HOW’S THAT DEFLATION WORKING OUT FOR YOU?

The BLS put out their monthly CPI lie last week. They issued the proclamation that inflation is dead. Did you know your costs are 0.1% lower than they were one year ago. They then used these deflation numbers to proclaim your real wages soared last month. It’s all good. The American consumer is so flush with cash, they decided to spend less money for the second month in a row. The Wall Street shysters are so happy with declining consumer spending, declining corporate profits, and a global recession, they pushed the NASDAQ up to 5,000 for the first time in 15 years. Hey!!! That was the year 2000. Things really got better after that milestone.

So we know gasoline prices have plummeted in the last year (but are up 20% in the last month), but I’m trying to think of other things I use in my everyday life that have declined in price. Maybe going through the BLS detailed list will jog my memory. Here is the link to their data:

http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpid1501.pdf

Let’s see how much deflation we’ve experienced in the last year for things we need to live our everyday lives.

Beef and veal  +22.5%

Ground beef  +21.0%

Steaks  +14.9%

Pork  +7.4%

Ham  +11.5%

Whole Chicken  +6.1%

Fresh Fish  +3.5%

Eggs  +8.2%

Cheese  +7.8%

Fresh Vegetables  +4.3%

Lettuce  +12.2%

Tomatoes  +9.6%

Coffee  +6.7%

Butter  +19.5%

Restaurant food  +3.1%

Housing  +2.9%

Hotels  +7.6%

Owners Equivalent Rent  +2.6%

Homeowners Insurance  +5.6%

Electricity  +2.5%

Water & Sewer  +5.5%

Home Repairs  +4.4%

Footwear  +2.6%

Car Insurance  +5.0%

Parking Fees & Tolls  +2.3%

Medicinal Drugs  +4.2%

Prescription Drugs  +5.6%

Hospital Services  +4.3%

Veterinarian Services  +3.2%

Sporting Events  +3.6%

Newspapers & Magazines  +4.6%

College Tuition  +3.6%

Educational Books & Supplies  +6.5%

Grade School & High School Tuition  +4.0%

Childcare & Nursery School  +3.0%

Postage  +3.6%

Cigarettes  +2.5%

Financial Services  +5.7%

Tax Return Prep  +9.3%

These figures are directly from the BLS website. These are the annual price increases of things most Americans need to purchase on a regular basis. I know most of them affect me every day. My weekly grocery bill is much higher than it was one year ago, and we don’t buy nearly as much steak or beef as we did last year.

The price of oil and gas has certainly declined by the 30% or so in the BLS figures, but it doesn’t come close to covering the price increase in food and other living expenses. The BLS declares we are experiencing deflation and our wages are expanding in real terms. It’s a bold faced lie. The other items declining in price are mostly discretionary items which might be purchased every few years. Furniture, appliances, computers and TVs are falling in price. I didn’t buy any of those items in the last year, so the lower prices had ZERO impact on me.

Apparel falls in price, but is made so cheaply in Chinese slave labor camps, you only get half the use out of it before you have to replace it. I’m guessing the BLS hasn’t factored that into their little calculation.

And now for the BIGGEST LIE in the entire report. The have the balls to tell you that health insurance only makes up 0.753% of your entire annual budget and it has FALLEN by 0.5% in the last year. This must be some cruel Obamacare joke perpetrated by these government apparatchiks. I haven’t met anyone who has seen their health insurance costs go down in the last year. My premiums went up by 20% and my annual family deductible went from $0 to $2,000. How the BLS can get away with issuing this drivel is beyond my comprehension. It’s pure and utter bullshit.

I wonder if the sheep actually believe what the government peddles. Does anyone with two brain cells think their daily living expenses are declining? Do they really think their wages are going a lot farther? Evidently not, because they have stopped spending money.

 

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Bostonbob

Admin,
The problem is you work for a living. If you were one of the “working poor” who got your health insurance under Obamacare then you are likely to be subsidized as 85% of the people who got there health insurance under the ACA were. You would even do better to join one of the swelling ranks of Medicaid and get Chips for the boys. You have to understand deflation, things cost a lot less when you don’t have to pay for them. I am still waiting for my deflation too. Maybe I can get some snap cards to deflate my food costs and an Obama phone to deflate my cell phone costs. Well at least we only got 4-5 inches of snow last night. My snow banks have deflated to about 9 feet. Go global warming ah climate change, whatever. I hope that makes you feel better.
Bob.

Rick Caird
Rick Caird

Actually, I don’t think many people are even marginally aware of any economic statistics.

aVoiceInTheWilderness
aVoiceInTheWilderness

The only thing that has deflated is my income

time traveler
time traveler

Wait till the dollar and the petrol dollar go belly up, probably by the end of this year. It’s called hyperinflation. This will seem like a walk in the park compared to what is coming!!!

backwardsevolution
backwardsevolution

Yeah, no deflation in food prices here either. Apple sauce – leaps from $1.67 to $2.00. Regular hamburger “on sale” for $3.99/lb. Everything has gone way, way up in price.

I just simply walk away from these prices, not gonna do it. I tell everyone around me, who are also complaining about prices, to just stop buying the stuff and then the prices will have to come back down. Sometimes I get a whole crowd of people, and we all walk away.

Of course, you have to eat something, so I buy on sale and try to stretch things out the best I can. Stop buying things and bring these mother f*ckers to their knees!

backwardsevolution
backwardsevolution

One thing that has deflated is me. Since I’ve stopped buying anything packaged (or very little), I’m down to around 105 pounds, fit into teenager pants. That’s been one big plus!

Don’t buy anything from the junk food aisle. As almost everything there is owned by Pepsico, you’re just making a bunch of fat CEO’s rich. Every single time you want to buy a bag of chips, think of that piece of crap sitting in his boardroom, and then put it back on the shelf!

Smilardog
Smilardog

Actually… there is one area that the prices are coming down fast and that is auto parts. I just went down to the local parts store and bought these for my old 76 Ford 4×4 Truck.

Now Used to cost around

New radiator $272 $400-$600
Rebuilt 2bbl Carb $250 $350-$450
New Heater Core $15 $120-$180
Rebuilt Water Pump $17 $65-$85

I bought a whole lot more at deep discounted prices but you get the idea. Great essay, I always forward them to all of my contacts

Smilardog
Smilardog

My comment above didn’t post right and I don’t see no way to edit it. Those last prices on each item are supposed to be what they used to cost in the near past

Carl
Carl

^5 to you Backwardsevolution!
The way to go is to stop buying anything but basic foodstuffs and make it yourself at home. Condiments are easy, ketchup without MSG actually tastes much better when you take 5 minutes to make it in the kitchen. Mayo is super easy too. Yogurt is a good sub for dressing when mixed with basics like balsamic vinegar and herbs, Tortillas are so easy and good to make, I’ll never buy another from a store. Cookie dough can be made, then stored and indulged in with in 10 minutes. Ice cream, gellato,…soups and chili freeze…the list is endless. Filter the chlorine and fluoride out of the water and buy local, organic, and bulk when you can….cook enough often for more than one meal…you will never experience more satisfaction from cooking than watching the smell of fresh homemade sourdough grab your kids buy the nose….then, when they have homeade creamy leek soup to dip it in, you become a god.
I went from 285 to 180 lbs over two years eating like this, and have to say restaurants have to be really upscale to make me part will a dollar for their stuff.
Of course, the only drawback is vying for t-shirts and my 501’s between a couple of 18 and 20 year old sons.
Life is good, And so is the food!

Smilardog
Smilardog

Carl
we are on the same page as you! I’ve been making my own Sourdough Bread and Pancakes for a year now. We haven’t bought any bread at all since then. I am on my second year of growing my own Arizona Winter Garden. Right now, I am sitting here eating open-faced sourdough(garlic toast) smothered with fajitas and melted cheese. All of the veggie’s from my garden. Learning to can butter and hard cheeses, going to start our first jars this weekend. I know, I know, the FDA says it not safe! Well, a few years ago I couldn’t find anyone doing it, but now, I am finding many people that have been doing it for about 3-5 years or more with no problem. Going without butter and cheese in a SHTF situation is the most dreaded part of surviving that me and the wife can think of (hehe) So, we are going to give it a try. If it goes poison on us, we will just offer it to any “ATTACKING ZOMBIE HORDES” Ha!

Westcoaster
Westcoaster

The lies and obfuscation coming out of the government right now are off the chain and the divide between us and them has never been better. We need a highly revised government true to the concept of what it means to be an American. Lying out the ass isn’t part of it.

Bob
Bob

It’s sad that most people no longer have the ability to understand numbers like these. The MPSIMS forum at a place called The Gaming Den is packed with folks that, when presented with these numbers, respond “it’s average, so it doesn’t matter if some things are higher than the average.” That not nearly enough, is nearly enough lower than the average isn’t a problem…they’ve been trained in government schools to have a general trust of government numbers, and not accept numbers, even government numbers, if they don’t agree with what they “know” to be true. It’s a weird cognitive dissonance, but also a massive one.

Sensetti
Sensetti

Westcoaster says: The lies and obfuscation coming out of the government right now are off the chain and the divide between us and them has never been better. We need a highly revised government true to the concept of what it means to be an American. Lying out the ass isn’t part of it.

I’am starting to like you just aliittle, I’ve said some harsh things about you in the past, all accurate of course, but you post some very wise things like this above. Hat tip!!

PS it only get worse from here, the United States is going to turn the heat way up on the world. BTW No matter which teams driving the car.

Stephan F
Stephan F

Of course the overlooked element here that most tend to easily dismiss is “Shrink-flation”.

I’ve been tracking a basket of food items since 2009 that we regularly consume (e.g. cereal, tuna, yogurt, ice cream), and the majority of those items have not only increased in price but have shrunk in size. So we suffer the big double whammy! And we’re not talking about a little ole 3% size reduction, no no. Take tuna for example. A standard size can is now 5oz, down from 6oz (I still have some 7oz. cans in my survival cupboard). That is a 16% decrease!

Yet most people react like this is simply some natural phenomenon of Mother Nature. Amazing.

DC Sunsets

Until the Central Bank game detonates, we have a continuation of the past 100 years’ inflation.

Central banks are not enabling MORE stuff to be made. They are enabling capital destruction.

While this occurs, OF COURSE we have price inflation. Issuing vast amounts of debt valued at near par (ZIRP) is like FLOODING M3, the broad money supply. No shit that the Fed doesn’t keep “track” of that number any more.

The issue is, IOU’s rest on something. Mostly today, they rest on OTHER IOU’s. We’re in the exponential growth phase of this. As in 1999, when the NASDAQ went full retard on afterburners, people went through a process of belief:
1. This is insane, it can’t last (but it kept going.)
2. This has got to give. I’ll short it here. (but it kept going up.)
3. (pulling hair) There’s no way it can make a new high. (but it did.)
4. Oh shit, I’m bailing out of my short sale at a huge loss, because it’s going to keep going up. (and it did.)
5. Oh, screw it, I’m jumping on board with all the assholes who have been getting rich these past several years. (Market TOPPED, and fell 80% in 16 months.)

What central banks are enabling cannot continue forever. We don’t know when it will end, but when it does, the value of the ocean of IOU’s will collapse.

Instead of people wanting their “someone-owes-me-dollars” bond, they’ll want DOLLARS. Right then, right now.

Bonds will be sold, and sold hard. Prices will fall, interest rates will rise.

And once that process gets going enough, people will slam on the spending brakes. People will substitute lower cost things for the essentials, and they’ll stop buying non-essentials Right There.

Prices will likely collapse (credit-collapse deflation) for weeks and months. Central bank attempts to issue more CREDIT to pump up the money supply will fail, as no one (even governments) will want it.

Then and only then will we see deflation in action.

The CRB index is falling like a stone. Sooner or later, so will pretty much everything else. Either that, or modern central banking has become a perpetual motion machine, take your pick.
http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/kaavio.Webhost/charts/big.chart?nosettings=1&symb=crb&uf=0&type=2&size=2&sid=2392733&style=320&freq=1&entitlementtoken=0c33378313484ba9b46b8e24ded87dd6&time=8&rand=1811134764&compidx=aaaaa%3a0&ma=5&maval=13&lf=4&lf2=32&lf3=256&height=553&width=579&mocktick=1

Skinny
Skinny

Our boy has been a busy little beaver these last few days. The BLS (we should probably drop the “L”) is expert at parsing statistics but our Quinny is doing some parsing on his own. For instance, he left out his number one expenditure “Beer, ale, and other malt beverages at home” which is down .2% from last month. The BLS (there is that annoying L again) only assigns a relative importance factor .364 versus say 40.464 for housing but we know the importance factor for our lovable recluse is much higher. Unfortunately, the shots he is downing with all those beers, ales and other malt bevarages set him back an additional .4% so he may have only broke even. Had he ventured forth from his impenatrable bunker and joined his pals for a pint or two he could make a more compelling case, since beer consumed away from home was up a whopping 2.2%. I think the increase resulted from Brittingham’s shortening their happy hour.
On a more serious note, why does the BS (dropped the “L” that time) only include energy prices when they are in steep decline? I’m guessing this month’s rapid increase will be ignored in the next report and they will go back to touting core inflation which conveniently excludes food and energy.

rick
rick

@time traveler, It’s not the Petrodollar anymore as the world’s largest consumer China, will be paying for their future energy needs in it’s own currency or in rubles via their agreement with Russia. It’s more aptly called the Wardollar now.

Stucky

“In the past five years, global registrations of the seven largest ultra-premium car brands–a group that also includes Aston Martin and Lamborghini–have surged by 154 percent, far outpacing the 36 percent gain in overall car sales worldwide.”

“Rolls-Royce registrations have risen almost five-fold. Almost 10,000 new Bentleys cruised onto the streets last year, a 122 percent increase over 2009, while Lamborghini rode a 50 percent increase to pass the 2,000 vehicle mark.”

.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-02/nyc-residents-pay-2-3000-month-%E2%80%9Cmicro-apartments%E2%80%9D-luxury-car-sales-outpace-regular-c

Skinny
Skinny

Quinny – Car sales dropped in February due to cold weather. What do you know, it got cold in February. The guy writing that press relaese must have previously worked at the BLS

Smilardog
Smilardog

““Rolls-Royce registrations have risen almost five-fold. Almost 10,000 new Bentleys cruised onto the streets last year, a 122 percent increase over 2009, while Lamborghini rode a 50 percent increase to pass the 2,000 vehicle mark.””

That’s probably because of the very rich trying to get their cash into a tangible asset that may hold some kind of value, as a form of wealth preservation, such as, like buying million dollar art paintings, vast tracks of agricultural land, etc. As a hedge against the destruction of the dollar.

Or, it could just be those Jack-Bastards on Wall Street flaunting the money they have stole!

Skinny
Skinny

Polar vortexes are good for car sales. Ask any dealer and they pine for the ice age.

Homer
Homer

To all you preppers–80 yrs ago there was less done and it took longer to do it. All the fast food came about because it gave people more time to do other things. It created diversification of labor which was a benefit to all. Maybe some of you can live close to the source, but it takes a lot of time. I personally don’t want to give up all time that was freed, when living became less intensive.

If the SHTF, you may get more time as you are doing less and there is less to do. The making your own tortillas will work out for you, but forget all of the modern conveniences you now take for granted. I don’t want to step back into the dark ages.

Humans are resourceful and if freed from the governmental restrictions and acting responsibly, a better future awaits us.

We must change the existing paradigm, where irresponsible corporations, such as Monsanto. etc. lead us into depravation. Perhaps a shunning of our corporate and governmental masters will lead the way to a new consciousness and revival.

People care catching on that what we are told is not what we see. This posting proves it. Soon, people will lose faith in our existing paradigm and the people will form a new one that is more beneficial to everyone and not just to a few oligarchs. They will fight this change as they are now doing, but will be over whelmed by the emergence of new thought. Just as Gandhi changed the face of India by forming a consensus of new thought, We will change the world with a consensus of new thought. Nothing is as potent as an idea whose time has come.

Homer
Homer

Folks, you need to be wary of the oligarchs hijacking this change, which they will try to do. Think the Tea Party, etc.

Any real change will not come from the existing paradigm. The change must right real social wrongs and be a benefit for the many, not the few.

Martin Luther Kings and the civil rights movement didn’t come from the establishment, but grew from the hearts of the oppressed.

coyote
coyote

a leftist “homer”. who duh thunk it. mlk, social justice, yada yada only one more boot in the face of the white males whose patriarchy built the entire western civilization crumbling at your feet. millions of white european males (including america) dead in two world wars followed by the stealing of our women to worship at the foot of mammon and burn their babies in molochs furnaces so they can pull trains on football teams. ask billy ray cyrus how he feels about his daughters ‘performance’ at the grammys. the ‘oppressed’ – what a laugh: ask the africans how oppressed our ‘african-americans’ are- they wish could join the undocumented shoppers in ferguson. at least the hispanics have the balls to claim their own turf. maybe the last ‘privileged’ white man with hair can join the reconquista after he learns spanish. envy, greed, sloth, murder, etc: ‘murkans are pretty much reaping the whirlwind now; but they “deserve” it because “oppression”. die now and avoid the rush.

Tin Man
Tin Man

Do you ever go back and read some of these predictions from a few years ago? Man, that’s some funny s**t. Here’s a good one for openers:

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