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I find it interesting how apparent inflation is to the average person, we could probably place it somewhere between 30-50% since 2020. Now, if you ask a specif

I find it interesting how apparent inflation is to the average person, we could probably place it somewhere between 30-50% since 2020. Now, if you ask a specific political party fan what the inflation is, they will repeat the CPI number. The CPI number is awfully low considering what we see around us. This group stands by the number, saying everyone else is wrong. No, just because a Taco Bell burrito went from $1 to $1.69 in 3 years, we haven't hit 30% inflation! Meanwhile real humans are pricing their products and services at this 30-60% higher rate, regardless what the government numbers say. These same people have no issue calling China's numbers gamed. They can't imagine that an administration might do tricks to lower the CPI using policy, soft power, or even corruption. You can't even blame the inflation on a single party, a person could easily blame the other side. However there is this religious approach to those CPI numbers. I don't know why they do this, just blame the other party and accept the inflation for what it is. I genuinely don't understand the point of burying your head. It makes you do terrible decisions. I imagine they are having a really hard time buying houses since they think everything is overpriced, these people wouldn't be able to hire labor, or even make a commodity buy(without cognitive dissonance).

ceejayoz 3y ago
> The CPI number is awfully low considering what we see around us. People are really horrible at personally estimating such things. Small amounts of inflation hit harder than you'd think; anyone living paycheck-to-paycheck is suddenly having to cut back if costs go up just a few percent.
- GartzenDeHaes 3y ago
  People are very good at knowing what their rent is.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    People are not very good at knowing what the national average rent increase is, nor are they very good at factoring it into all other expenses to come up with an inflation number. "My rent went up a bunch" is not a particularly useful rebuttal to "the CPI is x". (The CPI, after all, factors these increases in. "Rental prices were by far the 'largest contributor' to the rise in inflation on an annual basis in March, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics." https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/real-estate/2023/04/12/where-rents-are-going-up/11648843002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/real-es... Note, also, the regional differences; +23% in South Dakota, down 3% in Connecticut. That's a large gap that can easily explain why individual anecdotes don't perfectly match the overall data.)
  - treeman79 3y ago
    Yep. Mine is up 1200 (to 2700) in past 3 years. Other friends up a 1000 this year alone.
    - LeafItAlone 3y ago
      Where do you live?
    - subarctic 3y ago
      I assume your city doesn't have rent control, how do rent increases work there? Are they allowed to just send you a notice saying "hey, just fyi your rent is doubling next year"? If there's a specific tenant they don't like are they allowed to increase their rent by more than others?
opportune 3y ago
Isn’t this because people notice the categories that have increased more? And that a lot of the categories that increased the most, like fast food, are proportionately small categories of consumption spending and thus weighted less? Also, a lot of companies have introduced more complicated price discrimination tactics in the past years which can make inflation seem higher than it actually is. Fast food for example, has essentially three tiers of pricing: instore with app coupon pricing, in store sticker price, and delivery/doordash price. Similarly many services use anchoring with high priced for short term contracts to push you towards longer term contracts with more reasonable pricing - they market it as locking in a discount, but they don’t expect you to take the short term contract because it’s a bad value, it’s a way to enhance the perceived value of the expected SKU. At least for me, my personal spending has grown just about in tandem with official inflation, maybe even less. Where is your evidence that increase in the sticker price of the cheapest things on Taco Bell’s menu reflects a much higher actual rate of inflation?
no_wizard 3y ago
This may not be directly related the Register piece, however it seems appropriate for the broader discussion. Asset prices need to come down. Waaaaay down. Sink like a stone. Will it hurt? you bet. It'd probably even affect me, most likely, but we'd eventually survive, and the recovery would be roaring comparatively. This is the only way to reset the economic imbalance at this point I feel. Companies aren't going to just lower prices out of the goodness of their hearts, they're going to capture all these price increases as much as possible even when the cost of raw materials starts coming down, wages decrease etc. Everyone needs to feel it, top to bottom, on some level, for this to get better. I'd like to see higher taxes too, mostly via closing of loopholes and treating capital gains as normal income vs actually raising the tax rates.
- MarcoZavala 3y ago
  [dead]
LeafItAlone 3y ago
> a specific political party fan Why don't you just be direct and name it? > just because a Taco Bell burrito went from $1 to $1.69 in 3 years I don't track my currency's value in Taco Bell's burrito prices. > Meanwhile real humans are pricing their products and services at this 30-60% higher rate > However there is this religious approach to those CPI numbers What actual sources and data are you using?
- itsyaboi 3y ago
  http://wondermark.com/1k62/ http://wondermark.com/1k62/
  - arolihas 3y ago
    These are perfectly legitimate questions. You can't just say "Oh all the CPI data is rigged, look at Taco Bell" and expect people to just accept that at face value.

ceejayoz 3y ago

> The CPI number is awfully low considering what we see around us. People are really horrible at personally estimating such things. Small amounts of inflation hit harder than you'd think; anyone living paycheck-to-paycheck is suddenly having to cut back if costs go up just a few percent.

GartzenDeHaes 3y ago
People are very good at knowing what their rent is.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  People are not very good at knowing what the national average rent increase is, nor are they very good at factoring it into all other expenses to come up with an inflation number. "My rent went up a bunch" is not a particularly useful rebuttal to "the CPI is x". (The CPI, after all, factors these increases in. "Rental prices were by far the 'largest contributor' to the rise in inflation on an annual basis in March, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics." https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/real-estate/2023/04/12/where-rents-are-going-up/11648843002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/real-es... Note, also, the regional differences; +23% in South Dakota, down 3% in Connecticut. That's a large gap that can easily explain why individual anecdotes don't perfectly match the overall data.)
- treeman79 3y ago
  Yep. Mine is up 1200 (to 2700) in past 3 years. Other friends up a 1000 this year alone.
  - LeafItAlone 3y ago
    Where do you live?
  - subarctic 3y ago
    I assume your city doesn't have rent control, how do rent increases work there? Are they allowed to just send you a notice saying "hey, just fyi your rent is doubling next year"? If there's a specific tenant they don't like are they allowed to increase their rent by more than others?

opportune 3y ago

Isn’t this because people notice the categories that have increased more? And that a lot of the categories that increased the most, like fast food, are proportionately small categories of consumption spending and thus weighted less? Also, a lot of companies have introduced more complicated price discrimination tactics in the past years which can make inflation seem higher than it actually is. Fast food for example, has essentially three tiers of pricing: instore with app coupon pricing, in store sticker price, and delivery/doordash price. Similarly many services use anchoring with high priced for short term contracts to push you towards longer term contracts with more reasonable pricing - they market it as locking in a discount, but they don’t expect you to take the short term contract because it’s a bad value, it’s a way to enhance the perceived value of the expected SKU. At least for me, my personal spending has grown just about in tandem with official inflation, maybe even less. Where is your evidence that increase in the sticker price of the cheapest things on Taco Bell’s menu reflects a much higher actual rate of inflation?

no_wizard 3y ago

This may not be directly related the Register piece, however it seems appropriate for the broader discussion. Asset prices need to come down. Waaaaay down. Sink like a stone. Will it hurt? you bet. It'd probably even affect me, most likely, but we'd eventually survive, and the recovery would be roaring comparatively. This is the only way to reset the economic imbalance at this point I feel. Companies aren't going to just lower prices out of the goodness of their hearts, they're going to capture all these price increases as much as possible even when the cost of raw materials starts coming down, wages decrease etc. Everyone needs to feel it, top to bottom, on some level, for this to get better. I'd like to see higher taxes too, mostly via closing of loopholes and treating capital gains as normal income vs actually raising the tax rates.

MarcoZavala 3y ago
[dead]

LeafItAlone 3y ago

> a specific political party fan Why don't you just be direct and name it? > just because a Taco Bell burrito went from $1 to $1.69 in 3 years I don't track my currency's value in Taco Bell's burrito prices. > Meanwhile real humans are pricing their products and services at this 30-60% higher rate > However there is this religious approach to those CPI numbers What actual sources and data are you using?

itsyaboi 3y ago
http://wondermark.com/1k62/ http://wondermark.com/1k62/
- arolihas 3y ago
  These are perfectly legitimate questions. You can't just say "Oh all the CPI data is rigged, look at Taco Bell" and expect people to just accept that at face value.