I’ve written dozens of posts about the fraudulent figures put out by the propaganda arm of the government – the BLS. Looking at today’s laughable report proves once again how our government desperately needs to convince the clueless masses that inflation is under control. Beef prices hit a 27 year high today, but the BLS says the price didn’t go up because you substituted beef with chicken. The figures below show that new car prices have not risen in the last year. That’s funny because all of the car companies announced 3% to 5% price increases. The BLS says the price didn’t increase because you now have an ass warmer in your seat and a beeper for when you back up.
But the most outrageous lie within the BLS propaganda is the price of gasoline. They have the gall to report a 1.7% DECLINE in March after a 1.7% DECLINE in February. Please see the chart below of actual gasoline prices for February and March.
The price of gasoline on February 1 was $3.27 per gallon. The price on March 31 was $3.54 per gallon. By my calculations, people in the real world paying real money for real gasoline experienced an 8% increase in gasoline costs. How can these government drones blatantly publish false inflation data when anyone with a smattering of research skills can disprove their bullshit propaganda? Am I the only one who gets pissed off by this shit? Maybe some Ivy League educated Wall Street economist or CNBC faux journalist bimbo can explain to me why the BLS figures are accurate and beyond question.
The price of oil rose from $97 per barrel on February 1 to $102 per barrel on March 31, with a spike above $104 during February. That is a 5% increase in two months. Natural gas is up 9% YTD with a huge spike in February. But somehow the BLS reports all energy costs are flat for the year. You’d have to be a shit eating retarded monkey to believe this crap.
It seems gasoline prices have continued higher in April, up another 2% since the end of March. I’m sure the BLS will report a 4% drop in gasoline prices in April. The BLS and our government keepers are a joke, except I’m not laughing.
There is exactly one person outside of BLS who has even looked into this, and you are he.
March CPI Higher Than Expected, Driven By 16.4% Annual Spike In Utilities, Increase In Shelter Index
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/15/2014 08:47 -0400
Following the hotter than expected PPI data, it was the turn of CPI to come in stronger than consensus had hoped for, and sure enough, moments ago the BLS reported that March consumer inflation printed higher than the expected 0.1%, coming at 0.2% for both headline and the core (excluding food and energy) components, driven mostly higher by a surge in Utility costs which soared by 7.5% M/M, and a whopping 16.4% Y/Y. Curiously, the energy services spike of 2.6% of which utilities is a part, was offset by a drop in energy commodities, mostly fuel oil, whose cost dropped 2.9% in March and by gasoline down 1.7%, and down 4.7% Y/Y.
The BLS also noted the rapid increase in the shelter price index: “Almost two-thirds of this increase was accounted for by the shelter index, which rose 0.3 percent. The indexes for rent and owners’ equivalent rent both rose 0.3 percent, while the index for lodging away from home rose 1.5 percent.” Is the housing bubble – both purchase and rent – and which has already burst across much of the nation, finally being noticed by the Fed?
The only other core commodity which saw a drop in prices in March were medical care commodities, which dropped by -.3%. Everything else was higher, and solidifies the Fed’s tapering bias, if not so much a confirmation that the economy is growing which as the concurrently printing Empire Fed, on a tumble in business conditions and new orders, showed is not happening. Perhaps one should be blaming the balmy spring weather in the Empire State for this particular miss.
The publisher of this article must be anti-American. You must be re-educated & put on a “terrorist watchlist”.
All readers should move to a “free speech zone” & then may continue reading this conspiracy theory propaganda.
Btw, the Russians & Chinese are your enemies!
Thank you.
A government drone from DC
Beef Prices at 27-Year High
Continuing demand from Japan, Hong Kong and Mexico increased U.S. beef exports by 3.2% in February to more than 10% of all U.S. production. Add to that the diminished size of the U.S. cattle herd and the low number of animals being slaughtered, and the result is higher prices for beef.
Much higher prices, in fact, according to USA Today, which reports that the average retail cost of fresh beef rose to $5.28 a pound in February, the highest price since 1987 and nearly 25 cents higher than the January price. The price paid to ranchers who raise cattle rose to $1.44 a pound in February, up from $1.25 in January, but lower than the preliminary estimate of $1.47 a pound for March.
For now consumers are coping with the rising costs by buying either pork or chicken, but pork prices are up due to a disease that’s killing young pigs and chicken prices are rising because demand for poultry is increasing as both beef and pork are already too high for some consumers.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has amended its forecast for 2014 beef production and for beef prices. Production is now expected to be down 4.5% compared with last year to the lowest level since 2004, the forecast says, but production will rise in the second half of the year. The price for fed cattle is expected to rise to a range of $1.44 to $1.51 a pound, sharply above last year’s record price of around $1.26 a pound.
The total number of cattle slaughtered last week totaled 573,000 head, a drop of 1.7% from the previous week and a drop of 5.6% from the same period a year ago. If the USDA forecast that the slaughter numbers will rise in the second half is accurate, that should help keep prices in check.
But the only thing that will lower retail prices — or at least stop them from rising so quickly — is an increase in the size of the U.S. cattle herd. And that will take a couple of years to make happen. The price drop, however, isn’t expected to be substantial. Beef prices, like oil prices, are higher for good.
Milk, cheese prices may climb 10%
Behind the rising cost of dairy products
By Catey Hill, MarketWatch
Hope you’re not craving a grilled cheese sandwich and a milk shake.
If you’ve noticed your grocery bill ticking upward, the dairy aisle might be partly to blame. Retail dairy prices climbed 0.7% from January to February of this year, according to government data released Tuesday; that’s compared with just 0.1% for urban consumer prices overall. The price that consumers paid for a gallon of milk, for example, was more than $3.56 in February, up more than 10 cents since September . “Prices started pushing higher in the fourth quarter of last year, and that has spilled over into this year,” says Jerry Dryer, editor of the Dairy and Food Market Analyst newsletter.
What’s more, experts say that dairy prices could continue to rise. Tim Hunt, the global dairy strategist with the Rabobank Food & Agribusiness Research and Advisory group, says he thinks prices could still rise an additional 5% to 10% from now through the middle of this year. And while we will see some easing of prices come the second quarter of this year, “the pricing of dairy will stay higher than it was a few years ago,” Hunt says. “There is a new normal.”
This means consumers may see higher prices on everything from milk to cheese to ice cream to butter. “Beverage milk is the first item to get impacted, because in some cases it goes from the farm to the shelf in just 36 hours,” says Dryer. So those prices hikes tend to hit consumers fastest. With cheese, ice cream and butter, the rising milk prices often take a few months to affect the prices of those items at the grocery store, says Dryer.
A big factor in these rising prices is surging demand for dairy products in China, says Hunt. Indeed, China is the world’s top dairy importer, and in recent years, Chinese demand for milk and dairy products has soared. But supply hasn’t kept up. Hunt says there was a contraction in the Chinese milk supply of roughly 6% last year, which exporters have struggled to fill for a variety of reasons, including a drought in New Zealand and slow expansion of cow herds in the U.S.
Bacon price increases amid porcine diarrhea outbreak
MILWAUKEE – A virus never before seen in the U.S. has killed millions of baby pigs in less than a year, and with little known about how it spreads or how to stop it, it’s threatening pork production and pushing up prices by 10 percent or more.
Scientists think porcine epidemic diarrhea, which does not infect humans or other animals, came from China, but they don’t know how it got into the country or spread to 27 states since last May. The federal government is looking into how such viruses might spread, while the pork industry, wary of future outbreaks, has committed $1.7 million to research the disease.
The U.S. is both a top producer and exporter of pork, but production could decline about 7 percent this year compared to last – the biggest drop in more than 30 years, according to a recent report from Rabobank, which focuses on the food, beverage and agribusiness industries.
Already, prices have shot up: A pound of bacon averaged $5.46 in February, 13 percent more than a year ago, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Ham and chops have gone up too, although not as much.
Farmer and longtime veterinarian Craig Rowles did all he could to prevent PED from spreading to his farm in Iowa, the nation’s top pork producer and the state hardest hit by the disease. He trained workers to spot symptoms, had them shower and change clothing before entering barns, and limited deliveries and visitors.
Despite his best efforts, the deadly diarrhea attacked in November, killing 13,000 animals in a matter of weeks, most of them less than 2 weeks old. The farm produces about 150,000 pigs each year.
Estimates of how many pigs have died in the past year vary, ranging from at least 2.7 million to more than 6 million. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the die-off has had a hand in shrinking the nation’s pig herd by 3 percent to about 63 million pigs.
Diarrhea affects pigs like people: Symptoms that are uncomfortable in adults become life-threatening in newborns that dehydrate quickly. The best chance at saving young pigs is to wean them and then pump them with clear fluids that hydrate them without taxing their intestines. But nothing could be done for the youngest ones except euthanasia.
“It’s very difficult for the people who are working the barns at that point,” Rowles said. “No one wants to go to work today and think about making the decision of baby pigs that need to be humanely euthanized because they can’t get up anymore. Those are very hard days.”
PED thrives in cold weather, so the death toll in the U.S. has soared since December.
The first reports came from the Midwest, and the states most affected are those with the largest share of the nation’s pigs: Iowa, Minnesota, North Carolina and Illinois. The disease also has spread to Canada and Mexico.
Some states now require a veterinarian to certify that pigs coming in are virus-free, while China, which has seen repeated outbreaks since the 1980s, has asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture to similarly vouch for animals shipped overseas.
Companies are racing to develop a vaccine, but the federal government has yet to approve one. While the mass deaths have been a blow for farmers, the financial impact to them may be limited because pork prices are rising to make up for the loss of animals.
It takes about six months for a hog to reach market weight so the supply will be short for a while. Smithfield Foods, one of the nation’s largest pork processors, has cut some plant shifts to four days per week in North Carolina, and those in the Midwest are likely to do so later this spring, said Steve Meyer, an Iowa-based economist and pork industry consultant.
In the end, consumers will be most affected, Meyer said, with pork prices likely to be 10 percent higher overall this summer than a year ago.
“We’re all used to: ‘We’ve got plenty of food, it’s cheap. We’ll eat what we want to,’ ” Meyer said. “We Americans are very spoiled by that, but this is one of those times that we’re going to find out that when one of these things hits, it costs us a lot of money.”
I’m only giving you thumbs up for your continued tireless and much appreciated effort, not the facts.
Survey shows ObamaCare sending premiums rising at fastest clip in decades
A recent survey of 148 insurance brokers shows that ObamaCare is sending premiums rising at the fastest clip in decades.
“For the last, about, five years they’ve been doing this survey, so this was the largest percentage increase in any quarter since they’ve been doing (it),” said Scott Gottlieb of the American Enterprise Institute.
“But at 12 percent, 11 percent increase on average across all the states — that puts it at the upper end of any increase we’ve seen for decades.”
That is the national average in a survey done by Morgan Stanley. But in some states, it found rates are soaring.
“There are specific states with exorbitant increases,” Gottlieb said. “Delaware had 100 percent increase, Florida had a 37 percent increase, Pennsylvania 28 percent increase, California had a 53 percent increase in their premiums.”
Rates vary widely, often depending on the state and how highly regulated it was to begin with. Analysts, however, say the main reasons for the higher costs are not medical inflation, but rather the requirements of ObamaCare itself.
“There are certain regulations and certain requirements that had to be in there. And because of that it’s driven up the costs of these benefits,” said John DiVito of the Flexible Benefit Service Corporation, which represents hundreds of agents.Rate hikes include ten essential health benefits along with more than 20,000 pages or regulations.
The reported hikes are for the first policies issued under ObamaCare in 2014.
The Congressional Budget Office or CBO issued a report Monday saying the average premium for the silver plan this year will be $3,800, or just over $300 a month, rising to $4,400 in 2016, 15 percent below its earlier estimates in 2009.
Those early, higher estimates make costs now look better – but that does not include deductibles of as much as $5,000.
But the estimates are comforting to the White House.
White House spokesman Jay Carney says, “It shows that marketplace health care costs have gone down because premium estimates have gone down.”
The CBO also projects future premium increases over the next decade.
Insurance companies will soon have to set rates for 2015, and analysts fear reported higher costs now will mean increases next year, as well.
“They’re going to see an announcement that next year’s premium’s going to be 25 percent or maybe 50 percent higher than what they’re now paying,” says John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis.
John Divito of Flexible Benefit Service Corporation said, “we’re reading studies where the rates could be 10 to 30, 40 percent higher. Again, it all depends geographically where these rates are being looked at but definitely an increase in rates.”
Scott Gottlieb, a medical doctor as well as an analyst, added, “We’ve seen insurance premiums go up quite a bit over the period in which ObamaCare started to get implemented.”
Insurance executives say the same thing. Marc Bertolini, CEO of Aetna, recently told an earning conference that he anticipates 2014 spikes of 20 to 50 percent, going as high as 100 percent in some markets.
Squirrel. It’s what’s for dinner.
“The price of gasoline on February 1 was $3.27 per gallon. The price on March 31 was $3.54 per gallon. By my calculations, people in the real world paying real money for real gasoline experienced an 8% increase in gasoline costs.”
Yes, but you failed to consider that you actually drove 8% less because the price of gas was higher, so there was no real inflation. You have to think like a BLSer. (Bullshit Lip Service)
Sounds like we’re seeing the hyperinflation from all the money printing since 2008. Many economists thought there was no way this money would influence prices out in the real world.
Declining paychecks, higher healthcare costs, no interest on savings, higher taxes…Thanks central bankers. If you could write a blueprint for collapsing an economy, this would be it.
&, let’s try to start a war with Russia/China/Iran/Syria too!
What could go wrong?
Gas is almost $4 a gallon around here. Food prices are exploding, but nobody seems to mind, since more than 50% of the population here is on food stamps. The baby mommas are still getting crab legs and the finer things in life, free of charge. As soon as Reese’s cups, Cokes, Little Debbie’s cakes, and Dorito prices start going up, we’re likely to see rioting.
The Federal Reserve has quadrupled the amount of money in circulation, which has largely remained on bank’s balance sheets. As this money starts to get loaned out and hit the real economy, inflation is going to get much, much worse. The best we can hope for is a deflationary collapse, at which point the Fed will send the printers into hyperdrive, which will cause hyperinflation and the eventual dollar collapse. Then we’re all screwed, especially anyone with wealth sitting around someplace. The government will confiscate your wealth, your gold, your IRA, and your property, if you complain.
IHS Global via Bloomberg:
Limited inventory of cattle and other herds contributing to rising costs this quarter, Chris Christopher, economist at IHS Global, writes in note.
Rising prices “a kick in the stomach for those households that have a hard time making ends meet.” “Main story” of March CPI was food, with meat, dairy and fresh vegetables contributing to higher costs. Outside of food, inflation “relatively bland.” However, “living standards will suffer as a larger percentage of household budgets are spent on grocery store bills, leaving less for discretionary spending.”
Great article, Admin. I’ve really noticed prices going up. If you’ve got boys (girls are always watching their waistlines, so they eat less), you will really feel it. I swear that my son is part of the refrigerator door; he’s permanently attached to it. Of course, girls do cost, only differently: make-up, hair products, more clothes, shoes…..
Back in January or beginning of February, I remember my daughter saying “1-2-3-4” – $123.4 per litre of gas. It’s now up in the $1.40’s. No, there’s no inflation there.
Every single one of these inflation liars should be put in jail and the key for getting out should be coming up with the TRUE rate of inflation. Liars, all of them!
You know what pisses me off too?
When only 125 people view this post and 460 people view the Kate Upton boobs post.
I guess I need to work the word boobs into the title of the posts people should be reading.
I’m really glad Kate Upton’s boobs succumbed to inflation…
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The government drones who spend their days sitting at a desk at the BLS making up fake propaganda BS sure are a bunch of boobs.
Since 112 million people get free cash, healthcare, meds, housing, phones, food stamps, and 55 million get free food, I wonder what that does to the price of things? Never any mention of FSA caused inflation…
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As always we are being provided with conflicting sets of data that fail to match up.
Administrator posted an article clip above stating that the number of cattle slaughtered last week was 573,000 and that that number was down almost 6% from last year. That’s just under 30 million cattle per annum that are removed from the U.S. cattle herd.
This article-
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-01/u-s-cattle-herd-slumping-to-61-year-low-means-longer-beef-rally.html
-states that the U.S. cattle herd is estimated at 88.9 million.
Knowing that the sex ratio of live birth calves is 1:1 that would mean that approximately 50million heifer calves are born annually. It takes 2 years to reach sexual maturity and another 9 months to deliver. Generally cows are used for reproduction, steers (neutered bull calves) are slaughtered for meat. Last year this was skewed due to drought and herds were culled, including large numbers of breeding cows which would of course drop the number of calves expected to rebuild the herd. Cows calve ONCE per year under optimal conditions.
Unless the U.S. cattle herd number is based on imports- and I was unable to find any reference to that number on any USDA webpage- the entire cattle population will be gone in under three years at the present rate of slaughter.
If someone would care to check my math or find where any of the numbers above are inaccurate I’d be obliged.
Then there’s this tidbit from the NYT — rents now take up more disposable income than EVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE U.S.
In Many Cities, Rent Is Rising Out of Reach of Middle Class
For rent and utilities to be considered affordable, they are supposed to take up no more than 30 percent of a household’s income. But that goal is increasingly unattainable for middle-income families as a tightening market pushes up rents ever faster, outrunning modest rises in pay.
The strain is not limited to the usual high-cost cities like New York and San Francisco. An analysis for The New York Times by Zillow, the real estate website, found 90 cities where the median rent — not including utilities — was more than 30 percent of the median gross income.
In Chicago, rent as a percentage of income has risen to 31 percent, from a historical average of 21 percent. In New Orleans, it has more than doubled, to 35 percent from 14 percent. Zillow calculated the historical average using data from 1985 to 2000.
Nationally, half of all renters are now spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing, according to a comprehensive Harvard study, up from 38 percent of renters in 2000. In December, Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan declared “the worst rental affordability crisis that this country has ever known.”
Full story here: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/15/business/more-renters-find-30-affordability-ratio-unattainable.html
The station closest to me where I buy most of my gas, right now prices are:
Premium $4.519,
mid $4.419,
reg $4.319
I’m so glad to know that my gas prices have gone down.
Soaring Food Inflation Full Frontal: Beef, Pork And Shrimp Prices Soar To Record Highs
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/15/2014 17:29 -0400
We previously noted that both beef and pork (courtesy of the affectionately named Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus) prices have been reaching new all time highs on an almost daily basis. It is time to update the chart. Below we show what a world in which the Fed is constantly lamenting the lack of inflation looks like for beef prices…
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… pork
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… and shrimp.
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More from Bloomberg:
Prices for shrimp have jumped to a 14-year high in recent months, spurred by a disease that’s ravaging the crustacean’s population. At Noodles & Co., a chain with locations across the country, it costs 29 percent more to add the shellfish to pastas this year, and shrimp-heavy dishes at places like the Cheesecake Factory Inc. are going up as well.
Restaurant chains, already struggling with shaky U.S. consumer confidence, are taking a profit hit as prices climb. Even worse, the surge is happening during the season of Lent, when eateries rely on seafood to lure Christian diners who abstain from chicken, beef and pork on certain days.
“It’s coming at a tough time for the industry,” said Andrew Barish, a San Francisco-based analyst at Jefferies LLC. “With the Lenten season, what you’ll see out there is a lot of promotions with seafood, and usually shrimp is a big part of that.”
In March, shrimp prices jumped 61 percent from a year earlier, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The climb is mainly due to a bacterial disease known as early mortality syndrome. While the ailment has no effect on humans, it’s wreaking havoc on young shrimp farmed in Southeast Asia, shrinking supplies.
***
James Johnson, a Jewel-Osco supermarket shopper in Chicago, has noticed the price increase. He’s been cutting back on one of his favorite dishes — shrimp and potato soup — because of the cost.
“I haven’t made it in a while,” the 29-year-old said. “Shrimp looks expensive.”
***
At Noodles, it now costs $3.34 to add the shellfish to a meal of pasta or pad thai, compared with $2.59 last year.
“We still want to at least offer it as choice,” Chief Executive Officer Kevin Reddy said in a phone interview. “As soon as the costs begin to normalize, we’ll return to the regular price.”
Ah yes, because retailers are always so willing to lower costs…
So for all those whose sustenance includes iPads and LCD TVs, or heaven forbid the pink slime known as fast food – you are in luck: the BLS’ hedonic adjustments mean the rate of price increase in your daily consumption has rarely been lower. For everyone else: our condolences.
Charts: BBG
The first indication of untrue statistics is that they come from the government. The second is (See the first indication)
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“The BLS says the price didn’t increase because you now have an ass warmer in your seat and a beeper for when you back up.”
I laughed out loud and scared the dog when I read that. Hilarious. You have such a way with words. No one else can explain things the way you do, Admin.