"There's no inflation."

[Carson]

Janet Yellen says there is no inflation...

"the average monthly rent in America has risen 40%, the price of a dozen eggs has increased 106%, and the price of gas has gone up more than 176% since the year 2000." via goldsilverinvestments.

I don't think you can argue inflation in the price of groceries and housing. Apparently one of Yellen's goal is inflation - and the Fed thinks inflation is a GOOD thing?!

Janet Yellen cannot create jobs, and inflation will only hurt people... The Federal Reserve is hoping that they can build confidence in the markets by repeating that the economy is improving... but the economy is NOT doing better, and pumping billions of dollars of new money in the economy does not help...

Nice font your sporting there.

 

[DFF]

Food prices are exploding.

Beef:

Pork:

...but remember, there's noooo inflation.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-...n-full-frontal-beef-and-shrimp-prices-explode

 

[jclay2]

The biggest problem with inflation (other than the fact that the numbers are a composite worthy of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry) is that it is described as by typical economists as a general increase in prices rather a loss in purchasing power. The difference between the first and the second is quite drastic. The economy is nationally deflationary, implying that static or even slightly increasing prices are a large decrease in purchasing power. Things should be looked at holding all constant. If the Fed had not done 5 years of QE, we would likely be experiencing price deflation and at the minimum no loss in purchasing power. So the next time someone says inflation is 2,3,4, or 5% ask yourself where prices would be without Federal Reserve Intervention.

 

[devil21]

I paid $10 for a McD's meal and a little extra burger tonite. $10! Yeah 3% inflation my ass.

 

[DFF]

Today's FOMC statement said that "inflation is still subdued and not meeting our long-term objectives."

So, I guess these record high food prices for beef, pork, and shrimp don't mean anything.

Put another way, the Fed is lying like a motherfucker.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

There is a specialty grocery store that makes it's own sausages (mostly chicken and pork). The price for several years has been $2.99/lb. Price went up this week to $3.49/lb. 17% price inflation.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

1. The government CPI statistic is not perfect.

2. I personally wish that the government would stop gathering statistics altogether. If we had no statistics, there would be no drive to "do something" about any of the statistics.

3. Official government price inflation statistics, in nations throughout the world, are generally skewed far below any rational estimate when there is a currency crisis. During other times, they are usually pretty close.

4. In the USA today, we are not in a currency crisis. The official government price inflation numbers are pretty close to what an impartial rational estimate would give you.

5. Price inflation is different than monetary inflation. The two are very related, but they do not track. Price inflation is caused by the supply of money, but also by the demand for money. Supply may increase, but if demand increases too there will be no price inflation. There is also a time lag factor.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

So, I guess these record high food prices for beef, pork, and shrimp don't mean anything.

1. There is more to the economy than beef, pork and shrimp. If you want to propose that the CPI is grossly wrong right now, you should explain why in a more convincing way.

2. I personally do not see high prices for beef, nor pork, nor shrimp. In fact pork has seemed to be getting gradually cheaper for a long time. But this is just my own shopping experience.

 

[DFF]

Helmuth, it's pretty obvious to anyone with an IQ above 20 that inflation is alive and well, and is much higher than the govt is telling us.

I'm sure you already know this, too.

So, maybe you, and ZippyJuan should take your no inflation propaganda and go work for the Fed. You'd fit right in alongside Yellen.

As far as an explanation as to why the CPI is flawed, John Williams at Shadowstats provides just that:

Consumer Price Index Has Been Reconfigured Since Early-1980s
So As to Understate Inflation versus Common Experience

CPI no longer measures the cost of maintaining a constant standard of living.
CPI no longer measures full inflation for out-of-pocket expenditures.
With the misused cover of academic theory, politicians forced significant underreporting of official inflation, so as to cut annual cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security, etc.
Politicians look to expand further the concept of artificially-suppressed cost-of-living adjustments in current budget-deficit negotiations, through the use of the Chained-CPI (see Special C-CPI Supplement at end of this document).
Use of the CPI to adjust retirement benefits, private income or to set investment goals impairs the ability of retirees, income earners and investors to stay ahead of inflation.
Understated inflation used in estimating inflation-adjusted growth has created the illusion of recovery in reported GDP.

http://www.shadowstats.com/article/no-438-public-comment-on-inflation-measurement

 

[eduardo89]

Right now inflation is very low, you can't deny it.

 

[PierzStyx]

P.S.P.S.P.S.

Me again.

I think we've been conditioned to think all wrong about the stock market. I'm thinking the Dow Jones Industrial average is an indicator of inflation.

If you got into the market in the sixties with a million dollars and road out the last fifty years you'd have about thirty million.

While on the one hand we might think thirty million is a good thing we could be deceived. I'm thinking that when they double the money supply your Uncle Phil gets twice as many of something worth half as much.

The same thing happens with your ride up to thirty million. You can still buy the same amount of stuff as you could with your one million when you started except for now the very people that made the inflation possible have something they call capital gains taxes. All the while the markets been going up we've been thinking we are better off. Like so many things I think we've been tricked.

If it was to fall all the way back down you'd end up with your original million and owe no taxes on it.


The early crash in the thirties I think most of the people like us were late comers to the market. Old money could have road it out. Same thing now as long as it doesn't go below what you've paid your still setting pretty.

P.S.P.S.P.S. and P.S Even if you got in on the high with inflated currency and took a heavy hit and a ride to what we were thinking was down you'd end up with the same value in deflated currency when you sold plus be able to deduct a loss on the illusion of a loss.

Seems the only downside is the upside.

 

[GunnyFreedom]

P.S.P.S.

If you understood what I was saying earlier about being able to see the future in the DOW chart, here is a link that should show an up to date chart from its original source.

http://www.barchart.com/chart.php?s...ddindicator=&submitted=1&fpage=&txtDate=#jump

Off hand November 2014 people may be saying, Sorry Ron Paul. Now what was that you were saying?..Sir.

I've been pointing to Dec 2014 since middle 2010.

 

[oyarde]

I've been pointing to Dec 2014 since middle 2010.

Yeah , , do not remind me , I have , on 12/31/14 a party planned to celebrate only 10 yrs to permanent retirement for me and two yrs for the Mrs,

 

[HOLLYWOOD]

I paid $10 for a McD's meal and a little extra burger tonite. $10! Yeah 3% inflation my ass.

LOL~ my friend just sent me a pic of the half empty fry carton and tiny cheeseburger he got from McDonald's. He said the burger patty was so small, he thought it was a White Castle slider. So funny, because I got a message saying look at this shit... it's a ripoff. I told not to eat that garbage, it's bad for you.

They keep shrinking and shrinking the sizes, while jacking up the prices.

 

[56ktarget]

Yes, because inflation is solely determined by the price of a McDonalds hamburger...

 

[erowe1]

Yes, because inflation is solely determined by the price of a McDonalds hamburger...

That's one way to do it.
http://www.economist.com/content/big-mac-index

 

[Madison320]

OK, I'm going to kindof agree with Zippy and Helmuth on this one. Although prices are rising faster than the CPI, I don't think they are rising WAY faster. Maybe 3-5% vs the 1% that the CPI is stating. I think the much bigger story is the coming HUGE increases in prices. That's where Zippy and Helmuth are wrong.

That being said it sure has been relatively quiet on the economic front for awhile now. All the metrics I look at have been stable. Oil has been staying around $100. The 30 year has fallen to 3.5%. Dow around 16.5K. Even the debt has been stable the last month. Maybe socialism works and we CAN print our way to prosperity .... NOT!!!!!

 

[helmuth_hubener]

OK, I'm going to kindof agree with Zippy and Helmuth on this one. Although prices are rising faster than the CPI, I don't think they are rising WAY faster. Maybe 3-5% vs the 1% that the CPI is stating.

Hey, thanks, Madison. And I think it's very possible that the true price inflation rate is 3-5% just as you say. It is reasonable to assume that official gov't inflation numbers will be skewed at least a little all the time. It's hard to know for sure what the reality is, but prices going up somewhere between 1% and 5% fits my understanding of the data as well as my personal observations in day-to-day life.

I think the much bigger story is the coming HUGE increases in prices. That's where Zippy and Helmuth are wrong.

Just to be clear: I do not say that there will not be a coming huge increase in prices. Indeed, as long as the supply of money continues to increase rapidly, my understanding of economic law suggests that an eventual increase in prices of goods (aka decrease in the price of money) is well-nigh inevitable. This is because while the supply of dollars is unlimited -- just create more, poof! -- the demand for dollars probably is not unlimited. There are only so many billion humans in the world, and my sense is they can only want so many dollars (though this last part is just my intuition, not iron-clad law. It's speculative).

Here's the rub. The problem. The downfall. We do not know what that demand limit is. Even if we did, we also do not know how soon "eventual" will come. We also do not even know that the key essential assumption will be true: that "the supply of money continues to increase rapidly." We don't know what the Fed will do next quarter, much less going forward and years in the future. So really, you can see, we know very little.

I have mentioned it before, but because no one has ever said one word in reply (that I remember), I will go ahead and mention once again: Doug Casey wrote a book in 1980 called Crisis Investing: Opportunities and Profits in the Coming Great Depression. It was completely right in a lot of its analysis. It explained why monetary inflation leads to price inflation. It explained why a collapse was coming. It was, in short, very Austrian, very Ron Paulian, and everyone here that is so convinced a collapse is coming would agree with it enthusiastically.

But it also was completely wrong. A depression wasn't coming. Instead, good times were coming. The nation was about to enter into probably the longest secular bull market in its history.

He was right about the "why" (to an extent). He was right about the theory (to an extent). But he was dead wrong about the "what", and in investing the "what" is what makes you money. Or, in this case, loses it.

I would encourage you to pay 4 bucks and pick up this book and read it. It's as if Peter Schiff was taken back in a time machine. If it weren't for the date of publication, you could say, "Yeah! Right on! This guy 'gets it'! His predictions are rationally-based, sound, and thus are going to come true." He did, and they were, but they didn't.

It's because the fundamental error is that he forgot all the things that we don't know.

So, my position is not that there will be no coming HUGE increase in prices. I think there very well could be. My position is that I do not know when that might occur. It could be next Thursday. Or we could be in for 20 years of relative prosperity. I just don't know.

That being said it sure has been relatively quiet on the economic front for awhile now. All the metrics I look at have been stable. Oil has been staying around $100. The 30 year has fallen to 3.5%. Dow around 16.5K. Even the debt has been stable the last month. Maybe socialism works and we CAN print our way to prosperity .... NOT!!!!!

The existence of times when things look fine, stable, and prosperous despite rampant socialism and inflation does not prove that socialism and inflation work. Yes, such times exist -- the 1980s and 1990s. The 1950s. The 1920s. Maybe the next decade (time will tell). But our contention, or at least my contention, is that these times would have been even more prosperous, that we would have been even better off, had the market been free and the money been sound.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

Helmuth, it's pretty obvious to anyone with an IQ above 20 that inflation is alive and well, and is much higher than the govt is telling us.

Why is this obvious? In any case, it is not obvious to me. The first clause, yes: inflation is real. I have lived long enough to have noticed prices rising through my life. What's more, the statistics clearly show that this is the case. But what is not obvious is that at the current time the rate of increase is much higher than the CPI. Can you give me a comprehensive case for why I should believe this? An alternative number that's more correct? I just don't see it.

I'm sure you already know this, too.

No, I do not. I think that the CPI is giving a roughly (very roughly) accurate picture of inflation. That is my sincere and honest opinion, looking at the facts.

So, maybe you, and ZippyJuan should take your no inflation propaganda and go work for the Fed. You'd fit right in alongside Yellen.

I am completely opposed to the Fed. Monetary inflation causes disastrous consequences. I believe that it is the cause of the business cycle which wastes so many mountains of resources every time it occurs. I believe that it impoverishes the poor and the middle class and the savers -- essentially almost everyone in decent society -- and enriches the government and those close to it (well-connected contractors, etc). And it does cause more price inflation than there would otherwise be. Eventually. I am just saying that knowing that bit of info does not allow us to know what the price inflation rate will be in the future.

As far as an explanation as to why the CPI is flawed, John Williams at Shadowstats provides just that:

But John Williams does not think that inflation is "much higher than the govt is telling us". His charts don't show that. His charts show an inflation rate 2 or 3 percentage points higher than the standard CPI. And there are problems with just sticking with the 1990 methodology as well. There were reasons the methodology was changed, and some of them are (arguably) sound.

In any case, it goes back to my very first point:

1. The government CPI statistic is not perfect.

This includes, believe it or not, the 1990-methodology government CPI statistic! None of these stats are perfect. We don't know exactly what the "real" price inflation rate is.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

OK, I'm going to kindof agree with Zippy and Helmuth on this one. Although prices are rising faster than the CPI, I don't think they are rising WAY faster. Maybe 3-5% vs the 1% that the CPI is stating. I think the much bigger story is the coming HUGE increases in prices. That's where Zippy and Helmuth are wrong.

That being said it sure has been relatively quiet on the economic front for awhile now. All the metrics I look at have been stable. Oil has been staying around $100. The 30 year has fallen to 3.5%. Dow around 16.5K. Even the debt has been stable the last month. Maybe socialism works and we CAN print our way to prosperity .... NOT!!!!!

On the other hand, the traditional metrics, gold, silver, oil, interest rates, all have one thing in common: the government can control them.