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When I hear “it’s transitory” I feel the urge to point out, that while it may be true and inflation will go to zero for all we know - the change in prices is li

When I hear “it’s transitory” I feel the urge to point out, that while it may be true and inflation will go to zero for all we know - the change in prices is likely to remain. Here’s something that bothers me most of all and I don’t hear much about: both my water and sewer, and electric utilities - increased prices by nearly 30%. I received notices and accompanying bills a few days ago. This was preceded by garbage pickup company raising rates similarly as well. In my personal life experience - I’ve not seen utility prices go down, ever.

smeyer 5y ago
>In my personal life experience - I’ve not seen utility prices go down, ever. I think it depends on the utility. My town dropped electric rates a bit a year ago[0] and I think it's even more common for rates to fluctuate (both up and down) with utilities like natural gas or even oil heat, where it's more closely tied to the price of a single commodity. [0] https://www.cambridgema.gov/news/detail.aspx?path=/sitecore/content/home/cdd/news/2021/1/cambridgecommunityelectricityprogramtooffernewprices https://www.cambridgema.gov/news/detail.aspx?path=/sitecore/... with a caveat that this was for the "standard" rather than the 100% green plan, where prices went up
hervature 5y ago
First, utility prices are really your state's responsibility (as in, they ultimately decide how expensive it is). Things like driving for green energy and canceling pipelines add to the cost. Obviously, the hope is that it pays off in the long run. Second, [1] is Nevada decreasing prices last year. Your "lifetime of data" is really a data point of n=1. [1] - https://www.nvenergy.com/about-nvenergy/news/news-releases/pucn-approves-nv-energy-rate-decrease-for-southern-nevada-customers https://www.nvenergy.com/about-nvenergy/news/news-releases/p...
- VincentEvans 5y ago
  Perhaps you are right. My life experiences in US date back to 1995. I can’t think of a single utility or typical household spending bill that was more expensive in the past than it is now. Can you think of one?
  - hervature 5y ago
    Not even the five dollar footlong lasted much longer than a decade. Outside of new technology, nothing is going to get less expensive over the time span of 30 years. That's guaranteed by the 2-3% inflation target.
    - VincentEvans 5y ago
      I don’t disagree with what you said. I am of the opinion however based on my experience - that these large jumps as we experiencing right now - tend to stick and make you wish for the good old 2-3% inflation.
tzs 5y ago
I've seen electricity go down. There were a lot of people complaining on my local Nextdoor about electricity rates being higher recently. I checked my bill and sure enough rates were higher. But then I checked my old bills. I've been in this house for 15 years and have all my past electric bills. The rates have gone up and down, and have been higher a few times in the past. There was no obvious correlation between when they were high and what political party was running things at the time. Similar with gasoline prices. I see lots of complaints of record high prices locally. I paid $3.60/gallon a couple weeks ago at ARCO which is indeed quite a bit higher than the ~$3/gallon it has hovered around for a while. I checked my records. They only go back to the last quarter of 2017. I find that the highest I paid since then was $4.63/gallon on 2017-11-05. Second highest was $4.21/gallon on 2017-09-21. In between those on 2017-10-06 I paid $3.45/gallon and on 2017-10-20 I paid $1.90/gallon. All of those were at the same ARCO station. The next several times over the next several months were all in the ~$2.90/gallon range. This puzzles me, because I cannot remember anything going on in late September or early November 2017 that would have caused short high spikes in gas prices. Anyone have have a better memory?

smeyer 5y ago

>In my personal life experience - I’ve not seen utility prices go down, ever. I think it depends on the utility. My town dropped electric rates a bit a year ago[0] and I think it's even more common for rates to fluctuate (both up and down) with utilities like natural gas or even oil heat, where it's more closely tied to the price of a single commodity. [0] https://www.cambridgema.gov/news/detail.aspx?path=/sitecore/content/home/cdd/news/2021/1/cambridgecommunityelectricityprogramtooffernewprices https://www.cambridgema.gov/news/detail.aspx?path=/sitecore/... with a caveat that this was for the "standard" rather than the 100% green plan, where prices went up

hervature 5y ago

First, utility prices are really your state's responsibility (as in, they ultimately decide how expensive it is). Things like driving for green energy and canceling pipelines add to the cost. Obviously, the hope is that it pays off in the long run. Second, [1] is Nevada decreasing prices last year. Your "lifetime of data" is really a data point of n=1. [1] - https://www.nvenergy.com/about-nvenergy/news/news-releases/pucn-approves-nv-energy-rate-decrease-for-southern-nevada-customers https://www.nvenergy.com/about-nvenergy/news/news-releases/p...

VincentEvans 5y ago
Perhaps you are right. My life experiences in US date back to 1995. I can’t think of a single utility or typical household spending bill that was more expensive in the past than it is now. Can you think of one?
- hervature 5y ago
  Not even the five dollar footlong lasted much longer than a decade. Outside of new technology, nothing is going to get less expensive over the time span of 30 years. That's guaranteed by the 2-3% inflation target.
  - VincentEvans 5y ago
    I don’t disagree with what you said. I am of the opinion however based on my experience - that these large jumps as we experiencing right now - tend to stick and make you wish for the good old 2-3% inflation.

tzs 5y ago

I've seen electricity go down. There were a lot of people complaining on my local Nextdoor about electricity rates being higher recently. I checked my bill and sure enough rates were higher. But then I checked my old bills. I've been in this house for 15 years and have all my past electric bills. The rates have gone up and down, and have been higher a few times in the past. There was no obvious correlation between when they were high and what political party was running things at the time. Similar with gasoline prices. I see lots of complaints of record high prices locally. I paid $3.60/gallon a couple weeks ago at ARCO which is indeed quite a bit higher than the ~$3/gallon it has hovered around for a while. I checked my records. They only go back to the last quarter of 2017. I find that the highest I paid since then was $4.63/gallon on 2017-11-05. Second highest was $4.21/gallon on 2017-09-21. In between those on 2017-10-06 I paid $3.45/gallon and on 2017-10-20 I paid $1.90/gallon. All of those were at the same ARCO station. The next several times over the next several months were all in the ~$2.90/gallon range. This puzzles me, because I cannot remember anything going on in late September or early November 2017 that would have caused short high spikes in gas prices. Anyone have have a better memory?