"There's no inflation."

[Lucille]

F#@KFLATION
http://www.theburningplatform.com/2014/10/26/fkflation/

Every day you hear the boobs on CNBC and the rest of the mindless mainstream media regurgitating the Federal Reserve concerns about deflation, as if lower prices somehow hurt the lives of Americans. Who doesn’t like lower prices? Are people really pissed off that gasoline has dropped from $3.60 a gallon to $3.00 in the last four months? The BLS manipulated, massaged, and adjusted bullshit CPI number says there is virtually no inflation. It is heavily weighted towards a made up housing calculation and would only show an increase if people actually got wage increases. The lack of wage inflation, combined with high inflation for food, utilities, rent, tuition, and healthcare has created a new flation – FUCKFLATION. The middle class gets fucked, while the bankers and oligarchs drink champagne, eat caviar, and conduct interviews with CNBC about their fears of deflation.

Guest Post by Anthony Sanders

Inflation? House Prices, Beef, Big Macs And Wages (Beef UP 74% Since 2009, Wage Growth DOWN 45%)

If we look at the YoY growth in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the “inflation” rate in the US is 1.7%.

Since December 2008, beef prices have risen 74%. House prices have risen “only” 17%, chicken has risen 18.5%. Meanwhile, real median household income has fallen 4.6% and average wage growth has fallen 45%.
[...]
The US allegedly has virtually no inflation, yet house, beef, chicken and Big Mac prices keeps shooting up through the roof.

But then again, so has college tuition and medical costs, ALL with falling/stagnant wage income.

 

[LibForestPaul]

Money has been created from nothing. It has been given to a select few. Where those select few choose to use their new money is at their discretion. It is a shame that some may suffer, some may die, some may go to war, due to this system, but it is a system that the peoples of all nations want and desire.

Someone on this board has the super dollar. Makes perfect sense what is happening.

 

[PRB]

Money has been created from nothing. It has been given to a select few. Where those select few choose to use their new money is at their discretion. It is a shame that some may suffer, some may die, some may go to war, due to this system, but it is a system that the peoples of all nations want and desire.

Someone on this board has the super dollar. Makes perfect sense what is happening.

luckily we got a secret weapon : BITCOIN.

 

[TheTexan]

We would have inflation, but fortunately we have central banks around the world working around the clock to add money to the economy, to prevent that from happening.

 

[PRB]

We would have inflation, but fortunately we have central banks around the world working around the clock to add money to the economy, to prevent that from happening.

wait, what?

adding money to prevent inflation?

 

[Lucille]

Can't Find Any Inflation? Here's A Place To Start
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-27/cant-find-any-inflation-heres-place-start

Lately, there has been much anguished consternation, especially among the tenured US economics professors (primarily those who make 6-digits or more per year) and of course, the Federal Reserve where as we revealed last week, at least 113 government workers make $250,000 (excluding bonuses) and thus all are confined within the cozy cocoon of America's "1%ers", about the so-called complete disappearance and collapse in inflation. So to help these ivory tower-confined individuals in their holy grail to rediscover the inflation that is more than felt by the rest of America, here are two simple charts.

And some observations of how this "non-existant" inflation is impacting the lives of ordinary people, those whose net worth does not rise by the same percentage as the Fed's balance sheet, and thus the S&P500, and are crushed by the inequality with the Fed's Chairmanwoman is so vocally concerned about.

“Our paychecks stay the same, but the food prices keep going up,” fumed Jody O’Toole as she shopped at the Associated Supermarket at Eighth Avenue and 14th Street. “You still gotta feed your family, but meat and milk are too much.”

Colleen Vincent, who lives with her mother in Brooklyn, said she’s avoiding meat and sticking to canned goods and cabbage, which she turned into three meals last week.

“I don’t do big grocery shopping trips anymore,” said Vincent, 37. “I have to buy something that gives me more bang for my buck.

“We used to buy beef — now it’s a special treat,” she added. “There are other things I want out of life. I don’t want to spend everything on food.”

Steve Gould, 68, was picking up seltzer water, bananas and yogurt and said he refuses to buy anything unless it’s on sale.

“I want people to stick their heads out the windows like they did in the movie ‘Network,’ and say, ‘I’m mad as hell and not going it take it anymore,’ ” Gould said.

But how is it that food inflation of over 20% in some cases is so crushing to ordinary Americans and yet the people who are tasked to isolate and remedy precisely such problems are completely oblivious to its impact?

The answer is simple: "Janet Yellen, the No. 2 at the Fed's Board of Governors, and her husband—Nobel Prize-winning economist George Akerlof —had assets such as stocks, bond-fund shares and bank accounts valued at roughly $4.8 million to $13.2 million in 2012, according to financial disclosures released by the Fed on Tuesday."

 

[TheTexan]

wait, what?

adding money to prevent inflation?

Oh, I'm sorry, I got it mixed up. Inflation is good, deflation is bad. We don't have enough inflation, which is why they're printing money.

 

[PRB]

Oh, I'm sorry, I got it mixed up. Inflation is good, deflation is bad. We don't have enough inflation, which is why they're printing money.

I didn't say that. I was trying to understand if I read you correctly, that adding money prevents inflation, regardless of whether it's good or bad.

 

[TheTexan]

I didn't say that. I was trying to understand if I read you correctly, that adding money prevents inflation, regardless of whether it's good or bad.

No, no, that's what the Fed says. There's not enough inflation! Particularly in the eurozone. They really gotta step up the printing, I guess.

 

[Ronin Truth]

Would you perchance agree that there has been a decrease in the purchasing power of the FRN?

 

[PRB]

No, no, that's what the Fed says. There's not enough inflation! Particularly in the eurozone. They really gotta step up the printing, I guess.

so the feds are saying inflation is good or that adding money will prevent inflation? can't be both!

 

[Lucille]

NO INFLATION UNLESS YOU EAT FOOD, USE WATER, LIVE IN A HOUSE OR APARTMENT, HEAT YOUR HOME, GET SICK, TRAVEL, PAY CAR INSURANCE, GO TO SCHOOL, MAIL LETTERS, OR DO YOUR TAXES
http://www.theburningplatform.com/2...e-go-to-school-mail-letters-or-do-your-taxes/

Government data reports are so funny. The blaring headlines today tells us that prices dropped in December. We are all saving billions from the drop in oil and gas. Hallelujah!!!

The corporate MSM never digs into the numbers to get the real truth. These reports and their distribution to the sheep are designed to keep you sedated and calm. Facts are not necessary. How this data pertains to your everyday life is not important to the .1% who control the flow of information.

Here is a link to the detailed inflation numbers by category. We already know they massage these numbers to achieve a happy ending, but even the massaged numbers tell an entirely different story than the one peddled to the masses by the government and corporate media.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.t07.htm

Below are the annual price increases for items that might impact your life on a daily basis:

Food at home – 3.7%

Food away from home – 3.0%

Meat – 12.7%

Fish and seafood – 5.6%

Eggs – 10.7%

Milk – 5.2%

Fruits & vegetables – 4.1%

Coffee – 4.2%

Butter – 22.5%

Natural gas – 5.8%

Footwear – 2.8%

Prescription drugs – 6.4%

Newspapers & magazines – 4.8%

College textbooks – 5.0%

Cigarettes – 3.1%

Apartment rent – 3.4%

Owners equivalent rent – 2.6%

Hotels – 7.3%

Water & sewer – 5.6%

Medical care -2.4%

Hospital care – 4.9%

College tuition – 3.4%

Postage – 4.1%

Tax preparation – 6.1%

I don’t know about you, but the costs listed above account for a significant amount of my budget. Do those price increases jive with the message being spewed by the government controlled media?

The credibility of their numbers is highly questionable in that they say that health insurance accounts for .75% of a persons annual budget. They actually have the balls to say that health insurance fell by 0.5% over the last year. I’d love to hear from anyone out there whose health insurance premiums fell in the last year. Mine went up by 20%.

Your government keepers will continue to drown you in propaganda and misinformation. But the average person should know they are being lied to. They see how much money they have left over at the end of every month. If any.

 

[HOLLYWOOD]

There's another reason why Inflation and cost are under reported and that is... The Government 'Measured Payout System'; Social Security-Disability, FOOD STAMPS-EBT, Government-Military retirees, Welfare, medical costs, and the government's announced "Cost of Living Adjustments" Always remember, what the government gives you today, can easily and methodically take it away. That's usually how government operated, esp. with taxes and tax credits/writeoffs/etc.

Here's an article that hit on it by government under reporting costs/inflation/CPI(Consumer Price Illusion), and especially TIPS(Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities) where the government's very own measurements on inflation are in direct conflict, then of course down the road, .Gov underpays recipients on committed obligations. It's all 'Slide of Hand' in today's government.

Manipulation Of CPI Saved The Federal Government Over $150 Billion From 1998-2012

14 November 2014
Submitted by Consumer Price Illusion blog,
Cost-of-living adjustments increase entitlement spending automatically every year. Most COLA’s use all or part of the CPI to calculate inflation.The US further embeds the CPI in the system by indexing a growing portion of its government debt via TIPs. Even welfare benefits like food stamps use applicable indices within the all-items CPI to calculate COLA.
In total almost $3 trillion of federal yearly liability is subject to automatic annual CPI-based increases. This calculation includes:

• All yearly means-tested welfare benefits subject to a COLA (e.g. SNAP, NSLP, etc…)
• All yearly social security spending (e.g. SSI, OASI, DI, everything…)
• All outstanding TIPs balance (every year the principal of an outstanding TIP is adjusted up/down by the inflation rate)

sources: http://budget.house.gov/uploadedfiles/rectortestimony04172012.pdf
http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/statcomps/supplement/index.html
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/ERP-2012/xls/ERP-2012-table87.xls

This time series represents the majority of yearly federal obligations that are subject to inflation-based COLA increases. We can thus attempt to calculate how much the government saved each year through methodological changes to the CPI. By the government’s own reckoning:

[The] improvements made by the BLS have reduced the measured
increase in the CPI… The combined effect of the changes made through 1998 has been to lower the CPI inflation rate by 0.44 percentage point per year. Changes to be implemented in 1999 and 2000 will lower CPI inflation by a further 0.20 and 0.04 percentage point per year.
- Economic Report of the President Feb 1999 pg 93

​

Thats a total of 0.68% a year from 2000 onward. While this might not sound like a lot, given the immense sums of money the government owes the public, this adds up to billions of dollars in savings:

applies deflation rate implied from report (0.0044 in 1998 up to 0.0068 in 2000) to total obligations calculated above

That adds up to a total savings of $150,147,988,800. Again, this is basing our deflation rate at 0.68% from the economic report referenced above. There is considerable evidence, however, that the real effect of quality adjustments on the CPI is much higher.

Using the more realistic divergence of 1-2% we saw from the BPP data puts the total savings at the $200-$400 billion range.
In the investigation of any crime, it is important to find motive:

• When a seemingly trivial change to a statistical index can potentially deprive taxpayers of hundreds of billions of dollars
• When an agency keeps raw data hidden from outside inspection (BLS deems raw pricing data as confidential and thus exempt from FOIA)
• When a government cannot make the unpopular decisions necessary to reign in entitlement spending

Then you are in a time where an executive branch might take actions into its own hands in the name of efficiency. Hiding in econometric obscurity, in an area of research so boring no economist would dare tread, did the government knowingly encourage the adoption of a dubious economic theory that would likely bias inflation downward? If so, it was a good bet.





http://zerohedge.whotrades.com/blog/43403880084#sthash.IwjSXQoV.dpuf

 

[PRB]

NO INFLATION UNLESS YOU EAT FOOD, USE WATER, LIVE IN A HOUSE OR APARTMENT, HEAT YOUR HOME, GET SICK, TRAVEL, PAY CAR INSURANCE, GO TO SCHOOL, MAIL LETTERS, OR DO YOUR TAXES
http://www.theburningplatform.com/2...e-go-to-school-mail-letters-or-do-your-taxes/

so the housing bubble didn't happen, right?

 

[Zippyjuan]

In total almost $3 trillion of federal yearly liability is subject to automatic annual CPI-based increases.

Given that the total budget (EVERYTHING) is only $3.5 trillion that is amazing (and sounds highly improbable).

 

[acptulsa]

Given that the total budget (EVERYTHING) is only $3.5 trillion that is amazing (and sounds highly improbable).

Why? That's less than 83% of the budget. In 2013, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid accounted for about 48% of the budget.

Those two numbers aren't all that far apart.

so the housing bubble didn't happen, right?

Do you ever say anything that makes a lick of sense?

 

[DamianTV]

What I think is sad is that transportation is a huge factor in the cost of goods. Gas price went down. Way down. Hell, I filled up my car for less than $40 bucks. Probably the first time I have been able to do that this DECADE. Although the price of transporting the goods has dropped, the price of those goods themselves will not go down one fucking red cent. Gas goes up, prices will double overnight, again. If gas goes down again, there will be no drop in the price of transported goods. Fuckers just keep sending prices up up up up up while our wages and what we bring home remains flat flat flat flat flat. That is for people truly fortunate enough to actually have a job with our true 30% unemployment rate.

Oh but the poor fuckers on Wall Street that are losing their asses and all the poor impoverished oil workers and that will drive unemployment up! Yeah, it will go up as long as they qualify to be counted in the unemployment statistic, then it will go back down again, even if they dont have jobs, and it will be hearlded by the likes of Zippy and the talking boobs on the MSM as the "Great Recovery". Fuck me, I hope people dont actually read my shit because if I see "Great Recovery" on the MSM two days from now, Im gonna shoot someone, most likely with a squirt gun but possibly even a rubber band, but none the less Im gonna shoot some dumb fucker for repeating the coining of that phrase!

 

[PRB]

Why? That's less than 83% of the budget. In 2013, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid accounted for about 48% of the budget.

Those two numbers aren't all that far apart.



Do you ever say anything that makes a lick of sense?

Did housing bubble happen, yes or no?

 

[Zippyjuan]

Why? That's less than 83% of the budget. In 2013, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid accounted for about 48% of the budget.

Those two numbers aren't all that far apart.



Do you ever say anything that makes a lick of sense?

Yeah- 48% is right next to 83%. One is only about half the other one. Not far apart at all.