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Nope, Definitely No Inflation Here
Despite yesterday's governmental reassurance (a la Venezuela and Argentina) that there is no inflation in the US, the reality for the average man in the street is a little different. We have previously noted that gas prices are 25% above their average price of the last decade but it is another staple that is more worrisome for many in America. As CNSNews reports, the average price of ground beef hit an all-time high this week at $3.61 per pound (up from just $1.82 per pound in 1980). As both a home-cooked and fast-food staple, the price of ground chuck alone has risen 45% in the last 10 years. Nope, no inflation here...
Gas prices may be down but seasonally they are as high as they have ever been...
But it's food that takes the biscuit... as ground beef prices reach record highs...
Nope, definitely no inflation here at all...
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But FLOTUS demands that we eat only half the amount of ground beef so the price hasn't really gone up at all.
If you want your ground beef, you can keep your ground beef; it'll just cost you alot more.
My all-time favorite, from clearly one of the biggest public liars our world has ever seen:
"Current talk of rising food prices and fears of inflation are largely overstated. Rising food prices in developing nations can be attributed to the citizens of those nations seeking more sophisticated diets."
-Bernocchio,
Yeah, but where are the insects they claim we should be eating instead of hamburger meat?
I'd like to see the inflation statistics on insect prices, (shirmp don't count).
Umm... so are we going to ignore all the droughts and flooding in the last few years that had an adverse effect on meat prices? And we're gonna seasonally adjust gas prices so they fit this whole "inflation" argument? weak.... what we are witnessing is a slow motion deflationary collapse, otherwise gold wouldn't have crashed. Forget Helicopter Ben. A more accurate pictures is Air Balloon Ben, furiously pumping money into the air baloon as it slowly sinks towards the ground despite his best efforts. Once it touches, as nasty as that moment will be, is when the recovery will begin. The inflation argument is good for selling gold and food stocks to paranoid investors that got burned by the market and want something safe. There is no shelter here.
While you have a point with droughts and flooding and whatnot, you do not have a point with "seasonal adjustments" on gasoline. For at least the past decade, and really, for longer than that, any seasonal driven variations in gasoline prices are completely lost in the noise. This February had the highest gas prices for any February in history, for example, and that is not seasonally adjusted. While drought and flooding probably has an effect on beef prices, so does gasoline prices.
yeah but beef is produced domestically, gas is imported. Also using a 10 year chart for gas is disingenious. That the middle east happened to be a shitbed of war for the last 10 years may have something to do with gas prices going up a bit (and not a lot). In fact, our middle east excursions took place to keep gas from going down in price, not to keep it from going up.
I know I have few friends here arguing against inflation, but just take a look at this chart showing inflation and deflationary periods over the last century.
http://dshort.com/inflation/inflation-1872-present.gif
Up until 1950, every bout of inflation was countered with a bout of deflation. If we have had nothing but inflation for the last 50 years (as anyone who is older than 50 can tell you) what do you think is about to happen? Or better yet, what do you think Bernanke is trying to avoid with all thsi printing?
"Up until 1950, every bout of inflation was countered with a bout of deflation. If we have had nothing but inflation for the last 50 years (as anyone who is older than 50 can tell you) what do you think is about to happen?"
The Dollar has lost about 96% of its value since 1913. The only blip since 1913, was during the great depression. If we had deflation the price of goods would have fallen, They have not. In fact most food products have shrinking containers that hide inflation. Pre 2010, Sugar was sold in 5 pound sacks, now the are sold as 4 pound sacks. Most Ground Beef is not 100% Beef. its sold less than half as real ground beef, the rest is fillers.
"Or better yet, what do you think Bernanke is trying to avoid with all this printing?"
Collapse of the Federal gov't. As the Gov't has too much debt to be serviced. If the Dollar was pegged to a commodity or basket of commodities the Fed would not be able to print. The US Federal Govt would have defaulted on its debt causing hyper-inflation as the world abandoned the US dollar. Printing only delays the final outcome of the dollar: its real value is Zero. its not backed by anything except by the good word of a bunch of lying, fraudulent, and corrupt politicians.
The Dollar has lost about 96% of its value since 1913. The only blip since 1913, was during the great depression. If we had deflation the price of goods would have fallen, They have not. In fact most food products have shrinking containers that hide inflation.
As I said, we have had inflation for the last 50 years, but by 1980 the debt based system, which requires yearly currency devaluation to work, started to crack. That's when we started blowing bubbles to keep the inflation going and it's not working like it used to. After blowing bubbles stopped working we resorted to just printing money to do the same thing. The reason we had deflation after the Great Depression is because there wasn't some lunatic like Bernanke or Greenspan screwing with the market, and it was allowed to correct, painfully but naturally. We need inflation to keep the show running, but the low inflation of the last 10 years when compared the change in money supply and the slowdown of money velocity should spell it out.
One purpose of the Federal Reserve is to create inflation via money printing. Do you assert they haven't printed any money in the last 100 years? Are you about 5 years old, have alzheimer's disease, or just shit for brains?
PINK SLIME -
Still great profit margin!
Can I supersize that for you?
Your argument is rather rediculous when taken at face value. If it is so obvious that deflation is going to occur, then one simply needs go to cash by selling all assets. It truly is that simple and safe. But the confusion comes from the fact that inflation hits different assets at different times and at different rates of change, AND further muddying of the water occurs because a commodity can also be pressured by shorter term influences to demand/supply such as a natural disaster. The inability to accept that inflation is already here is easy to understand, most the sheeple accept their daily propaganda that the government says there is no inflation, so there must not be inflation. Simple.
Your argument is rather rediculous when taken at face value.
Well then don't take it at face value, give it some thought.
If it is so obvious that deflation is going to occur, then one simply needs go to cash by selling all assets.
And when in history have corporations held more cash than they are now?I've given it serious thought for the last 5 years and I think I addressed the deflationist mantra. Do you disagree with any of the assertions I've made, if so what?
I do not think corporations are the "smart" money and that the actions they take are largely governed by what the board will approve. "Everyone can agree" that cash or near-cash investments are the "safest" from a fiduciary standpoint. They are acting like rational people if you accept the Bernanke's assertion that US debt is risk free, IE cash and near-cash government debt. You have to recognize that literally everyone is going to throw their hands up and say "no one could see this coming" when the US defaults through restructuring (highly unlikely if history is our guide) or defaults through inflation (history shows this to be the easier and less politicially risky choice).
Also, I didn't downvote you :).
I'd (sincerely) like to hear your argument, because it was only a year ago that I came around myself. I just don't see the evidence for it anymore, and a lot of evidence to the contrary. Again, sarc is off, I'd really like to hear your take as to what would happen to prices of everyday goods if Bernnake turned off the spigot. I mean, are we to believe that they are all lying when they say they are trying to force inflation? Doesn't that mean they are fighting a natural force of deflation?
If we were heading to hyperinflation, gold would skyrocket, and it's gone down. That is just one of many indicators in my eyes.
*IF* he turned off the spigot permanently, the financial system would come under extreme stress (not in one day obviously). The reason is that deflation would set in and loans would go bad, forcing the banks to call in more loans, and cause further deflation/deleveraging (this cycle would repeat until most goods cost less then their actual production cost which would also drive many business out of business). In addition, the US government would have to restructure its debt (DEFAULT) and this would have shocking consequences for some.
Gold is not "going down" in any longterm sense, infact I think it will likely touch 1000 during this correction. If you study longterm bull market cycles (IE the 40 year bull in bonds and stocks) you will see it is quite common to have 2-5 year corrections in longterm bull markets. Additionally, I challenge you to study the charts of commodities such as corn, oil, nat gas, copper, silver, coal, gold from 1960 through 1980 and look at the total gains as a percentage from peak to trough and look at the lengths of the corrections and the size in terms of percentages. You can find charts like these if you search "historical chart gold" for example in google. Once you start to appreciate that nothing happens all at once and/or in vacuum I think you will see how short term corrections in long-term moves "Fool the masses". Good luck!
BKbroiler; you sir, are an asshole and an idiot both. You know why? Because with your posting name you claim that an all time high in hamburger meat is deflationary. You are a fucking asshole idiot and should be banned from posting anything here or anywhere else for that matter.
You said "asshole idiot" twice in your little fit of psychotic rage. I guess if I didn't have a decent argument I might do the same, but the argument is simple and sound. Inflation is constant, that's why everything is at an all time high, every year, genius. The only reason we've managed to keep the inflation rate we have is because we've thrown everything except the kitchen sink at it. We are FORCING inflation, you fucking idiot, to avoid deflation. At least Central Banker can write a coherent post that makes an actual intelligent point. Your point is that meat is an all time high? Really, dumbass? Can I argue with someone who passed Econ 101 and realizes prices go up every year?
...and the definition of inflation is...drumroll maestro please...rising prices ! Whew ! That was hard !
I agree with you that the Fed is fighting deflation, hence the qe not only bails out the banks but also the corporations. Otherwise banks with their underwater mark-to-unicorn valuations and corporations with their alltime high borrowing for stock buybacks and dividend giveaways to shareholders would all go belly up in the greatest implosion the world has yet seen.
I've said for a long time that we're headed towards inflation in the things we need - rent, food, energy - and deflation in the things we don't - home ownership, higher education, advanced healthcare.
I think that they're priced into the hamburger. Just sayin'
Of course this whole hamburger inflation thingy isn't taking into account exactly which type of cows are used to produce the hamburger meat or quite possibly how past the sell by date or how much fat is added to the product.
Most hamburger meat comes from the worst cows like dairy cows past their milking prime or the worst sections of the cow. Grocery stores are also notorius for grinding up meat past its sell by date to sell to the least informed.
And certainly cuts like ground sirloin or chuck is going to cost more than your average anus and cow tongue ground meat.
Best advice, don't eat cow meat, always ask for the freshest insect larvae available. Pick those with the highest protein content and least number of legs. Don't be afraid to ask that an antenna be added for that extra flavor.
You didn't make that ground beef....
who knew the FLOTUS was a fan of hedonic adjustment?
Let's see if we can robotically change the headonics of the FLOTUS with something like this?
That would alter her perception of healthy eating and give her a new apreciation for real particle inflation, eh?
DaddyO
Tyler should check out the cartoon from that link.
I guess the BLS' model assumes everyone has turned in their cars for bicycles and become vegetarians.
Wait for the final 'adjustment' where people end up as Soylent Green - further reducing the cost of 'food'
And this is likely the pink slime laden beef you can get anywhere.
Grassfed is still about $5.00 lb and that's all I buy. I still enjoy making my chili even if the economy continues to show signs of implosion.
Try making it with ground deer or elk. Free range grass fed and no steroids.
Yup. Just today at the Farmer's market, I paid $20 for 0.6 lb of locally sourced, Grass Fed Filet and $8 for 1/2 lb of local raw cheddar.
In New Dirty, I mean Jersey, my neck of the suburban parking lot expanse, I had a cashier ask me what string beans were when presented for weighing, in that clear polyethylene bag. Also, I don;t know of this ground beef chuck you guys are talking about, but I myself just picked up a case of shrimp-flavor Friskies at a pretty steep discount.
just substitute horsemeat.
You mean human meat lol. With all the fat fucks in the USA its perfect Kobi beef
All fat. No beef.
Pro tip: Get people coming out of massage parlors; it has a nice tenderizing effect.
i heard that fukushima's rice was delicious and cheap this year
Besides if you replace ground beef with dog food and cook it with a little Hedonics it is just as good and less costly -- you try it first and let us know.
I wonder if the price off falafel is running in random with this spike?
Ground beef is so 2000s
SPAM, Tang and peas is all you need.
Forward!
Don't worry if inflation gets "too low" like Ben said today, we've got Janet "Cannonball" Yellin ready to rock n roll (with moar QE).
Human ground beef its the new not so lean meat
While inflation is a big part of the coming storm, this article and poll outline the biggest threat.
BIG GOVERNMENT!! and a privately held banking cartel in charge of a country's currency.
Hey, but what the hell do I know!?!
DaddyO
I have a feeling inflation was quite high in times of cannibalism also, yummy
Gas to Heat Crack Spreads Fella's.
It's still the same price coming out of the dumpster.
Are you guys sure that's actually beef you're paying all that money for?
I mean, over here in Europe they have discovered all sorts of nasty things about our food...
Just saying...
You guys see these Roadkill adds on the side of the page. Hmmm bet she would taste real good before and after she becomes supper.
you're looking at this the wrong way, first that's only 4.5% per year and only 5% of my food purchases so the real rate is really -60% inflation.
Quality of Beef seems way down also, it don't look, cook, or taste the same. I notice a huge difference in the way hamburger cooks as it splaters all over the place if you get it just a little too hot, and bleeds weird no matter what... Definately something new going into to the mix and its prolly not good. Plastic filler of some sort?
Steaks look good but are too tender to be real, tast and texture not right. I am in the midwest, plenty off cattle around... The processing has been compromised somehow.
Where's the beef?
First we switched to organic brand you can find at costco, then finally gave up on grocery 'meat'.
http://www.eatwild.com/products/texas.html
For the last 6 months Mrs. Cog and I have been experimenting with the average Joe and Jane while food shopping. At least 4 or 5 times while trolling the aisles I will say loudly to no one in particular or directly to a stranger........"But honey, the government says there is no inflation."
From the looks on their faces or the comments they make NO ONE believes the government's inflation figures.
Yep. Shopping with Cog... Never a dull moment when the public is one big petri dish for his social experiments.
You would have to shop in a Harris-Teeter or Publix to get a response in my neck of the woods.
Mention inflation at a WalMart and they would head for the automotive section.
DaddyO
The cashiers at my local store actually give a running commentary on price increases nearly every time I check out.
If I say "but there's no inflation" I get eye rolls so intense it looks like they're having a seizure.
There's a reason trust in the government is at all-time lows, and this is one of them along with a host of others.
Ya but you guys gotta remember that flat screen tvs do lots more stuff now, and they have gotten even cheaper. Same with smart phones, you lets lots moar for you money, which is obviously deflationary, and more than offsets any increase in food prices. So what we really need is moar printing to finally get a little inflation going.
My imaginary post by dr Paul krugman.
Ground beef? Pfft, I have at least 100lbs of ground elk in my freezer.
Holy Santa crap, where do you live, on the tundra?
Tundra? There are elk all over the place in several Western, Northwestern and Southwestern states. From Washington state down through California all the way over to New Mexico, then back up north to Montana. I'm in NM and I see more elk than I do deer.
maybe more people go for ground beef cause they cannot afford dentures anymore, making it the wise choice
i like the way the price of beef is flat except for the period after the dollar devaluation (87-92). there are other charts that would be interesting to lay on top of the beef price chart besides gas prices like dxy.
as it is, the inflation rate for beef is around 3% over ten years. it is not bad. the key stat is the change in price for a real basket of goods in a sampling of real budgets matched to the cpi and social security payments and current wages.
you still got to watch out with the composition of that basket. in the 80ies in the italian basket of goods there were cigarettes, but not just any cigarettes - it was "Nazionali senza filtro", the italian equivalent of filterless Camels. these were manufactured by the "monopolio di stato" (government monopoly of tobacco manufacturing).
The problem was you couldn't find these cigarettes anywhere, and if someone managed to score a box of them it was a big deal. why? well, they kept costing the same 380something Lire year after year after year (thus keeping the "cigarette price" part of the basket in check) losing the government heaps of money, while all other cigarettes over the years rose to prices between 2500 Lire (the other national brands) and 3850 (imported brands like Marlboro).
other stuff in the basket was "silver coffee spoons" and "sweet chestnut flour", stuff from the past that hardly anyone bought anymore and, without demand, never rose in price much.
at the time, under prime minister Craxi, italian treasury bonds BTPs paid 21% interest, so the government had all the interest to cheat on the true rate of inflation. in order to find trustworthy numbers for their interest rates, banks either calculated their own baskets of goods or used those of other, comparable european countries like France and Spain.
I remember at the time people were "fed" with "national pride" propaganda about Italy surpassing France reaching the 6th position on the global GDP rankging, to distract them from their (relatively) shitty conditions.
PS. the post office also offered 21% bonds at the time, later reneging on the conditions and twisting peoples arms to roll over to lower rates....................
I think it is more like 5% while most people's wages have been flat or down or gone. It's all sunshine. Nothing but sunshine.
"as it is, the inflation rate for beef is around 3% over ten years. it is not bad."
As it is, stable prices means 0% inflation rate over time. The FED pretends 2% is stable. I remember when a postage stamp was 5 cents. Now it is near 10 times that, due to the FED's price stability.
Beef price has more to do with international demand than it does with weaker dollar. I'm in a similar industry and can tell you this for sure.
Double in ten years isn't much considering...
Take away the Governments Food and Fuel subsidies to providers and you'll seea game changer. Which is why they are not included in the CPI, those prices are rigged so people don't start to riot.
Central Bankers and their sycophants in acedemia and the financial media...they believe they can control inflation. Assuming they believe we've had any inflation. We all know how they game the stats.
I am going to love watching their reaction when the Central Bankers finally lose control of rates. Beef, gasoline, and most all "real stuff" will be well north of current prices. And imo, rising prices for real stuff will happen as financial assets fall in value.
No inflation. SPX up only 26% in 2013.
I have to give you credit for trying, Tyler, but this is silly.
First, you're not showing two independent variables. Modern agriculture is the process of turning oil into food. Longer term increases in the price of beef are primarily the result of post peak increases in the price of oil.
Second, you don't explain how monetary inflation was involved. Both resources have their own supply/demand factors that influence the price outside of monetory pressures.
Nice job riling up the caveman crowd. I'm sure snorg tees and goldline.com appreciated the clickthroughs.
STFU and eat your iPads, bitchez.
You're an idiot too. Why are you fucks finding this site all of a sudden?
This is fightclub bitchez, stop playing nice.
man, this economy is like a pressure cooker it keeps gettin hotter!
More Like Fuckmeshima the day before it's black swan earthquake
Sale on Meow Mix @ Publix...Pass it along prepper friend
Quick get your super nutritious Brawndo® ground beef combo packs before supplies run out. Also check out our 'Pink Slime' special at the meat counter.
No infallation? Blough me.
tastes like horse
by the way here in the Deflationists Lounge we observe that the government controls the price and distribution of water - which is a key factor in certain food products. Since the government controls the price that means that the price only rises as governments "horsey-back" other costs on top of everyone's water bill. Food products that are water intensive will therefore rise but this is not due to the traditional market forces implied in this article.
rise in price of ground-beef is perfectly balanced by plummeting price of ssd ...
Guess Moochelle doesn't have to worry about the price of bacon, which has inflated like her enormous arse. Maybe Barry likes the smell and feel of a big slab of pork.....
Surely, there isn't any lack of criticism regarding the CPI the BLS spits out each month and for good reason. Anyone that participates in the US economy has to laugh at the ridiculous data they produce. IMHO, the primary suspect in this data is substitution methodology employed and adjustments for quality enhancements. The subsitution simply assumes when the price of beef ratchets up people will substitute chicken and therefore won't reflect the change in price of beef, and the quality enhancement is subtracting inflation when they detect a postiive change in quality. So, if the BLS decides American healthcare has improved 10% while the cost has increased 5%, then we've experienced deflation in healthcare. So, how easy is it to manipulate the numbers? LOL I'd prefer we just use the increase in government year to year as a gauge for the cost of inflation. If government spending increases 5%, inflation has increased 5%. Unfortunately, government will just use that as a basis to grow government even faster.
No inflation?!?!?
Heating oil has gone from under $1 when we bought 20 years ago to over $4.25 now.
My local property taxes have more than tripled in the same time (I won't quote the amount for fear of giving people a heart attack but they're more than I was paid out of college and sadly, quite typical of the NYC area suburbs).
In the last 18 months bacon has gone from under $4 to over $7
A good beef roast has more than doubled and now costs more than $50
Last time I was shopping I was shocked to see Sugar is now in 4 lb bags instead of 5 lb bags.
Pickles are now $1.29, up from 79 cents two years ago.
And things like cereal comes in smaller boxes and my Dial soap has a big chunk carved out of the back of the bar now.
Then you have things like 1/2 inch plywood which has doubled in less than 5 years (in the midst of a dead building market?)
Hope that increasingly expensive ground beef is as advertised.
A look back at early 2013`s revelation in UK and parts of Europe: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/uk-recalled-lasagna-products-contain-60-percent-horsemeat/
Here in Sweden we are eating more meat than ever before. I think something like 40% of all food in the west is thrown away. In Sweden you have to pay atleast $5.5 per pund for ground beef.