The difference between wage growth and inflation, even at it's peak, is < $2 per 100 spent ... if you need to 'dig yourself out from debt' because of that then had bigger problems in life. Like Oklahoma said above, you could make that up by not having a soda with your lunch a couple times a week ...
I agree with most of your posts and while impacts from supply chain disruptions out of the pandemic (now in the rear view mirror) are certainly part of the story most reputable economists and market watchers will state unequivocally that we are where we are due in the most part to Fed intervention. Was discussed today on the Drive home on CNBC.
Yet you still ignore the trillions pumped into the economy by Gov spending, PPP, QE and ultra low interest rates.
Artificially low interest rates and govt spending were going on forever and were not new policy. The “extra spending” also mostly ended before inflation started hitting. Supply chain backups were a new phenomenon. Worker shortages coming out of the pandemic were new, and actually predicted. I recall predictions of gas lines due to a shortage of tanker drivers. That shortage was apparently obvious to the folks who analyze such things. Had nothing to do with interest rates or PPP, just had to do with certain numbers of drivers dying/retiring during COVID, and not enough tanker truck drivers in the pipeline to replace them. How to address that? Aggressively higher pay. Which gets passed through as inflation. China with their “zero tolerance policy” kept supply chains tight for almost a full year after most of the western world was opened for business. There were all kinds of weird little factors outside of interest rates. Of course if you want to slow the economy from overheating or check against inflation, ZIRP is not good policy. The fed obviously needed some degree of tightening. But it’s also true that interest rates haven’t a damned thing to do with the price of eggs where avian flu caused millions of hens to die.
Look at Federal expenditures pre covid to now. We are still spending like crazy. And extra 3 Trillion was dumped into the economy. That money doesn’t just vanish. Low rates may not have affected eggs but it certainly didn’t slow demand. It helped fuel the housing boom, cars, boats, RVs being bought etc. Demand stayed high during and after the pandemic in large part because people still had plenty of money to spend. Some of that was due to reallocation of funds (less travel/eating out etc). No serious person really believes the extra money added to the economy had no effect on inflation and it was only supply chains and “corporate greed”.
It replaced trillions lost in production so barely a net increase. Look at gdp. We are where we are supposed to be.
Just got notification last night. Apple TV subscription up 33% and Disney plus up 50%. In before someone says not part of CPI and anecdotal. But these are where people spend money.
Are you netting that against the savings people have realized by cutting the cord and just streaming? Most people I know have had the cable bill reduced or replaced with all the new competition for your services. In fact our cable bill went down just exploring a change.
Also. With hard work we have been extremely fortunate in our lives and have an amazing home. We decided to check on updating all the windows in the house since our house while large, is 30 years old. We got estimates for pella and renewals by Anderson. 2 big names. 41 windows total. $130,000. 2 years ago we got an estimate and both were in $70,000 range. I know. Anecdotal. Just real life data points where people spend their money. We can afford it, but most would cancel the project or only get 1/3 or less completed.
Although some may disagree subscriptions to streaming services are among the ultimate forms of discretionary spending. That being said even even though the rate of inflation has declined significantly it's still a winning issue for Republicans. The price of most food items hasn't declined at all, rent is still considerably higher as are mortgage rates (which should decline by election day next year) and even the price of gas at the pump which is close to $2.00 a gallon less than its peak price and 50 cents a gallon less than it was two months ago is still higher than it was in 2020.
Just bought an old condo at the beach we have to gut for a vacation from the harsh winters of Charlotte - wife has thin blood. Needs windows and doors nowhere near the number you need on a full house, so my condolences. Good news is that you will get your money back if you sell or pass to your kids.
Do you have a graph for that? It seems as if these guys don't have a graph or some talking head hasn't said it then it is just not the case. The biggest problem they will have, are these real-life anecdotal stories are happening around this country to many folks. But the graph doesn't show it so you must be a MAGA making it up!!
Bread used to be $.025 a loaf. A 85" 4K TV used to be $15,000.... That is why people look at the CPI. Otherwise you cant really calculate the impact of all the pricing changes. What is your point? Stuff is higher. Cool story bro.
It is part of CPI. It makes up somewhere around 0.86% of consumer spending. So tell us again that is where people spend money.
Or a basic understanding of the data. That would probably be helpful when discussing CPI data. Strange that you find yourself in the position of defending emotional analysis and opposed to actually looking at the data.
