022 | U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)

A key measure of inflation showed prices soaring by more than expected in June.

The personal consumption expenditure price index rose by 6.8 percent compared with 12 months earlier, an acceleration of inflation from the 6.3 percent annual gain in May, according to data released Friday by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Economists had expected a slightly lower reading of 6.6 percent. This is the biggest year-0ver-year gain since January of 1982.

 

Pace yourself.

 

a new drinking game? Take a shot for each post? lol

 

Merged, but this is a new report with a different index released on July 29, not July 13. We certainly don't want transparency in reporting bad economic/inflation news.

 

As long as it’s 100% transparent up
front I don’t see anything necessarily wrong with it, but i think it’s kind of tacky, like in years past when some shippers and airlines were tagging on “fuel surcharges” and other baggage fees instead of just raising prices.

I didn’t even know Macaroni Grill was still around, I’m assuming they are a struggling chain (the multiple locations around here must have closed like 10+ years ago). This may not be so much “clever” of them as being too cheap or not bothered enough to print up new menus! I doubt menu prices go down anywhere, I think that’s one area likely to be sticky (unlike construction costs, raw materials, energy, etc which are quite volatile and come down drastically… service industry prices are tied more directly to labor and that tends to be more sticky.

 

That's the thing. They were up front about it. Not sure what their financial health as a business is though. I know they were very popular at one time. In any event I will rarely eat out going forward if prices stay what they are and I imagine they will. I can't justify $15 to $20 for a burrito on what I earn

 

Even though different agencies have been issuing different reports using different metrics to measure inflation for decades, now the practice is some type of intent to deceive?

 

Macaroni Grill sells burritos?

 

I'm referring to every restaurant that has raised their prices considerably, not Macaroni Grill since they claim their inflation surcharge is temporary. I've never seen a restaurant lower their prices once they raised them.

 

The federal reserve has a target inflation rate of 2.0% and the PCE is the index they use determining the inflation rate for their target. Since economies can rise and fall on such decisions, I'd think you would be interested in the subject and more demanding of the people you voted for to do something about it.

What the heck, it's just livelihoods and money! Damn the facts!

 

I would say the metrics are BS numbers to BS the masses. If you really think inflation is ony 9%...

 

Tapping the brakes on spending will give supply chains the chance to catch up.

 

Making up for losses during 2020....big time.

Oil giants post a record $46 Billion profit last quarter.

Exxon, Chevron, Shell Report Record Profits on High Energy Prices

 

This is kind of related.

Opinion | Hardly Anyone Talks About How Fracking Was an Extraordinary Boondoggle

The point is consumers benefited enormously over what can only be called a massive private sector failure of creating so much energy that prices plummeted and these companies lost something like $300 billion over a decade or so. Why relevant here? Shareholders demanded this be rectified and we are no longer benefited from this private sector failure, the result contributing to inflation.


Today, with profits aided by the energy price spikes of the last year, the fracking industry is finally, at least for the time being, profitable. But from 2010 to 2020, U.S. shale lost $300 billion. Previously, from 2002 to 2012, Chesapeake, the industry leader, didn’t report positive cash flow once, ending that period with total losses of some $30 billion, as Bethany McLean documents in her 2018 book, “Saudi America,” the single best and most thorough account of the fracking boom up to that point. Between mid-2012 and mid-2017, the 60 biggest fracking companies were losing an average of $9 billion each quarter. From 2006 to 2014, fracking companies lost $80 billion; in 2014, with oil at $100 a barrel, a level that seemed to promise a great cash-out, they lost $20 billion. These losses were mammoth and consistent, adding up to a total that “dwarfs anything in tech/V.C. in that time frame,” as the Bloomberg writer Joe Weisenthal pointed out recently. “There were all these stories written about how V.C.s were subsidizing millennial lifestyles,” he noted on Twitter. “The real story to be written is about the massive subsidy to consumers from everyone who financed Chesapeake and all the companies that lost money fracking last decade.”