Inflation Down to 3 Percent

Link

More to the point, the US leads it's peers in both lower inflation rates and higher economic growth since the pandemic

This serves as a reminder to us all that competent and reactive fiscal/monetary policy is a great asset to have. I was critical of some of the Reserve's recent actions, but the numbers, at least to this point, indicate those concerns were unfounded.

Hopefully we can continue this trend.

We are fucked in the UK.

US went straight to deal the problem it seems. Here in Norway we were quite early with the first raises, but they were to small. So inflation is still going up here.

Terrible news for American patriots. Sad.

@omegamaster: I mean, Brexit, man....

Problem is UK is crap right now. Everything is continuously going up, interest rates go up, people protesting on the streets due to pay, the NHS is getting crap. Our government are terrible human beings

Let's go Brandon!

It's only because they cheated and used socialism, those dirty liberals! How dare they use our taxes to make our lives better! The gall.

Yeah was reading that the conservatives are going hard after immigrants (for whatever reason, I don't know) while the healthcare system is going to shambles and there's a worker shortage lol.

The number of healthcare workers that are immigrants is quite high in the West (UK, US, etc.), in case anyone was wondering what the issue is.

It's good to see the issue of inflation being tackled, finally, especially after that atrocious 9+%. Still issues continue to pervade in our economy.

For example, food prices continue to increase hitting the wallets of every single American out yonder. It's downright silly when I was in Reno/Susanville area last week helping the feds for a case, my food bills for just myself were insane! (I don't eat out much, I enjoy cooking for the family and meal prepping at work). A few beers and an entre set me back over $70, which took out my per diem meal allotment. lol

@Stevo_the_gamer: It's a good thing my wife has food stamps to counter-back those inflation cost. I too like to cook for the family but man, going grocery shopping is a pain in the ass now lol.

It's good that it's slowed down, but it doesn't fix the damage done and vast sums of American wealth that has been transferred to the most wealthy. Wages need to go up.

@adrian1480: agreed. I think someone said it best: nobody works hard enough to be a multi billionaire.

*nods*

But the Biden is destroying America and stuff!

You're not alone. Food here has gone up about 12 percent the last 12 months. Of course that isn't evenly spread out. Of all things candy and chocolate has gone least up, while others like meat and fish has gone up like 20% I think.

Generally the pay adjustment for this year is expected to be less than inflation.. Again.

Why do you guys keep electing the conservatives?

Most likely because Conservatives manifesto was more "trustworthy" and Boris Johnson at the time was seen best fit, unlike Jeremy Corbyn (Labour).

@omegamaster: And people not remembering what happened yesterday.

@Stevo_the_gamer: eating is overrated anyway.

just eat air ( and drink lots of other stuff but don't count it as food )

@comp_atkins: If you can fit it through a straw, it's not food

:-P

my family's monthly food spending ( groceries + eating out ) has been oddly flat for the past 7 years. maybe it's changes in habits to adjust for price increases. not sure.

@comp_atkins said:

@davillain said:

@Stevo_the_gamer: It's a good thing my wife has food stamps to counter-back those inflation cost. I too like to cook for the family but man, going grocery shopping is a pain in the ass now lol.

my family's monthly food spending ( groceries + eating out ) has been oddly flat for the past 7 years. maybe it's changes in habits to adjust for price increases. not sure.

I have been trying to do the same but I stop logging the purchases after awhile.

@horgen: not to plug them but i've used mint for over a decade now and the tracking is pretty much automatic since you link your accounts with them.

there's some manually updates you need to do to categorize transactions correctly from time to time and sometimes it can be finicky with pulling in your account info, but it's been really useful for tracking stuff like this, especially over time where you might not really catch changes. ( numbers removed for privacy )

for example you can see the impact covid and then WFH had on how much my family spent monthly on gas

plus your data can be exported for use in excel, etc.. for generating you own reports

@comp_atkins: Bingo.

You are exactly right, it's most likely due to economic substitutions. We make these subconsciously every day - if eggs are high, we might forego them in our breakfast in favor of sausage, for example - but we don't alter CPI for them because then it wouldn't be measuring inflation.

But we do measure them in a separate index called chained CPI.

@comp_atkins: Mint? Does it only work with American accounts?

Edit: Come to think of it. My main bank actually has something like this, but I use credit card for everything and the bank I have it with doesn’t offer the same.

good question, not sure if it works outside the US. there might be laws restricting aggregating information from other countries.

@comp_atkins said:

@davillain said:

@Stevo_the_gamer: It's a good thing my wife has food stamps to counter-back those inflation cost. I too like to cook for the family but man, going grocery shopping is a pain in the ass now lol.

my family's monthly food spending ( groceries + eating out ) has been oddly flat for the past 7 years. maybe it's changes in habits to adjust for price increases. not sure.

Man, first off, hats off to being this particular about keeping track of finances! I use Mint to assist but it's not a complete picture.

Where abouts are you, regionally? And are you good about the coupon/discount stuff?

I know the huge increase for me was including a third little mouth to feed a couple years ago! But other things like meats have seen a huge increase in price (something like 20+% compared to pre-2020 prices)

Thank goodness inflation rate is falling. I am a landlord (I own two houses, one for me to live in and the other to rent out to tenants), so hopefully the interest rates will go down as well.

@lavamelon: if you own the houses, why do you care if the interest rates fall? Are you in ARMs? Did you get your mortgages at the height of the rates recently?

@Stevo_the_gamer said:

@comp_atkins said:

@davillain said:

@Stevo_the_gamer: It's a good thing my wife has food stamps to counter-back those inflation cost. I too like to cook for the family but man, going grocery shopping is a pain in the ass now lol.

my family's monthly food spending ( groceries + eating out ) has been oddly flat for the past 7 years. maybe it's changes in habits to adjust for price increases. not sure.

Man, first off, hats off to being this particular about keeping track of finances! I use Mint to assist but it's not a complete picture.

Where abouts are you, regionally? And are you good about the coupon/discount stuff?

I know the huge increase for me was including a third little mouth to feed a couple years ago! But other things like meats have seen a huge increase in price (something like 20+% compared to pre-2020 prices)

northeast US. we don't really use coupons but often will not purchase something that hasn't been on sale for a while with the expectation that it'll likely be on sale soon. there was an increase mostly off graph to the left when the extra mouths started showing up.

@omegamaster: I wonder if further UK government will start to stealth reverse Brexit to save the economy.

Not so fast yankee.

Up here in the frozen wasteland forests on fire wasteland we went down to 2.8% in June.

Take that!

Linky

@SUD123456: Touche!

Except inflation is not down, gas is almost $4+ a gallon again which is gonna keep anything retail or food at the price its at currently and for a very long time. I don't see anything going lower as well like buying a car is still stupid expensive and don't get me started on the housing market which even if it did drop 3%.......you still have another 40% to drop to get pre 2019 numbers.

@Ballroompirate: Yes, inflation is going down. You are measuring it wrong.

Biden is handling this well. I do wonder how are the clowns in the Riksdag doing? Swedish politics has been a circus since the right wing government took over.

When everything is going up in price or staying the same price, that's the opposite of inflation going down.

In fact tell me what has gone down in price in the last 4 months and has stayed there. Cause I can tell you it ain't bills, car payments, gas, food, rent/mortgage, tax rates. Hell even most states are increasing their minimum wages cause inflation is *drum roll please* still not going down.

@Ballroompirate: Everything staying the same price means inflation is non-existent. Prices going up at slower rates means inflation is falling.

Prices going down, in aggregate, is deflation. That's bad.

Basic understanding of what is being reported. The reported inflation number is a rate of change, so for example if the reported annual rate is say 5%, that means something that cost $100 last year costs 105% this year. If the inflation is dropping, that means that the rate of change of the rate of change ( inflation ) is negative, that is the 5% annual rate reported last month is now say 4.5%. It doesn't mean that that $105 thing last month now cost less. It's also not a true statement for every single thing you purchase.

If the reported rate of inflation were negative, then things would actually be cheaper. That $100 thing last year would be $95 in a -5% inflation environment.

This is what happens when you have a real leader instead of an unqualified fool. Americans made the right choice in 2020.

Isn’t he following the conservative school of thought on inflation? the one that argues minimum wage should not be increased.

Well, to hear them (the Right) tell it, the country is in the worst shape it’s ever been.

Remarkable to me how a twice-impeached, thrice-indicted, election-denying, insurrection inciting, proven-rapist con man looks to be winning against Biden in current polling matchups.

@MirkoS77: meh. The polls said the same thing last time.

I hope you are right. If Trump somehow wins, America is finished.

I can't see him getting enough Democrats or Independents to switch back to him. And then there are Republicans that are now against him. He's probably the worst candidate for the party to nominate.

also, why would something like a (presumably) fixed rate thing like a car payment go down? if you sign a contract for a car payment at a fixed interest rate over say 48 months, that isn't going to go down regardless of what inflation does or doesn't do.

The let the inflation come up to bring up gas and food and meat and rent and now this will not go down again - Brandonomics fail - but you say you are happy with this?? It is desperate for good news when Hunter Biden is having problem and the genned up Donald J Trump persecution.

@thatforumuser: lol. 13 million new jobs and record economic growth. The crap you wrote was all nonsense.

Good.

Yea, I'm seeing new car financing at 2.99% APR again (down from 5%+ a few months ago). Is supply finally catching up with demand?

edit: eh, Porsche is still at 7.25% APR for new, which is insane to me.

A bunch of region banks just had to take a hit.