GOVERNMENT LIES ABOUT INFLATION ARE BEYOND LAUGHABLE

12 comments

Posted on 20th February 2013 by Administrator in Economy |Politics |Social Issues

, , , , ,

The government reported the Producer Price Index this morning. They have the balls to report that the PPI went up by only 0.2% in January. Now here is the kicker. These government drones have the cajones to actually report that energy prices FELL by 0.4% in January. That’s right. FELL!!!!!

I direct you to the chart below. The chart below reflects the ACTUAL FUCKING COST OF ENERGY!!!! Not the bullshit excel spreadsheet, seasonally adjusted crap that is fed to the sheeple from the government. For the dimwitted out there (you know who you are), I’ll calculate the ACTUAL increase in energy costs in January:

  • Oil prices rose from $90.50 per barrel to $97.50 in January. That is a 7.7% increase in one fucking month.
  • Gasoline prices rose from $3.27 per gallon to $3.49 per gallon in January. That is a 6.7% increase in one fucking month.

Can someone from the Federal Government please drop by TBP (maybe DHS can call the Labor Dept) and explain to us all how the fuck you can report a 0.4% DECREASE in energy costs in a month where ACTUAL energy costs rose by 6.7% to 7.7% percent?

This propaganda bullshit is enough to make my fucking head explode!!!!

 

More expensive vegetables push up PPI

Spike in food drives first increase in wholesale prices in four months

By Jeffry Bartash, MarketWatch

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — U.S. wholesale costs rose in January for the first time in four months because of a spike in vegetable prices, but inflation at the producer level was generally muted.

The producer price index rose a seasonally adjusted 0.2% last month, the Labor Department said Wednesday. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had predicted a 0.4% increase.

The cost of food advanced 0.7% to account for more than three-quarters of the increase in producer prices. Vegetables soared 39% — the biggest gain in almost one year — to drive up food costs.

Energy prices fell a seasonally adjusted 0.4%, but the index failed to capture the surge in gasoline costs that started shortly after the new year began. Higher fuel costs are expected to show up in the February PPI report.

Even with higher food prices and gasoline on the rise, inflation at the wholesale level is still subdued. The increase in producer prices over the past 12 months totaled just 1.4%, barely changed from the prior month.

Minus the volatile categories of food and energy, so-called core wholesale prices also rose 0.2%. That matched the MarketWatch forecast.

The biggest increase in wholesale costs outside the food category occurred among pharmaceutical products, precise industrial instruments and communications-networking equipment. Car prices dropped.

Over the past 12 months the gain in the core rate fell to 1.8% from 2.0% in December, marking the first time it’s slipped below 2% since February 2011.

Investors pay close attention to the core rate because it’s viewed as a more reliable barometer of short-term inflation trends. With inflation quiet, the Federal Reserve won’t feel in any rush to alter its massive bond-buying program designed to reduce interest rates and make loans for consumers and businesses easier to come by.

Meanwhile, the price index of intermediate goods such as cloth or rolled steel was unchanged in January. The cost of crude goods climbed 0.8%, however.

Steady increases in wholesale costs can squeeze profits and eventually translate into higher prices of consumer goods and services, but the relationship is not precise. Companies raise or lower prices for a number of reasons.

Lower wholesale costs can boost earnings and ease pressure on companies to raise prices on consumers. In some cases, businesses will even trim prices, especially for goods such as gasoline that are sensitive to ups and downs in commodity costs.

A measure of whether Americans are paying more for goods and services, the consumer price index, will be released Thursday. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch project the CPI edged up 0.1% in January.

Unlike the PPI, the consumer price index also measures changes in the cost of services — things like hair cuts, doctor visits or day care. Wholesale prices only reflect the cost of goods.

INFLATION REALITY CHECK

6 comments

Posted on 12th October 2012 by Administrator in Economy |Politics |Social Issues

, , , ,

Do you get the impression that the powers that be are frantically attempting to maintain control and are getting more desperate on a daily basis? Your owners (Wall Street, K Street, corporate MSM, Military Industrial Complex) see their power and wealth at risk as the wheels come off and the world descends into anarchy. Therefore, they are using everything at their disposal to mislead and manipulate the masses into continued servitude and compliance. They need the sheep to remain calm until they lead them into the slaughterhouse.

So you are seeing manipulated employment statistics. You are seeing JP Morgan and the rest of the Wall Street banks reporting fake profits. You see the MSM exclaim that we have a housing recovery, despite the fact that it is being engineered by Wall Street foreclusure fraud, Federal Reserve interest rate manipulation, government guarantees, and cronyism. Now we are led to believe that consumer confidence has surged to a 5 year high in September. It’s beyond laughable. The BLS reported that producer prices surged 1.1% in one month. That is a 13% annualized rate of inflation. Over the last two months the annualized increase is 17%. Energy and food prices are skyrocketing, with food price inflation pacing above 6% over the last four months and energy over 30% over the same time frame. The job market continues to suck and 1.4 million people were kicked off the 99 week unemployment rolls in the last year. Small business confidence is at recession levels and the economy has been in recession since June. So you can easily understand why consumer confidence would be soaring.

Bruce Krasting puts the cherry on top with his assessment of Bernanke and the non-existent inflation we are experiencing.

On Inflation

 
Bruce Krasting's picture

Submitted by Bruce Krasting on 10/12/2012 08:25 -0400On COLA

By my calculation, the COLA increase for 2013 will be 1.51%. This is an important number for anyone who gets a monthly check from Social Security, or the Federal Workers/Military retirement plans.

 

COLA is a flawed measure of inflation. The calculation has both over, and understated inflation the past few years. Recent COLA increases:

 

2009..+5.8%

2010….0.0%

2011….0.0%

2012..+3.6%

2013..+1.5%

 

The average SS recipient will see an increase in their monthly check of a whopping $21 as a result of the 2013 increase. The increased bite for Medicare will eat the raise (and more). Don’t expect a buying surge down in Boca.

 

SS has projected a COLA increase of 2% for 2013. The 1.5% actual result will produce a “savings” at SS of $4Bn. Throw in the Military and Federal workers, and it means ~$6Bn of less than “planned” spending.

 

Bernanke would look at the 2013 COLA increase and say:

 
 

“See! Inflation is too low! If inflation were higher, the government would spend more, and that would stimulate growth.

 

And Ben would be right. SS checks are a 1-1 multiplier. If the 2013 COLA increase was 4.5%, it would translate into an increase in government spending of $50Bn and an equal increase (.3%) in GDP. What’s not to love about more inflation?

++

 

Gas

 

Big spike in gas prices in Cali. A refinery blew up, the state has tough emissions laws so Californians pay the price. Bloomberg reported that the state wide average price for regular was $4.67.

 

 

So I drive off for a fill-up, chuckling at the poor bastards in Cali. I’m 30 miles north of NYC, about as far from the West Coast as you can get, what do I care what happens “out-there”? Unfortunately, the price of regular at my gas place is only 18 cents less than the “crisis” prices in the Golden State.

 

 

 

 

Note that the price of diesel is $4.79, This means that the cost of home heating oil for spot delivery is north of $4 a gallon. Most people around here use oil heat, and it is supposed to be cold this winter.

 

Now I’m wondering who those poor bastards are.

 

++

 

Crude

 

The WTI contract closed at 92.44. That’s not all that high. So why am I choking on $4 heating fuel and $5 gas?

 

The answer is that the crude the country uses costs much more that than the WTI futures print. This chart is the cash price for imports in Louisiana. We are paying $113 a barrel!

 

 

The Louisiana crude price would be knocked down (for a few weeks) if the President opened the spigot on the petroleum reserve. The spike in the chart over the past few months might have prompted Obama to do something with the SPR were it not for the pending election. He’s done it in the past.

It would be a hoot if he did take some “executive” action with just a few weeks to go. Nothing is off the table with this election.

++

 

Rent

 

 

10% rent increase? That’s a big very inflation number.

 

I can confirm this (sort of). Rental costs are up, from South Florida to Boston. There is demand, properties have been moving more quickly than in the past few years.

 

“Shelter Cost” is a big chunk of Bernanke’s yardstick for inflation. I bet he is delighted to see the cost that renter’s are forced to pay is rapidly rising. This is precisely what he wants to have happen. He thinks that if rents go up it will encourage new construction, and that means debt creation and more jobs.

 

I’m not at all convinced of the virtuous cycle of growth through inflation that Bernanke is selling. This cake has to bake for another few years yet before you can tell if it’s edible.

 

One thing for sure, if you’re a renter, you’re getting screwed. You’re a pawn in a game of chess. You’re expendable. At least that is the policy of the Federal Reserve.

++

 

Food

 

Goldman is out with a scary story on food. (Link)

 

 

Does ZIRP, QE and TWIST have anything to do with global food prices rising?

 

I don’t know the answer to this question. I don’t think anyone has an answer. And, it is a very important question to both ask and answer. I’ll hazard a range. Anyone with some better info, please contribute.

 

* – The relationship between Uber lose Fed policy, and rising food prices is greater than zero.

 

* – The cause and effect is less than 20%. (If food is up 10%, the Fed would be responsible for less than 2.0% of the increase)

 

Is it reasonable to conclude that the Fed is responsible for about 10% of food inflation? For you Fed lovers, is 5% the right number? Remember, the answer can’t be zero.

 

This stuff doesn’t really matter at all. The Fed didn’t take food inflation into consideration when it recently set monetary policy at “Infinity”. Maybe the deep thinkers at the Fed are right to exclude food from the equations. After all, Americans only spend 15% of their income on food. So a 10% increase is “manageable”. People will find less expensive “substitutes”. No problem at all.

 

That story does not sell so well in other parts of the world. Goldie reports on the percentage of food cost to income for some mega population countries:

 

India – 49.7%

China – 38.0%

 

Just saying, it’s that “Global Village” thing. And substitutes are not an option.

++

 

Expecting

 

The market based expectations for inflation jumped after Bernanke said his version of “For Ever”. To be honest, I was floored when Ben went Unlimited. The spike in the Tips spread said I was not the only one who was surprised.

 

That spread settled down after the “Ben’s Big Day” leap. But it has been making a comeback of late. To my tired eyes, it looks like the spread is going to take out the recent high.

 

 

Does this matter? On one hand we have a promise from the Federal Reserve to keep the return on liquid funds at zero for many years to come. And the market prices long-term inflation north of 2.5%.

 

So the implied market price of one-year forward “money” is well offered at .9750. There is a bid at .9700, but the bid is vulnerable. And this a “good” thing.

 

I don’t get it.

 

TRANSITORY INFLATION MY BIG FAT ASS?

9 comments

Posted on 18th October 2011 by Administrator in Economy |Politics |Social Issues

,

Prices soared in September. I thought prices went down during recessions. I thought Ben Bernanke told us that inflation was under control. Prices have risen by 6.9% in the last year. Has your pay gone up by 6.9% in the last year? But the good news from the government drones is that if you just back out the things you need to live in your everyday life like food and energy, inflation only went up by a MODEST 2.5%.

Ben Bernake is a filthy liar. He is destroying the middle class with his zero interest rate policies and Fed created inflation. His sole purpose is to enrich Wall Street bankers.

U.S. wholesale prices leap 0.8% in September

By Jeffry Bartash

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) – The U.S. producer price index rose a seasonally adjusted 0.8% in September to mark the biggest increase since April, the Labor Department said Tuesday. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had predicted a 0.4% gain. Higher wholesale prices were driven by a 2.3% increase in energy costs and a 0.6% rise in food costs. If those two categories are excluded, “core” wholesale prices rose a lesser 0.2%. Economists were expecting a 0.1% increase. Over the past 12 months, wholesale prices have climbed an unadjusted 6.9%. Omitting food and energy, wholesale prices have risen a more modest 2.5% in the past year.

TRANSITORY MY FAT ASS

4 comments

Posted on 19th August 2011 by Administrator in Economy |Politics |Social Issues

, , , ,

 Inflationary Sign

The producer price index and consumer price index both came out this week. We all know the BLS manipulates the shit out of the CPI to make it appear much lower than it really is. But, they can’t do that with the PPI. This is what companies pay for the raw materials that go into everything you use, buy or eat.

Here are the facts:

  • Producer prices have increased by 7.2% in the last year.
  • Producer prices have increased by an annual rate of 8.2% in 2011.
  • Food prices have increased by 7.7% in the last year.
  • Energy prices have increased by 17.9% in the last year.

Here is the link if you’d like to verify these figures for yourself:

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ppi.pdf

The shills on CNBC need to explain how corporate profits are going to go up if the companies are eating these cost increases rather than passing them along to consumers. If they are passing them along to consumers than we have 7% inflation and interest rates need to be raised. Which is it Kudlow and Cramer?

The consumer price index, even with the BLS bullshit adjustments, is showing inflation. Here are the government reported figures:

  • The CPI has risen by 3.6% in the last year.
  • The CPI is rising at an annual rate of 4% in the last three months.
  • The CPI is rising at an annual rate of 5.3% so far in 2011.
  • The annual price increases for food are as follows:
    • Meat up 7.4%
    • Dairy up 7.9%
    • Fruits and vegitables up 6%
    • Fats and oils up 10.4%
  • The annual price increases for other things you might use are:
    • Fuel oil up 29%
    • Gasoline up 33.6%
    • Transportation up 12%
    • Water, sewer and trash up 5.1%

But you’ll be happy to know that living in your house only went up 1.5% and since that makes up 43% of the CPI calculation, then inflation is under control. Do you buy and sell your house on a daily basis? It is meaningless in the day to day calculation of inflation. If you remove the housing calculation from the CPI than your real costs rose by 5.2% in the last year, versus the 3.6% reported by the BLS. Here is a link to verify my calculations.

http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpid1107.pdf

The CPI is a bastardized number that under estimates the true rate of consumer inflation by at least 7%. Again, John Williams at www.shadowstats.com presents the true figure of 12%.

So we can clearly see that prices are rising by between 5% and 12%, even in the government manipulated statistics. But, still Ben Bernanke goes in front of Congress and the American people and lies. He says that inflation is transitory. He says it is moderating. He actually warns about deflation. The man is a filthy liar. Inflation is accelerating. He is trapped like a rat. He needs deflation so he can institute QE3 and save his beloved banks. Reality is not cooperating, but it won’t keep him from making up his own reality.

With inflation roaring, Ben is now resorting to trying to crash the markets and instill fear into the populace. He will stop at nothing in his quest to destroy the middle class and enrich his banker masters.

YIPPEE!!!!

13 comments

Posted on 14th April 2011 by Administrator in Economy |Politics |Social Issues

, ,

Who says government drones don’t have a sense of humor? Even though wholesale prices surged by 0.7% in one month, the government actually reported that food prices fell. I bet that is making you choke on your can of cat food you are eating because you can’t afford human food anymore. But, even using the badly flawed and manipulated government numbers, wholesale inflation is running at an annualized rate of 12% over the last three months. This means that companies have two choices: 1) eat the increase in their costs and reduce their profits by 12% or 2) pass the 12% increase onto you by either increasing the price or reducing the size of their products. Which do you think they are doing?

And oh yeah, unemployment claims surged back above 400,000 this week. We are two years into a supposed recovery and unemployment claims are higher than they were during the 2001 – 2002 recession. CNBC says it’s the best time to buy stocks.

Can you say – DOUBLE DIP RECESSION?

 

U.S. wholesale prices rise 0.7% in March

By Jeffry Bartash, MarketWatch

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — U.S. wholesale prices rose sharply in March, spurred once again by higher gasoline costs, but food prices fell for the first time in seven months.

The producer-price index climbed a seasonally adjusted 0.7% in March, following a 1.6% gain in February and a 0.8% increase in January, according to the Labor Department.

The core rate, which excludes the volatile food and energy categories, rose 0.3% in March. Higher prices for light trucks accounted for a large chunk of the increase.

Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had predicted a 0.8% increase in overall producer prices and a 0.2% increase in the core rate.

Investors and the Federal Reserve usually view the core index as a better gauge of inflationary pressure because it excludes food and energy, prices of which often fluctuate.

Yet the sharp and steady increase in food and energy costs could pose a threat to a fragile U.S. recovery, economists warn. Demand for many other consumer goods and services — the linchpin of economic growth — usually fall when people have to spend more money on basic necessities.

Over the past year, wholesale prices have jumped 5.8%, stoking concerns about higher inflation. Other price indicators have also flashed warning signs.

If wholesale prices keep rising, however, companies eventually will have pass along more of their costs to their customers.

The wholesale report provides “further evidence that recent gains in oil and commodity prices are putting upward pressure on a goods prices beyond energy and food,” economist Peter Newland of Barclays Capital said in an email.

The spike in wholesale prices has largely been driven by a surge in petroleum. Energy costs rose 2.6% in March, and they’ve shot up 17.6% over the past 12 months.

Higher gasoline prices, which jumped 5.7%, drove most of the increase.

Wholesale food prices fell 0.2% in March – the first decline since last August — one month after posting the biggest gain since 1974. A 21.4% drop in the price of fresh and dry vegetables accounted for the decrease.

Still, the price for food paid by producers has risen 4.4% over the past year.

Also in the wholesale report, the price index for intermediate goods rose 1.5% in March. Core intermediate prices excluding food and energy, viewed as a leading indicator of inflation, jumped 0.9%.

Intermediate products are items such as flour, processed from wheat, before it is made into bread.

Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims increase to 412,000

In the week ending April 9, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 412,000, an increase of 27,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 385,000. The 4-week moving average was 395,750, an increase of 5,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 390,250.

« Older Entries