I’ve known for years that the official government inflation figures are a joke. The only ones that are laughing are the ones that are saving billions not having to pay retirees decent COLA.
In the past 12 months I’ve seen fuel and energy (gas/natural gas/electricty) prices rise a third, food prices up at least 15% and just about everything else 10% or more.
The feds said inflation rose a few percent.
Humm, do I believe them or my lying eyes?
Did I mention I got a whopping 3% raise?
Regular Americans are taking it in the shorts while the rich are getting richer.
If things don’t get better soon the politicians better watch out as folks with pitchforks will be running them and all of the fat cats getting richer at our expense out of town.
imho, this is the wrong question. the “credit crunch” is cyclical and will work itself out over another couple of years. inflation is a symptom, not a cause.
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where are the upward price pressures now?
energy and food
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which two sectors of our economy are, arguably, the most highly regulated and most impeded by the government?
energy and food.
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doh.
America’s default energy policy for the past 30 plus years has been “not produced here”. Well paying jobs in heavy industries such as drilling, refining, mining, and heavy construction have all been exported to places like Venezuela, China, and Brazil.
Since significant increases in America’s production of energy haven’t been permitted, our default policy has been to build oil/gas fired electric power plants — and as slowly as possible — then import oil or gas to burn in them.
Our corn based ethanol policy was the topper — the commodity price of all food grains has doubled or more since that program was forced on us and all because we intend to burn over 20% of our larger corn crop in our automobiles.
food prices could be lowered within months, much to the relief of the world’s poorest peoples, simply by canceling the corn into ethanol programs.
digging out of the energy production hole we’ve put ourselves into is going to take decades — the only real bulk energy production sources are more nuclear power plants [12 year lead time to build one], more oil and gas drilling [all available drilling rigs and crews are already working, so more rigs will have to be built and crews trained], and more coal mining [requires mining gear with two to three year lead times, railroads with their own lead times, and more power plants with their own years long lead times].
Is there anywhere in America a leader who sees the key problem? — we have a government created shortage of energy production and thus government created misery, especially among the poor and working classes.
Ask your Congressperson and Senators what programs they will vote for to produce more energy and thus lower prices for all of us.
If you don’t like the answer you get, vote them out of office.
Ah, and blaming the current bad situation on ol’ GW, (no matter how bad of a president he has been) requires that you pretend it is less then 8 years in the making and that the population as a whole (that means us) have no blame. Both of these assumptions are wrong and clinging to them will prevent our being able to fix it.
And does anyone here understand that part of the housing problem is the result of excessive over building and that no matter how much credit is available the market wont start to recover until the amount of inventory for sale is reduced?
Credit crunch? Credit crunch?
We have finally started, just started mind you, to adjust our rate of rabid borrowing into something reasonable and everyone is whining about the “crunch”. Homeowners have the LOWEST rate of equity since the depression (so I read) and personal debt is higher (per capita) then ever and we all know the state of our national debt. But this is still not enough borrowing. People want the government/fed/Jesus/Santa/SOMEONE to “fix” it so we can keep borrowing more, cheaper, faster then before.
We don’t need borrowed money to keep our economy running. We need to get our economy back to where it runs mostly on real time money/production. Not future predictions. Where money is borrowed to buy homes and farms, cover uncommon emergencies, start new viable businesses and expand companies that have a real market to expand into. Not for buying toys, day to day living, growing companies to death or making money out of nothing.
Inflation, on the other hand, robs from us all.
Our world is finite, and we have hit the wall. It is time to shift from a “growth” economy to a stable economy. Inflation target should be ZERO.
they should be more concerned about inflation. low rates are a double negative wammy.. poor return on savings & higher prices for necessities.——- credit crunch nonsense wont stop until median home prices return toward the mean. it seems like sellers & realtors are still in the fog.
Posted By Me, Monroe County, Pa. : June 17, 2008 12:23 pm
Median home prices are always the mean by definition. Do you mean that until the median house prices fall to levels affordable by normal median earning people will the credit crisis abate?
Even that will not help as people do not realize the credit crunch is really a federal thing as no one is buying treasury bills anymore. The fed has to dump them on 401k plans now to move them.
LOL we are broke that is why the states are all building toll roads instead of free highways and letting gambling pay for educating our children. LOL we are in sad shape.
George Bush has done what no outside invader has ever done and that is destroy America.
LOL, don’t people understand by now that the U.S. is totally broke and nobody is loaning us money.
The government and businesses have been printing money for so long now that the dollar is totally useless.
Remember the hyperinflation Germany had during the Great Depression???
Ours will make that one look like hyperdeflation.
Look for a loaf of bread costing 1 million dollars next year.
With growth rates north of 30% in emerging markets, it is no wonder that lots of US investors are parking money outside the US.
I think if the emerging markets bubble pops, the money will flow back to the US.
People who make their money from investment are pumping too much from those that make their money from paychecks.
How will people come up with a 10% down payment on a house if they are just clearing their monthly hurdles and college loan payments?
Wage inflation/correction is the only remedy. Companies that compensate will end up being the future powerhouses.
“Yes, there are inflation fears. But if the choice is a 4% bond yield versus losing 10% in the stock market. a lot of people will take the 4%,” The problem is that most people will take neither: they will invest in commodities. On a long term, the US economy will likely loose more money by paying higher prices for raw materials than the losses from the credit crunch or the paper losses from the real estate bust. Large inflation is already here, and the fed might be already too late to prevent it, as there is a huge psychological impact of inflation expectation. The fed needs to keep inflation expectation low, rise rates accordingly (not as a surprise move), and find alternative ways to inject cash into the markets.
The credit crunch! Real estate is in gridlock – even qualified buyers cannot buy because they cannot sell. The economy will not improve until the real estate crisis is solved.
they should be more concerned about inflation. low rates are a double negative wammy.. poor return on savings & higher prices for necessities.——- credit crunch nonsense wont stop until median home prices return toward the mean. it seems like sellers & realtors are still in the fog.
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Wow, once again the Federal Reserve is so far behind the curve on interest rates. It is just unbelievable that supposedly well educated men (I use that term very loosely) would let things get so far out of control. I do know this, the housing industry can’t support a nation, we need to get some industry back in this country. I don’t know, maybe if we start to drill for our own oil off our coasts and in the shale deposits in the Rocky Mountains and start to build some refineries we can create a whole bunch of new jobs as well as a whole bunch of new industry as well. Now if we can just get those stinking Democrats in D.C. to vote for the drilling etc. maybe, just maybe we can get this country moving again, thanks for listening to my rant…