Visions of the Carter era?

Companies paid much higher prices to producers in April for everything from steel to meat in another sign of inflation in an economy rapidly recovering from the pandemic. The new data comes a day after a sharp gain in consumer prices sent the stock market reeling.

The Producer Price Index rose 0.6% from March, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Year over year, the PPI spiked 6.2%, the largest increase since the agency started tracking the data in 2010.

Economists polled by FactSet were expecting a 0.3% monthly increase in April and 3.8% year over year.


https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/13/producer-prices-april-2021.html?fbclid=IwAR2Nlo7sNWOgllbpjDpEfNXpBxh_LAk1tOTkmnOYrSpmaXGGbvXzol3cH8Y


Well. I guess we stimulated the economy, while adding a labor shortage to boot. This should come as no surprise to anyone.

Maddog wrote:Companies paid much higher prices to producers in April for everything from steel to meat in another sign of inflation in an economy rapidly recovering from the pandemic. The new data comes a day after a sharp gain in consumer prices sent the stock market reeling.

The Producer Price Index rose 0.6% from March, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Year over year, the PPI spiked 6.2%, the largest increase since the agency started tracking the data in 2010.

Economists polled by FactSet were expecting a 0.3% monthly increase in April and 3.8% year over year.


https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/13/producer-prices-april-2021.html?fbclid=IwAR2Nlo7sNWOgllbpjDpEfNXpBxh_LAk1tOTkmnOYrSpmaXGGbvXzol3cH8Y


Well. I guess we stimulated the economy, while adding a labor shortage to boot. This should come as no surprise to anyone.    

From a year ago.

Interesting eh?

It should come as no surprise that the pandemic would make the cost of living go up. Everything from goods to energy to labour has become more scarce, and the first rule of economics is that scarce things cost more than abundant things. It's literally the reason gold costs more than tin.

Sanctions that are put in place on other countries in order to be some sort of economic punishment on them, actually punish the populations of the countries who impose these sanctions...

Tommy Monk wrote:Sanctions that are put in place on other countries in order to be some sort of economic punishment on them, actually punish the populations of the countries who impose these sanctions...

...if that country has anything we want.  Unfortunately - or fortunately - the nations we impose sanctions on are shitholes: they don't have anything we want.  Trump tried to impose tariffs (a form of sanctions) on China, and you see where that got us.

Ben Reilly wrote:It should come as no surprise that the pandemic would make the cost of living go up. Everything from goods to energy to labour has become more scarce, and the first rule of economics is that scarce things cost more than abundant things. It's literally the reason gold costs more than tin.

That would be true if prices were only rising on things that were more scarce.


You are ignoring the demand side of the equation.

That is also pushing prices up.

Gold prices change mostly because the demand for it changes, not the supply of it.

Maddog wrote:

Ben Reilly wrote:It should come as no surprise that the pandemic would make the cost of living go up. Everything from goods to energy to labour has become more scarce, and the first rule of economics is that scarce things cost more than abundant things. It's literally the reason gold costs more than tin.

That would be true if prices were only rising on things that were more scarce.

What price isn't rising? They've even got oil rising...but what doesn't?

Maddog wrote:You are ignoring the demand side of the equation.

That is also pushing prices up.

Gold prices change mostly because the demand for it changes, not the supply of it.

Gold is an alternative currency that fluctuates reactively. Demand for it always rises automatically, during times of inflation...including inflation caused by a pandemic.

Original Quill wrote:

Maddog wrote:

That would be true if prices were only rising on things that were more scarce.

What price isn't rising?  They've even got oil rising...but what doesn't?

Maddog wrote:You are ignoring the demand side of the equation.

That is also pushing prices up.

Gold prices change mostly because the demand for it changes, not the supply of it.

Gold is an alternative currency that fluctuates reactively.  Demand for it always rises automatically, during times of inflation...including inflation caused by a pandemic.

And printing money increases the supply of it and devalues it.

Now Powell is raising rates and decreasing the supply of money to combat earlier actions.

If it were simply supply chain issues, that would resolve itself on its own, without painful monetary policy.

Even Yellen is now on the "let's take our medicine and get this shit over" train.

I was merely pointing out that gold is an alternative currency - one that fluctuates so that a prudent investor can ride out inflation.  People purchase gold to retain value.  As such, it has a demand.  So does money itself, incidentally.

Other than esoteric uses in electronics, gold has no real, intrinsic value - well, it's pretty. Yet it has been valued since Mesopotamia. I wonder why?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/20/janet-yellen-inflation-blunt-talk-heroic/


It's behind a pay wall, but there are ways around them.