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So we haven't been experiencing inflation? I guess it's just me seeing all the real items in the economy skyrocket in price. But I guess when you can just read

So we haven't been experiencing inflation? I guess it's just me seeing all the real items in the economy skyrocket in price. But I guess when you can just readjust the definition and what's included it doesn't matter. The fed won't be able to raise interest rates without crushing the same people they were lowered to support.

lallysingh 6y ago
1.4%? https://www.kiplinger.com/economic-forecasts/inflation https://www.kiplinger.com/economic-forecasts/inflation
- rbultje 6y ago
  The official inflation numbers do not appear to reflect people's significant worries that rent prices or health care cost (etc.) keep going up.
  - 23iofj 6y ago
    In particular: education, insurance, and housing really is accurately reflected in the CPI, but the true price of non-shit consumer goods are consistently under-estimated in the CPI.
    - adam_arthur 6y ago
      Housing is not included in CPI, only "rents". If home prices go up 10% this year, but interest rates drop such that the carrying cost is the same, the effect on CPI is net 0% inflation. Obviously the purchase price matters, because the higher prices are, the more money you need to even get in the door with homeownership.
      - 23iofj 6y ago
        > Housing is not included in CPI, only "rents". This reads like an oxymoron to anyone who's not a property owner, which is about half the country -- all of whom are in the bottom 90% referred to in the headline.
        adam_arthur 6y ago
        Exactly. Inflation in home prices is great for property owners, bad for everybody else. Should renters not have the opportunity to buy a home?
        chii 6y ago
        > Should renters not have the opportunity to buy a home? there should not be societal subsidies for people wanting to buy their home. If rents are not growing at a rate that's higher than wage growth, then it is stable and thus acceptable. Owning a home is a privilege, not a right. Thus, the CPI calculations correctly only includes rental costs, and not ownership.
        Rury 6y ago
        >If rents are not growing at a rate that's higher than wage growth, then it is stable and thus acceptable Nonsense. Theoretically if wages and rents grew 5% in step together yoy, but most other goods increased at >100% (say houses), your statement implies things would always remain stable. I'd think not... The real reason CPI is garbage (for measuring total inflation) is because it doesn't track everything, and hence misses the inflation in things that the CPI doesn't track (such as houses). More specifically, it's a measure that only tracks what urban people CAN & typically spend money on. It doesn't track the things which some people have been entirely priced out of and hence don't spend money on (such as home ownership, as well as other assets).
    - cameldrv 6y ago
      Yes. When Apple comes out with a new iPhone, and last year's model is discounted by $100, that is counted as deflation in the CPI. When an appliance costs the same as it did 20 years ago, but lasts 5 years instead of 20 because it's made more cheaply, that's generally not factored in.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    They're meant to reflect the monetary phenomenon of inflation, not all worries about all prices. We need to address the rise of rent and healthcare prices, but dragging the prices down through monetary policy won't work if monetary policy isn't what's causing the problem.
  - SethMurphy 6y ago
    Also, food is not included and is a significant portion of my perception of prices. Food prices went up significantly last year and it's not something you can decide not to buy. It may be pandemic influence, but that's the world we live in now. From USDA (source: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-price-outlook/summary-findings https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-price-outlook/su...): In 2020, food-at-home prices increased 3.5 percent and food-away-from-home prices increased 3.4 percent. The CPI for all food increased 3.4 percent over this same period. In general, food price inflation in 2020 was much higher than in 2018 (0.4 percent), 2019 (0.9 percent), and the 20-year average (2.0 percent).
    - throwaway2037 6y ago
      You wrote: "food is not included". The US Federal Reserve currently uses the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index. Read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_consumption_expenditures_price_index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_consumption_expenditu... The PCE fraction for "food and beverages" (home, away, alcohol) ranges from 13.8% to 17.0%. That Wiki page also has a nice comparison to the consumer price index (CPI), which was previously used by the US Fed. US Social Security still uses CPI to adjust national pension payments. Also, you wrote that food prices had more inflation in 2020 compared to other recent years. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people had cheaper transportation costs, which would offset some or all of this food price inflation.
- jl2718 6y ago
  “Cost of shelter”. What a joke. Feudalist economics.
airstrike 6y ago
> So we haven't been experiencing inflation? I guess it's just me seeing all the real items in the economy skyrocket in price. We have not. Your impression of prices doesn't necessarily correlate with actual inflation.
- harry8 6y ago
  Inflation is the idea of prices accross the board going up. If you've experienced prices going up that does not indicate inflation. The second statement can only be true if your expereince is unrepresentative of the wider population for which you are discussing inflation. That wider population is usually considered to be people paid in the same currency. Well I guess wages usually go up for the same kind of job with the same experience when there's considered to be "inflation" and that really hasn't happened. Prices. Yes, they've gone up consistently, haven't we all seen the hard reality of that? And they show no signs of doing anything else. Price indexes used as a proxy measure of inflation may not be capturing that reality. Is it deliberate that the measure is failing to capture the reality? Or is it just poor baskets of goods and services in the index and a lack of will and talent to correct the issue? Anyone arguing about index values and what they mean still has to have a roof over their head quite literally at the end of the day. That has a cost. I haven't noticed the cost going down over any 5 year period. Then look at the cost of eating. Then the captial equipment you need for your job and to be able to pay required bills (some of clothes, vehicle, computing devices). Then look at essential consumables (some of fuel, food, electricity, telecomunications). I can't see anything other than high inflation and a decrease in disposable income. Note that if you get promoted and get a raise for a new position the reference is how much /that position/ was paid previously not what you were paid fresh out of $whatever. I don't ever see a measurement that reflects the reality we all see, experience and have to budget in inflation discussions in finance nor do I see a justification of why it's just plain wrong and in so far as these numbers represent anything they represent something else entirely other than the purchasing power of a dollar in your pocket this year as opposed some time in the past.
- benrbray 6y ago
  Rent and food prices have increased dramatically in the last 10 years, at least in urban / suburban areas. For consumer goods, shrinkflation has led to a huge decrease in product longevity, meaning I need to replace items more frequently. If the price for e.g. a toaster or blender has stayed the same but I need to replace it twice as often, then I'm really paying twice as much.

lallysingh 6y ago

1.4%? https://www.kiplinger.com/economic-forecasts/inflation https://www.kiplinger.com/economic-forecasts/inflation

rbultje 6y ago
The official inflation numbers do not appear to reflect people's significant worries that rent prices or health care cost (etc.) keep going up.
- 23iofj 6y ago
  In particular: education, insurance, and housing really is accurately reflected in the CPI, but the true price of non-shit consumer goods are consistently under-estimated in the CPI.
  - adam_arthur 6y ago
    Housing is not included in CPI, only "rents". If home prices go up 10% this year, but interest rates drop such that the carrying cost is the same, the effect on CPI is net 0% inflation. Obviously the purchase price matters, because the higher prices are, the more money you need to even get in the door with homeownership.
    - 23iofj 6y ago
      > Housing is not included in CPI, only "rents". This reads like an oxymoron to anyone who's not a property owner, which is about half the country -- all of whom are in the bottom 90% referred to in the headline.
      - adam_arthur 6y ago
        Exactly. Inflation in home prices is great for property owners, bad for everybody else. Should renters not have the opportunity to buy a home?
        chii 6y ago
        > Should renters not have the opportunity to buy a home? there should not be societal subsidies for people wanting to buy their home. If rents are not growing at a rate that's higher than wage growth, then it is stable and thus acceptable. Owning a home is a privilege, not a right. Thus, the CPI calculations correctly only includes rental costs, and not ownership.
        Rury 6y ago
        >If rents are not growing at a rate that's higher than wage growth, then it is stable and thus acceptable Nonsense. Theoretically if wages and rents grew 5% in step together yoy, but most other goods increased at >100% (say houses), your statement implies things would always remain stable. I'd think not... The real reason CPI is garbage (for measuring total inflation) is because it doesn't track everything, and hence misses the inflation in things that the CPI doesn't track (such as houses). More specifically, it's a measure that only tracks what urban people CAN & typically spend money on. It doesn't track the things which some people have been entirely priced out of and hence don't spend money on (such as home ownership, as well as other assets).
  - cameldrv 6y ago
    Yes. When Apple comes out with a new iPhone, and last year's model is discounted by $100, that is counted as deflation in the CPI. When an appliance costs the same as it did 20 years ago, but lasts 5 years instead of 20 because it's made more cheaply, that's generally not factored in.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  They're meant to reflect the monetary phenomenon of inflation, not all worries about all prices. We need to address the rise of rent and healthcare prices, but dragging the prices down through monetary policy won't work if monetary policy isn't what's causing the problem.
- SethMurphy 6y ago
  Also, food is not included and is a significant portion of my perception of prices. Food prices went up significantly last year and it's not something you can decide not to buy. It may be pandemic influence, but that's the world we live in now. From USDA (source: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-price-outlook/summary-findings https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-price-outlook/su...): In 2020, food-at-home prices increased 3.5 percent and food-away-from-home prices increased 3.4 percent. The CPI for all food increased 3.4 percent over this same period. In general, food price inflation in 2020 was much higher than in 2018 (0.4 percent), 2019 (0.9 percent), and the 20-year average (2.0 percent).
  - throwaway2037 6y ago
    You wrote: "food is not included". The US Federal Reserve currently uses the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index. Read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_consumption_expenditures_price_index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_consumption_expenditu... The PCE fraction for "food and beverages" (home, away, alcohol) ranges from 13.8% to 17.0%. That Wiki page also has a nice comparison to the consumer price index (CPI), which was previously used by the US Fed. US Social Security still uses CPI to adjust national pension payments. Also, you wrote that food prices had more inflation in 2020 compared to other recent years. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people had cheaper transportation costs, which would offset some or all of this food price inflation.
jl2718 6y ago
“Cost of shelter”. What a joke. Feudalist economics.

airstrike 6y ago

> So we haven't been experiencing inflation? I guess it's just me seeing all the real items in the economy skyrocket in price. We have not. Your impression of prices doesn't necessarily correlate with actual inflation.

harry8 6y ago
Inflation is the idea of prices accross the board going up. If you've experienced prices going up that does not indicate inflation. The second statement can only be true if your expereince is unrepresentative of the wider population for which you are discussing inflation. That wider population is usually considered to be people paid in the same currency. Well I guess wages usually go up for the same kind of job with the same experience when there's considered to be "inflation" and that really hasn't happened. Prices. Yes, they've gone up consistently, haven't we all seen the hard reality of that? And they show no signs of doing anything else. Price indexes used as a proxy measure of inflation may not be capturing that reality. Is it deliberate that the measure is failing to capture the reality? Or is it just poor baskets of goods and services in the index and a lack of will and talent to correct the issue? Anyone arguing about index values and what they mean still has to have a roof over their head quite literally at the end of the day. That has a cost. I haven't noticed the cost going down over any 5 year period. Then look at the cost of eating. Then the captial equipment you need for your job and to be able to pay required bills (some of clothes, vehicle, computing devices). Then look at essential consumables (some of fuel, food, electricity, telecomunications). I can't see anything other than high inflation and a decrease in disposable income. Note that if you get promoted and get a raise for a new position the reference is how much /that position/ was paid previously not what you were paid fresh out of $whatever. I don't ever see a measurement that reflects the reality we all see, experience and have to budget in inflation discussions in finance nor do I see a justification of why it's just plain wrong and in so far as these numbers represent anything they represent something else entirely other than the purchasing power of a dollar in your pocket this year as opposed some time in the past.
benrbray 6y ago
Rent and food prices have increased dramatically in the last 10 years, at least in urban / suburban areas. For consumer goods, shrinkflation has led to a huge decrease in product longevity, meaning I need to replace items more frequently. If the price for e.g. a toaster or blender has stayed the same but I need to replace it twice as often, then I'm really paying twice as much.