Don’t worry. As long as you don’t need to eat, drive a car, or heat your home in the winter, there is no inflation. Just listen to Yellen, the MSM and the BLS. Inflation is well contained.
OIL
NATURAL GAS
GASOLINE
CORN
SOYBEANS
WHEAT
PORK
COCOA
COFFEE
SUGAR
GOLD
SILVER
Polar Vortex Gift that keeps on giving.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-19/polar-vortex-shock-and-awe-utility-bill-arrives-and-why-it-will-get-worse-it-gets-be
JIM!!!!!!! (that was supposed to be like the old sitcom Cheers)
What about marshmallows? Thats what I substitute for shit I want to eat. Fungible is what I think Janet calls it.
Coffee up 32%? Son of a bitch!!
Food is going to get much more expensive. Brazil is also having a drought. Good thing I don’t need sugar, coffee, orange juice (I only drink grapefruit juice), or beef.
“Water is being rationed to nearly 6 million people living in a total of 142 cities across 11 states in Brazil, the world’s leading exporter of soybeans, coffee, orange juice, sugar and beef”
So where’s the inflation… on the big ticket items that matter?
My home is worth less than I paid for it a few years ago.
My other real estate investments are worth less, too.
Gold may be going up now but it’s way down from it’s 1900 high – no inflation there.
Another big ticket item for me… Private golf course membership… costs have dropped like a rock.
Some clothes at Sears and Kohls are cheaper than Goodwill prices.
Also, for clothes, furniture, books, and many other things there’s a tremendous supply on ebay, Craig’s list, and at the second hand stores. And all’s at cheap prices.
Food has gone up… I’ll admit that.
But, for monthly expenses that cover everything, I’m still paying about the same as I paid years ago and many of the big ticket items are cheaper.
Administrator…
John Williams, who runs ShadowStats has been predicting hyper-inflation for years…. wrong, John.
Others having been saying, “Me too” frequently and, as of yet, no go.
My knowledge of economics ends with being able to run a household and balance a checkbook. Yet I read… LewRockwell, Mises, Gary North, Mish, the NYT babble-brains and the WaPopo ers. The only guys who’s predictions have come true over the years have been Mish (Mr Deflation) and Irving Fisher who wrote about the velocity of money.
I don’t have an agenda but I read and remember. So far, where economics is concerned, I’d give the nod to Mish and Fisher.
Jackson
I’d give the nod to facts. Read it and weep.
Show Me the Nails
So you’re saying housing and retail are deflating?
That’s a great combo, rising costs for healthcare, education, medicine, food, gas, utilities, insurance, taxes, and decreases in disposable income and median income.
The housing market will collapse again. There are no buyers. Millennials and college grads are having to live with their parents. 110 million people have left the workforce. 50% of the population is getting money from the government. Millions have been put down to part time hours because of Obamacare. Who’s going to buy a house?
The Fed buying MBS has kept the housing market propped up by, you guessed it, soft sub-prime mortgages, but that is coming to an end, as is Hedge Funds pouring the Bernanke bucks into buying rental houses. And there’s a new flood or foreclosures hitting the market. New housing starts are collapsing, homebuilder confidence is collapsing, and mortgage applications are collapsing. So, enjoy your cheap New Balance sneakers and cheap country club membership They’re cheap because nobody can afford to pay for them anymore.
Administrator,
Good to see you continuing to post and comment. From the way you’d written about your job interfering with TBP, I feared that you’d be in limbo for 6 months. No one (substitute) does it better than you do.
Frankly I think your posts with short introductions and comments trump your long articles. At least they do for me. More of JQ, even if it’s just a little at a time, on TBP, is better than long grey paragraphs and graphs.
Oh, and so that you, AWD, and others can bang-bang-bang the thumbs-down button, I still think Mish and Fish(er), and not John Williams, are right about the economy and inflation.
Show Me the Nails says:
“So where’s the inflation… on the big ticket items that matter?
My home is worth less …. My other real estate investments are worth less … Gold (is) way down ….
Private golf course membership costs have dropped like a rock ….. clothes at Sears and Kohls are cheaper than Goodwill prices (that’s a lie) …..for clothes, furniture, books, and many other things there’s a tremendous supply on ebay, Craig’s list, and at the second hand stores … at cheap prices.
Food has gone up… I’ll admit that. …. for monthly expenses that cover everything, I’m still paying about the same as I paid years ago and many of the big ticket items are cheaper.”
Are you serious? This has to be some sort of a joke.
Joe Six Pack doesn’t care about real estate investments, the price of gold, golf memberships, or even the price of clothes, books, and furniture at Sears and Kohl’s versus the Internet or Goodwill. None of that resembles Joe’s lifestyle, twinkletoes.
What he DOES care about is food (up), rent or mortgage payments (up), price of gas (up), utility bills (up), sales tax (up), and just about every other important cost factor in his life. Government policies are screwing Joe big time. Oh, did I mention health care insurance? Ten to one he just got fucked with that one, too.
No joke SSS… where I live, automobile gas down since this time last year. Internet is cheaper and natural gas heating is cheaper than years ago. You’re right about food items, though. Most are pricier. My wife and I support two sons in different colleges. For them costs definitely are not higher.
As for the rest, sure my cost categories are different than yours, Joe’s, and others. My point, SSS, is that I, who diligently keep monthly expense accounts, haven’t seen the John Williams hyper-inflation increases. Also I haven’t seen big or hyper bumps elsewhere. As I wrote, as one persona or another, Mish and Fish(er), from my reading over the years have proved to be more accurate economic prognosticators than John Williams and his acolytes.
I just want to know what scotch futures are doing. I will be really pissed if scotch is headed up, especially single malts.
Let the unwashed masses drink Ten High. Lagavullin will suit me just fine.
Show Me the Nails
Where do you live? I live in Tucson AZ, home of some of the cheapest gas prices in the country and the 6th POOREST major city in America. Your careful diligence of your expenses don’t apply to Joe Six Pack, nor does the lack, thus far, of hyper inflation.
Here’s what Joe faces in southern Arizona:
1. Utility bill, including water, up by around 10%. Mainly due to EPA regs on both electricity and water. Tucson gets its electricity from coal and natural gas plants. Joe Six Pack in America gets 40% of his electricity from coal, which is under the gun from the EPA.
2. Property taxes up by 5-10%, despite declining property values. Just raise the tax rates, which both the city and Pima County have done to prevent declining revenues.
3. Rents. Skyrocketing due to the home foreclosures and inability to qualify to buy. Probably greater than 20%. Classic case of demand versus supply. And there’s a lot of rental units available in Tucson. A lot. It’s a poor city.
4. Food. You’ve conceded the point. Let’s move on.
5. Sales tax. Mama mia. 8.2 %. Poor man’s tax. Enough said.
6. Cost of higher education. Up over 100% in the past 20 years. Where do your kids go to school ( “My wife and I support two sons in different colleges. For them costs definitely are not higher.)? It sure as hell isn’t the University of Arizona or Pima Community College.
I’m just getting started. My quiver has many more arrows. Your turn.
Gas prices up over 130% since Bush’s wars of choice, while real median household incomes have fallen. Gas at $1.50 wasn’t that long ago, but the MSM has convinced you that $3.50 is normal. I remember paying $0.99 a gallon in 2000. I thought we were on the verge of energy independence.
SSS… sorry to read that expenses are squeezing you.
My sons go to school in VA and UT. One’s an average student, the other could be doing better. College expenses for both are much less than advertised. Grants, scholarships, and aid – it blew my mind – seem available to almost everyone.
Sales tax – no change for years.
Food – you’re right, open your wallet and pay more but not hyper-inflation more or even close to it.
Rents – I disagree. Based on the Consumer Price Index, for sons, I’m paying no more in one case and a slight bit less for apt housing than I paid 40 years ago.
Property taxes – I can’t tell except that I pay $750 less than I paid nine years ago for the house I’m living in now.
Utility bill – For services that are comparable for what we received nine years ago, based on my records, we pay more for water and sewer and electricity and much less for natural gas.
Again and again, based on my experience Mish and Fish(er) have been right about economics and inflation while John Williams, Peter Schiff, and their disciples have been wrong.
As I wrote, I’m no ideologue, Chicken-Little, or prognosticator. I’m just reporting my situation and what I’ve noticed.
Time for me to crow a bit. Well, maybe a lot.
One of my yunguns just got a full boat NCAA sports scholarship. To a private school no less. Bwahahahahaha! Life is good!
Uh huh uh huh, that’s the way I like it, uh huh, uh huh.
What is this thing tuition? What is this thing room and board? I cover transport and spending money, but nothing else. Bwahahahahaha! More single malt for me-e-e-e-e-e!
That is what happens when you live right, love your fellow man, and teach your kids the value of hard work and diligence.
I love it when a plan comes together.
“SSS… sorry to read that expenses are squeezing you.”
—-Show Me the Nails
WTF? I never said I’m being squeezed, you twit. I’m good. Really good. I have fucking zero debts. Everything I own is paid for. Everything. I could go on, but it’s none of your business.
I’m putting myself in the place of the average wage earner in this country, and I’m telling you straight to your fucking ignorant face that he and she is getting fucked royally, right up the ass, by the goddamned policies of the federal, state, and local governments. You somehow want to compare YOUR situation to tens of millions of others.
I don’t roll that way. I see Joe Six Pack in places I shop, homes that I drive by. I look at the car he drives, and I read verifiable financial statistics the HE IS GETTING FUCKED. Everyday and every way. I can afford all this financial Chinese water torture, Nails. Joe can’t.
That’s where I’m coming from.
Jackson
It seems you have trouble putting yourself in the same shoes as the average American with household income of $50,000. It’s good to be the 1%. Isn’t it?
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/15-reasons-why-your-food-bill-is-going-to-start-soaring