If only we could get -2% inflation for a few years so price come down to reasonable levels.
This is why I come to Lemmy — for people with even a passing understanding of the topics on which they speak confidently.
I started eating salads in August. I eat the packaged ones from King Soopers.
They’ve gone from $2.99 to $3.69 in that time. Since August.
I don’t believe anyone who says inflation is 2.4%. I just don’t believe it.
Packaged salads have an insane markup on them, if you do them yoursef you can save more than inflation ;)
The trick with inflation calculations is that they’re tied to a specific basket of wholesale goods. So each individual ingredient in that bagged salad may not have gone up more than 2.4%. But the grocery store’s corporate accountants have decided they can increase their margins with a 23% price hike.
That’s not inflation, it’s greedflation. And while we see wholesale prices remain low, we’re watching profits soar.
This is Core Inflation in the OP. It’s actually a basket of baskets of goods.
Inflation tracks the value of currency. Grocery store prices track how much corporations can charge you, imagine how bad it would be if the Krogers Albertson Merger wasn’t stopped by the Biden Administration.
The value of currency is always relative to goods and services.
Prices track the value of currency.
But the prices YOU PAID don’t track the value of currency when the prices the STORE PAID are much much lower. The dollar still bought those goods cheaply, and it’s also still buying expensive homes, boats, and planes for some lucky shareholders and board members. It’s just not buying much for YOU because you have limited options to buy from.
Oh that’s wonderful, because as we all know inflation is the only reason for the increasing prices…right? There couldn’t be any other contributing factors?
While this is good news, remember that this means that prices are still increasing due to inflation, just at a slower rate now. It does NOT mean that inflation has been reversed.
Not sure why there are down votes here. It’s an important fact to remember that inflation “falling” doesn’t mean the cost of living is going down.
Whether reversing inflation is good or not isn’t their point. The point is, living is still more expensive than last year and your wage hasn’t been keeping up since the 70s.
Probably because most people are too lazy to explain that deflation is a bad thing and incredibly hard to get unstuck. The “ideal” scenario is one where inflation stays low and wages outpace it. A small amount of inflation is a way to stop billionaires from sitting on piles of cash. At least with inflation they’re incentivized to spend it on investments, some of which are good for the economy.
Not in russia lol!
I saw this when I opened Edge for work this morning. Two worlds in one picture.
Someone is lying and I have a sneaking suspicion of who it is.
A/B headline testing in action.
Which one will get you to click through to the ads?
Really glad the president of the USA finally decided to pull the lower inflation lever in the oval office.
It’s a knob, dumbass
My apologies
Really glad the
presidentknob of the USA finally decided to pull the lower inflation lever in the oval office.lol gottem
hey wait…
It’s right next to the gas price slider. Duh.
I look forward to all the Biden “I did this!” stickers lauding his administration for lowering inflation.
Lower inflation doesn’t mean lower prices - which we need, and/or higher wages - it means prices are going up a little more slowly. Pointing at a $9 jar of mayonnaise with an “I did this” isn’t going to win many people over.
Can just reuse all the ones MAGAts stuck on gas pumps.
We’re already reusing those right where they are.
It’s right next to the Gas Price Dial on the Resolute desk.
Food prices are still up twenty to forty percent.
Right! and now, amazing news! Our expenses are only growing at a rate of only 2.4%!! Hooray?!?
2% is actually pretty good and about what you want. Maintaining flat spending power sounds great on paper, but also puts an economy at increased risk of recession and citizens at increased risk of ballooning debt.
That’s nice and all, but wages do not increase year over year for most people, so most people would prefer those risks and be able to continue living, instead of helping to balloon the suicide statistic.
We’re over a year straight of wage growth outpacing inflation. In jan if this year, 57% of workers had seen wage growth outpacing inflation (I can’t find more current numbers, but I assume it’s pretty similar). So you’re wrong, most people are seeing increases that beat out inflation.
We have a long way to go due to how much was lost because of the pandemic and price gouging, but please stop spreading misinformation, you’re just helping get trump elected.
It’s not misinformation, it’s actual lived experience. It’s nice some people in some rich states somewhere are getting raises. That’s not the case for many Americans, and when you people repeat government lines that go against what people are actually experiencing, you help get Trump elected as no one trusts anything you say anymore.
The economy is in full recession for most Americans. It’s not doing great, people are struggling. Without acknowledging this basic fact, there is no path for Dems to win the Whitehouse.
It’s nice some people in some rich states somewhere are getting raises.
Low wage workers have actually seen the largest increase. You’re confusing your personal experience with the economy as a whole.
The economy is in full recession for most Americans.
I’m not saying people aren’t struggling, I completely understand that there are lots of people who are. But this is just absolutely detached from reality.
Again, I’m sure cherry picked government released stats back up your very specific claim. It will and has fallen on deaf ears to the majority of Americans who have massively increased credit card spending while massively decreasing all recreational spending.
Your claim is in the same category as claiming increased GDP means a better economy. Yeah, kinda right, if you ignore actual conditions for real people.
Most people are not economists. Most people would like everyone to be given $100,000 and a pony (or just white people, if you’re a republican).
2% inflation is good. But an inflation number doesn’t tell us where the gains are accruing. Ensuring gains go to workers and not capital is an entirely separate goal of the government.
We’re taking about the consumer price index here. Inflation regarding the cost of living only. This is, as i hinted previously, heavily caused not by “inflation” (as youd consider it in econ 101) but corporate price-gouging.
Corporate price-gouging is i feel i must add capital N Not inflation in the traditional sense… But in the scope of this article and our conversation, it is.
So again, fucking-A yes I want price gouging to stop, right now… So like, if you wish to continue wit me we need to agree on terms. Let me know you agree this cpi definition and inflation in this case is “price gouging” otherwise we may as well just part ways
Agreed. I’m talking about deflation though. The debts you acquire balloon in size, even without interest, during deflation.
I don’t think we do agree. As you can see in the chart, our debts have been ballooning under inflation.
That’s total debt, he’s talking about individual debt. Deflation is bad. This is not really up for debate. 2% inflation is a fine target and worked well for decades.
As you can see in the chart, I’m talking about per person too.
I don’t think 2008 did work well.
If you don’t want to debate about this, then don’t.
That’s great the prices aren’t going up more. Now go get all of these companies that are price gouging. It’s good to protect people from it during natural disasters but unfortunate the government didn’t consider COVID a natural disaster.
Oh they are still going up, just not as much.
Now pay me more and we’re good.
Why are you asking Lemmy? Wage growth has been outpacing inflation. You should be getting on that train yourself if you want it.
I’m a teacher. Don’t come at me with that.
Then your union is negotiating it if they’re of any value. All the teachers unions around me negotiated 14-25% raises over 3 years over the last few years. If you’re a younger teacher you should look to job hop though. If you’re tenured you’re sorta stuck. In my area there’s three districts of the like 40~ I always push people that are new to end up in as once tenured in them you’ll earn well over 6 figures, even at the elementary level.
Source: former education and still friends with my teacher colleagues.
The union is currently negotiating. It’s a strong union. I’m in year 5. I’ve been looking around, but my position is highly sought after (PE Teacher) and the good positions go to people with much more experience. Also, I like where I’m at. It’s a low income area. The parents and admin let me do my thing.
Low income is also better in uncertain budget times as Title 1 funds make sure they have both fed and state funds. Here in Cali our property taxes mean that the schools in poor areas are the most well funded and the schools in rich older areas are the least well funded. Just with variations on what “rich” means here too.
If you have a state pension system too don’t forget to look into how that works for your district. There are some in my area that actually don’t pay the full percentage so teachers have a worse retirement than if they went to a different district with slightly less pay. So it’s all about the long game.
That’s still 2.4% on top of the cumulated inflation of the past 5 years…
The economy would tank really hard if wet somehow deflated it to go back in time. It doesn’t work like that.
Plus the last 5 years was almost entirely from covid anyway
I’m not saying it should. I’m just saying the rest of us still can’t keep up even with 2% because of the cumulative two digits inflation we’ve had over the past few years on top of it.
That’s just how inflation works though. Wages tend to rise slower than prices do. In economic terms, wages are “sticky.” They rise and fall slower than prices do in response to market conditions. Long periods of slow gradual inflation are fine, as people simply demand that their wages rise at a steady 2-3% to keep up with inflation, and employers expect it. But if there is a sudden spike in prices, it’s a lot harder for employees to suddenly negotiate wage increases. Instead, the slower process of labor market competition, employees leaving underpaying jobs for better paying jobs, has to take over. It’s going to take a few years for wages to catch up with the spike in prices, but it does happen with time, primarily from people switching jobs.
I’ve never had a 2% pay raise since I started my career in 2008.
Not by staying in one company anyway. I had to change companies every time and even then it was hard negotiating anything above what I was making before.
You misspelled price gouging.
Sure. But inflation is down, we didn’t go into a recession, and wage growth has been outpacing inflation for over a year now.
This is good, we’re going in the right direction. Deflation would be way worse.
Going in the right direction is fantastic except that it takes too long to really feel the impact, so all the low information voters will put in a republican, they’ll just happen to be in office when the good times hit, but then they’ll ruin it completely, which won’t be felt until a Democrat takes over, who then will have to clean up the mess, repeat ad infinitum
You don’t have to go any further than these comments to find plenty of people who have no idea how any of this works. lol
I’m hoping this time you’re wrong because there is a whole lot more on the line right now than just the economy.
We should raise the minimum wage until it is commensurate with the price gouging. All at once, since none of the corporations eased us into higher prices.
But we have zero parties in this country that are willing to raise the minimum wage at the national level.
Yeah but unfortunately that’s never going to change. Inflation is the rate of increase and they always want a rate of increase, just at 2%.
It’s never going to go negative because growth for the growth gods!! :(
Actually, it will never go negative (I hope) because if it goes negative we’re probably in for a massive global recession that will introduce untold suffering.
You think they aim for 2% because that’s what’s good for rich people? 2% is the magic number for the whole economy.
Who taught you that? Remember, economists funded by rich people have obvious biases… And what happens if our salaries and pensions are indexed to the cost of living? Is the reasoning still good?
Populist candidates used to actually argue for higher inflation. See the free silver movement of the late 19th century. With some inflation present, the real value of all debts goes down over time, as long as you make the interest payments.
Who taught you that? Remember, [well poisoning the myriad of sources that would clearly show that’s correct]
lol
Just learned I was funded by rich people. Did I miss a paycheck somewhere?
-an actual economist, telling you deflation is bad
Aaaand now we get to the “don’t trust the experts, they’re all liars” phase
Seriously. I didn’t realize President Erdogan had a lemmy accout!
Line must go up.
There are already alternatives available that do go negative.
You want a deflationary environment? Are you sure?
That’s what you got from my one line comment?
If “deflationary environment” is neoliberal for “restrictions on and immediate reduction of the current ongoing price gouging” then call me Moleman cuz yes, i want that, right now.
Ok, well, no, it’s not. Do you want actual deflation?
I need you to eat my entire sittin muscle. Dont say you don’t want to, i can see you enjoy doing it by how you talk. Its a chore speaking with you often i bet.
get to chewing
Dagum smug ass no thinking neoliberals… Always sound like the same 20 something middle manager haha
Waiting to see the creative ideas Republicans come up with to try to tank it before November
Haters will say it’s because of the election coming up
Too bad it’s not on food prices
Yay people got fucked over bad, but they can take a water break before resuming the ass railing.
