US Core inflation level lowest in 3 years

I know, believe you me I know, you are never incorrect. Everything you have ever posted has been 100% spot on. If the rest of us could just rise to your excellence the world would be much better off.

 

I get it. I can’t hear you I can’t hear you Yay democrats.

“Conservative commentaries”. I guess you consider Summers Shiller and Krugman as conservatives. That is one of the dumber posts you’ve ever posted.

 

That's how it goes with I_boy any time you challenge him. I've been there too. I especially love the 'sigh' in post 235. That cracks me up, especially coming from someone with no expertise in economics.

 

To the extent they are, I am sorry, I generally try to avoid doing so. I did try to criticize the post, not you personally, in that making the assertion that the economists quoted were conservative is egregiously incorrect.

To your last point, I guess that is the difference. I am actually trying to learn and explore point of views, not just doggedly debate. When I make a case for something, and the substance isn’t acknowledged, whether agreement or disagreement, but instead I get partisan and tribal talking points in return I get frustrated. My perception is many of your posts fall into such categories. I should probably just disengage vs continuing to argue when that happens.

 

Nice passive aggressive dig there. I’m not an expert in economics per se, but I’d stack my knowledge of it against most in this forum, and I’ve had quite a bit of exposure to it in school, career and just as a field of casual interest.

The sigh was when you make a point and it just goes over somebody’s head or it is ignored.

 

Inflation-Battered Americans Raiding 401k's To Pay Mortgages And Rent | ZeroHedge

 

Damn. Who knew all that was needed to combat corp greed is higher int rates?

 

He’s talking about areas where competition is lacking. Although not monopolies, he points out a few industries where they are down to just a few major players.

He raises some good points, but I don’t think the antitrust laws are on his side in terms of breaking up any of the examples he lists. Also not all his examples are equal. He’s spot on for things like broadband and big food (many people only have 1 or 2 real choices for broadband). But automobiles? I think there’s plenty of choices there (automobiles spiked not because of lack of competition in autos, but because of concentrated supply chains in Asia and shortages in… semiconductors.).

 

In general I think busting up monopolies is a good thing. My son needed a new vehicle for a new job. New and used car prices are insane right now especially with interest rates so he bought a new motorcycle instead. There is some elasticity in most purchases.

 

“Because wages are rising, this Thanksgiving dinner is the fourth-cheapest ever as a percentage of average earnings.”



PolitiFact - Fact-checking Karine Jean-Pierre on this year’s Thanksgiving costs

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My gut feeling is other than the case of pure monopoly, such as utilities, anti trust efforts these days are pretty ineffective and often do more harm than good. I generally agree with the Robert Bork philosophy that has been adopted by SCOTUS is that antitrust criteria should be based not in competition but whether it benefits the consumer. If oligopoly serves the consumers well so be it.

While oligopoly does lead to greater profits and in theory more pricing power, some of the profit gain is due to cost efficiencies. Until post Covid, in spite of rising profits and oligopoly inflation was very low.

In the tech sector much of the conversation is misguided. Ironically it’s the right that wants anti trust with tech because they think it is suppressing their speech (which is bullshit). But also Biden administration and Europe dabble in it. Tech changes so fast that by the time the govt decides to take anti trust action the tech has changed significantly.

Broadband is a tough one. It is in some areas a monopoly but there are different technologies and players nation wide. I get pissed when our spectrum internet keeps going up, but at the same time we here will soon have a fiber option (in many places that has existed for years unfortunately not in our neighborhood) and there’s always TMobile mobile internet. High profits accelerate the development of technological alternatives.

Health insurance is an example that is counter intuitive. Obama and other politicians really pressed for more competition in the health insurance markets. But at the same time, the areas with fewer choices often have more leverage against health care providers. If there are only a couple of health insurance choices, providers can’t just decide to leave a health insurance network.

However that works both ways. Providers have more leverage when there are fewer providers, and there are cases where large providers gobble up small community urgent care type place and then make the ER and charge inflated network charges which is bad for people who don’t have good insurance

It just seems to me anti trust regulators are just not in a position to intelligently make such decisions and when they do their decisions seem at best arbitrary and at worst inefficient. I have no reason to believe if regulators stepped in and started busting up companies that prices would go down.

 

My wife and I destroyed a $50 gift card at Carraba’s. Just lunch. No drinks. No desserts.

But glad inflation isn’t a thing.

 

Inflation Driving More Americans To Food Banks For Thanksgiving Staples | ZeroHedge

 

Bad news for right-wingers:

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/20/us-...eapest-thanksgiving-day-price-since-2020.html

 

I just filled up at $2.59 here in north texas.