Locally here in northern Illinois, backyard chicken eggs are selling for $7.00 a dozen. Store bought eggs are around $5.00 a dozen.
Inflation.
- Thread starter Sam Gamgee
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Going to put this here.
If you want to add info to your wide views of prices I will invite you all to look into the logistics side of things. Most notably trucking .
www.thetruckersreport.com
Scour this site and you will be able to glean how the trucking industry is being effected and how that moves into the cost of goods. Notably the price of diesel, rates, and cost of operations for owner operators. Also gives you an unbiased (mostly) look in to supply . You can also from that information glean why maybe in some particular areas prices are effected differently. Such as maybe you didn't realize how much your area has to import. Or. Regulations effecting the ease of receiving the import.
If you want to add info to your wide views of prices I will invite you all to look into the logistics side of things. Most notably trucking .
Recent Posts | TruckersReport.com Trucking Forum | #1 CDL Truck Driver Message Board
www.thetruckersreport.com
Scour this site and you will be able to glean how the trucking industry is being effected and how that moves into the cost of goods. Notably the price of diesel, rates, and cost of operations for owner operators. Also gives you an unbiased (mostly) look in to supply . You can also from that information glean why maybe in some particular areas prices are effected differently. Such as maybe you didn't realize how much your area has to import. Or. Regulations effecting the ease of receiving the import.
There is almost zero talk about this. A few things I'd like to see on the news. First, this is global. Most countries, China included, have worse inflation than the USA. I don't know who or what they're doing in WashDC, but comparatively, they're doing a pretty good job. Second, while inflation has been 6-8%, prices have gone up 15-20%. That's not inflation. That gouging. Couple the gouging with shrinkflation, and you have a lot of business taking advantage of the situation. Third, since we're talking about eggs, according to Farm Report, they've killed 57 million chickens so far. Inflation is a small part of what is happening with eggs. Fourth, there hasn't been a new oil refinery built since 1974. This is for a couple reasons: 1) oil companies have no interest in creating a greater supply 2) no citizens/towns want a new refinery in their backyard. Fifth, like gouging in the grocery store, oil companies have reported consistent record-breaking profits every quarter for a while now (too lazy to look it up). Each quarter is a new profit record. Again, that isn't inflation. That's good ol' opportunistic gouging. There are a slew of recordings of oil heads talking about how it is good for them if we're in a slight recession. They aren't going to do anything to help out public matters because it isn't in their best interest. If anything, they're going to slyly contribute to a recession because it better serves their stockholders.
Same here in Kentucky. I agree with you, it's a lot of unfortunate circumstances.
This ^^^^
Put into the fewest words:
We've created a world no one wants to maintain.
The "dirty jobs" are going unfilled.
The domino effect will be profound.
Since the pandemic, I've noticed more and more restaurants charging a 3% fee for paying with a card. These are the same restaurants that we continued to order (carry out) while they were closed for indoor seating. We were supporting our local restaurants (not chain restaurants). I understand some restaurants are still struggling, but the local restaurants we visit are always crowded. I always bring CASH now when we dine out.
Taxes go up, prices increase. Minimum wage goes up, prices increase. Gas prices rise, so do retail/wholesale prices. So the dollar in the consumers pocket feeds/supports all such increases and buys less. Actions have consequences.
Then there is "shrinkflation" where the consumer's dollar purchases less product for the the old price, soon to be raised most likely. The reduction of purchasing power always follows a rise in the "cost of doing business". All costs of retail/ politics/manufacturing etc. are passed along to the consumer/tax payer who has no-one to pass expenses on to. Best to remember that when in the voting booth. Increased costs result in increased prices, shareholders demand a return on their investment. Employees demand raises to keep up. A basic fact of life.
If you wish to get ahead of the curve, I suggest boning up on the "market" and other investing strategies. To stay level your wages/income must keep pace. And, should outstrip inflation when possible. I'd also recommend keeping a decent amount of cash on hand, where possible, so as to take advantage of good prices when found. It's a cruel world out there and it is wise to plan ahead and have some cash always available. Pennies do, eventually, add up to a dollar and ... so forth.
High inflation demands cash be available. Put aside a dollar, ten dollars, forego the boat/vacation/video game/new television. or whatever you can, once a month. Stop the monthly haircut and go every other month. Pay off credit cards as soon as possible. Not sense paying interest on food you've already eaten. Pay yourself first, have a budget. Simply throwing up one's hands in bewilderment will not solve financial problems. One must fully control spending. In this day and age, those on a salary or limited income, must ponder each outlay and determine whether it's a necessity or luxury. Incidently, I consider smoking to be a selfish luxury. I can indulge in smoking because I had the foresight to manage my moneys over the years. You can either over indulge as a youngster or, forego some unnecessary acquisitions and invest/save for the future. Actions have consequences!
Then there is "shrinkflation" where the consumer's dollar purchases less product for the the old price, soon to be raised most likely. The reduction of purchasing power always follows a rise in the "cost of doing business". All costs of retail/ politics/manufacturing etc. are passed along to the consumer/tax payer who has no-one to pass expenses on to. Best to remember that when in the voting booth. Increased costs result in increased prices, shareholders demand a return on their investment. Employees demand raises to keep up. A basic fact of life.
If you wish to get ahead of the curve, I suggest boning up on the "market" and other investing strategies. To stay level your wages/income must keep pace. And, should outstrip inflation when possible. I'd also recommend keeping a decent amount of cash on hand, where possible, so as to take advantage of good prices when found. It's a cruel world out there and it is wise to plan ahead and have some cash always available. Pennies do, eventually, add up to a dollar and ... so forth.
High inflation demands cash be available. Put aside a dollar, ten dollars, forego the boat/vacation/video game/new television. or whatever you can, once a month. Stop the monthly haircut and go every other month. Pay off credit cards as soon as possible. Not sense paying interest on food you've already eaten. Pay yourself first, have a budget. Simply throwing up one's hands in bewilderment will not solve financial problems. One must fully control spending. In this day and age, those on a salary or limited income, must ponder each outlay and determine whether it's a necessity or luxury. Incidently, I consider smoking to be a selfish luxury. I can indulge in smoking because I had the foresight to manage my moneys over the years. You can either over indulge as a youngster or, forego some unnecessary acquisitions and invest/save for the future. Actions have consequences!
Very wise. The diner owner, if wise, passes on the cost of taking a credit card to the consumer. Smart business that as he/she is facing the same inflation as the customer is. The owner could, without undue loss most likely, reduce the tab by three percent to encourage less credit card usage. That would/could be a "win,win" situation
This. I shop at 3 different stores. A big chain that has everything, a smaller bargain chain, and a local organic store. One interesting thing to note is that the price on the high quality local organic stuff has barely gone up and is often cheaper than non-organic non-local meat/eggs/produce. I deduce a few reasons: low shipping distances, no dependence on fertilizers that come from a region of the world that is experiencing war, no flu viruses seem to hit these free roaming chickens as they aren’t crowded into feedlots.Going to put this here.
If you want to add info to your wide views of prices I will invite you all to look into the logistics side of things. Most notably trucking .
Recent Posts | TruckersReport.com Trucking Forum | #1 CDL Truck Driver Message Board
Scour this site and you will be able to glean how the trucking industry is being effected and how that moves into the cost of goods. Notably the price of diesel, rates, and cost of operations for owner operators. Also gives you an unbiased (mostly) look in to supply . You can also from that information glean why maybe in some particular areas prices are effected differently. Such as maybe you didn't realize how much your area has to import. Or. Regulations effecting the ease of receiving the import.
It's ok though, we'll have millions of awesome tik tockers and virtual reality gamers! The world will crumble around them and they won't even notice!
They have a legal obligation to follow the best policies with regard to shareholders. My retirement plan is heavily invested in oil stocks. My state is heavily dependent on the oil business (taxes, passed on to the consumer) and, not incidentally, income tax free. So, mixed emotions. Expensive oil means a rise in gasoline,heating oil prices, and so forth. So, do I root for lower price per barrel with less income to the state and lower return on investment for me, a shareholder or, do I pull for lower prices at the pump? A real poser that!
I should also point out, my state pays every resident (defined as residing in the state for the full year prior to application) a dividend from the "Permanent Fund", an investment tool started many years ago with oil tax income. The dividend is usually a thousand dollars plus. It's been above three grand and below a grand though depending on stocks,bonds, property investment returns. A family five gets quite a boost. Of course the Feds do tax it as income. But, for a family not paying taxes, on the government dole, it's an untaxed "wind fall." I live in the most socialist of the US states. I dislike the "free" moneys annually but, I'm not stupid enough to refuse it.
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That's always been part of the overall cost. Now they reflect it on your bill singularly, most likely in an effort to keep prices reasonable. But, banks will raise that rate, sooner rather than later, and, the menu prices will rise accordingly.
The alternative, happening more often, is the doors will have to be shut permanently. Tough time to be in restaurant business.
My daughter and her husband raised ducks on their farm for egg production. Their birds were pasture raised and given the type of care you give to your pets. Then they were hit with the bird flu.
They dutifully reported their sick birds to the state and, due to weather delays in getting the test results, already had most of their flock recovering when the virus was confirmed. Per the USDA policy, all 170 of their birds were destroyed including their 8-year-old pet birds that didn't even lay anymore. It's apparent that many small producers are not reporting sick birds due to the financial impact it would have on them.
There are vaccines in use in other countries but not the US. There is evidence of genetics influencing resistance to the virus. Most of their birds, all of them heritage breeds, never developed symptoms. Due to quarantine, it will be at least a year until they can start egg production again. Meanwhile 5 tons of feed is spoiling, equipment is idle and compensation from the government is a fraction of their losses with no help at all for a year's lost revenue. There is no insurance for a small farm like theirs.
It was tough to see my daughter in tears on the local news.
The stores, restaurants and food delivery services that depended on them and the local customers with allergies to chicken eggs, will have to find other sources.
I'm sure their situation won't move the needle a fraction when it comes to inflation, but it does seem as though more could be done to fight the avian flu and the USDA is limited due to funding for it's animal health programs.
Visa/Mastercard/American Express/etc charge the restaurant around 3% + a standard surcharge per transaction, like PayPal, to use the card. Plus, they pay the bank and/or credit card for the in-house technology to accept credit card payments. I'm not arguing on their behalf, but all they're doing is passing on those exact costs to the customer. At 3%, they might even be losing a little bit still. It's really no different than gas stations offering a cash price vs a credit price. And with today's tight margins, 3% is obviously significant to them. Food service is a brutal business on every level.
Yeah, I get it. We still go out at least twice a week, but I now bring cash. Plus if I pay in cash, at least the server is getting the whole tip...at least I hope so.
For me, certain items are more of a problem than others. My wife and I do about 99.99999% of our own cooking, so the cost of eating out is blessedly a non-factor as far as expenses are concerned (not that this is even a viable option in the remote mountain town where we live). That said, the discrepancy between prepared/processed foods that are ready-made versus staple ingredients is the most noticeable. The solution there was simple--just cut out as much of the prepared stuff as we can. This simple step has made a big difference in our mission to cut costs wherever possible.
Another thing I feel compelled to mention is the often deliberate (you can thank the media for this, as usual) confounding of inflation and price-gouging. The latter has a nasty habit of masquerading as the former, thus concealing its existence to the layman. Utility companies rely heavily on this strategy, especially ones that have little to no competition. The SoCalGas fiasco of last month is a perfect example, although judging by how quickly they did an about-face, thankfully this tactic backfired (I'm sure their customer service phone lines were inundated with class-action threats). There's a price-gouging spectrum after all, and I suppose the more weighted one particular instance is toward the overt end, the higher the likelihood that people will see it.
The more reliant someone is on others, the more opportunity there is for the price-gougers, and indeed anyone seeking to profit from fabricated "scarcity" of resources (I'm looking at you, water companies!). Obviously, the only solution is to reduce that dependency as much as possible, wherever possible. That's certainly my long-term goal.
Another thing I feel compelled to mention is the often deliberate (you can thank the media for this, as usual) confounding of inflation and price-gouging. The latter has a nasty habit of masquerading as the former, thus concealing its existence to the layman. Utility companies rely heavily on this strategy, especially ones that have little to no competition. The SoCalGas fiasco of last month is a perfect example, although judging by how quickly they did an about-face, thankfully this tactic backfired (I'm sure their customer service phone lines were inundated with class-action threats). There's a price-gouging spectrum after all, and I suppose the more weighted one particular instance is toward the overt end, the higher the likelihood that people will see it.
The more reliant someone is on others, the more opportunity there is for the price-gougers, and indeed anyone seeking to profit from fabricated "scarcity" of resources (I'm looking at you, water companies!). Obviously, the only solution is to reduce that dependency as much as possible, wherever possible. That's certainly my long-term goal.
In the late seventies, when I took economics in college, inflation was a persistent ten per cent or thereabouts. Even at ten per cent annually that was mild inflation compared to banana republics where persistent inflation rates were five or ten times higher.
One thing I was taught about inflation was dead wrong, the quantity theory of money. It seemed so logical and simple. If the money supply goes up by fifty per cent then prices also go up fifty per cent.
en.m.wikipedia.org
Since 2017 the United States has borrowed and spent, which is shoveling right back into the economy, almost 12 trillion dollars more than it taxed.
Five trillion was spent on Covid relief alone.
——
Stimulus bills approved by Congress beginning in 2020 unleashed the largest flood of federal money into the United States economy in recorded history. Roughly $5 trillion went to households, mom-and-pop shops, restaurants, airlines, hospitals, local governments, schools and other institutions around the country grappling with the blow inflicted by Covid-19.
Economists largely credit these financial jolts with helping the U.S. economy recover more quickly than it otherwise would have from the largest downturn since the Great Depression: The pandemic recession was the shortest on record, lasting only three months.
—-
To put that into historical perspective, to fight and win World War Two cost America four trillion adjusted for inflation.
—-
Did borrowing and spending nearly three times what World War Two cost in just six years fuel inflation, why of course it did. But it should have sparked runaway banana republic type inflation, and it didn’t.
But here is what is called “headline inflation” in the USA on this day.
US Inflation Rate Slows to 6.5% as Expected
The annual inflation rate in the US slowed for a sixth straight month to 6.5% in December of 2022, the lowest since October of 2021, in line with market forecasts. It follows a 7.1% reading in November.
——
Now, let me ask a question.
Where did that three World War Two’s worth of money go?
If people spent it all, prices would have gone up much more than they did.
One thing I was taught about inflation was dead wrong, the quantity theory of money. It seemed so logical and simple. If the money supply goes up by fifty per cent then prices also go up fifty per cent.
Quantity theory of money - Wikipedia
Since 2017 the United States has borrowed and spent, which is shoveling right back into the economy, almost 12 trillion dollars more than it taxed.
Five trillion was spent on Covid relief alone.
——
Stimulus bills approved by Congress beginning in 2020 unleashed the largest flood of federal money into the United States economy in recorded history. Roughly $5 trillion went to households, mom-and-pop shops, restaurants, airlines, hospitals, local governments, schools and other institutions around the country grappling with the blow inflicted by Covid-19.
Economists largely credit these financial jolts with helping the U.S. economy recover more quickly than it otherwise would have from the largest downturn since the Great Depression: The pandemic recession was the shortest on record, lasting only three months.
—-
To put that into historical perspective, to fight and win World War Two cost America four trillion adjusted for inflation.
—-
Did borrowing and spending nearly three times what World War Two cost in just six years fuel inflation, why of course it did. But it should have sparked runaway banana republic type inflation, and it didn’t.
But here is what is called “headline inflation” in the USA on this day.
US Inflation Rate Slows to 6.5% as Expected
The annual inflation rate in the US slowed for a sixth straight month to 6.5% in December of 2022, the lowest since October of 2021, in line with market forecasts. It follows a 7.1% reading in November.
——
Now, let me ask a question.
Where did that three World War Two’s worth of money go?
If people spent it all, prices would have gone up much more than they did.
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