For the Common Core math grads, inflation like that is cumulative month-over-month, versus trending against an annual baseline.
Think moon launch, not jet take-off.
Assuming that meme is accurate (we have little reason to doubt it), this is a crash warning.
(If it's overstating things because whoever made it misstated the reality, it's rampantly recockulous. We advise you to check it against facts, and see for yourself. We suspect it's spot-on.)
That means that something that cost $1 last Oct 31st, isn't now going for $1.08½ , it's actually now running at $1.44.
(Which accords with companies like Kraft Foods jacking all prices up 30% and announcing another 30% jump, not to mention gasoline going from $2.50/gal to over 5.00/gal.)
IOW, inflation for the last five months is 43.8%. Which trendline predates the opening of hostilities in Ukraine, for the historically moronic, by some nearly four months. Biden didn't do this. FDR did this. Truman did. Eisenhower did. Kennedy did. Johnson did. Nixon did. Carter did. Reagan did. Daddy Bush did. Clinton did. Dubbya did. Obozo did. Trump did. Biden and Puton just gave the car a last little push over the cliff.
And note the trend:
inflation is getting bigger, with every passing month.
That's the difference between sliding over the edge, and falling to terminal velocity.
Annualized, that means that by next year, what you bought for $1 this January 1st, will cost you $2.74 by next January. Every dollar you're holding now will be worth 37¢ in a year.
That's Weimar rates, headed for Zimbabwean rates, of inflation. If the monthly rates increase, think MOAR! Bigger! Faster!
(Assuming it doesn't stop. And it probably couldn't, even if we wanted it to.)
It's unlikely your salary is going to go up 274% this year.
If you need to run off to the bathroom to vomit, we understand.
That collapse, and the attendant problems everyone said would never come?
And this penny still hasn't dropped in Normieland.
Meaning you still have a brief moment or two to not go down in flames, before everyone figures it out.
Do you want to buy at things at $1.44 now, or wait for $2.74 (or worse; remember the monthly jumps are trending bigger each month, nor staying the same) later?
Suture self.
I don't see the inflation train doing anything but speed up, and up and up.
ReplyDeleteRight until it jumps the tracks and we crash in a spectacular manner.
The Dollar Tree has become the $1.29 store.
ReplyDeleteNot cumulative. It is the rise from the same month a year earlier.
ReplyDeleteThe reality of the situation hasn't hit yet. People expect a return to normal.
ReplyDelete@Chuck,
ReplyDeleteShow me anything - anything - that's only costing 8% more than a year ago.
Other than Biden campaign posters.
The obvious example, gasoline, is up 100%.
The Fed is boned, because if they jack interest rates to throttle inflation, they blow up the cost of interest payments on the national debt, and everything explodes.
It's cumulative. It's accelerating. Brace for impact.
LOL it's amazing how often you and I agree. The Fed is boned. We are boned.
ReplyDeleteThe last time we had such a bad situation Volker the last Fed Chairman I respected put the price of money AKA interest rates to 20% in 1979 to crush inflation.
I still have my CD paperwork framed above my computer when I had a CD for 19%. Right beside my framed Zimbabwe Millon dollar bill.
Many screaming bankers and businesses then a recession but the bad debts were burned out of the system. NOT like the two OTHER times recently when the Fed (aka Gov) decided to paper over the problems with even MOAR Fake Dollars.
Yet you make laughter at Russia doing 17% to keep their ruble solvent.
Inflation for the math challenged (not you Aesop) too many fake dollars chasing the same loaf of bread.
HYPERINFLATION when the Politicians trying not to get burnt at the stake DUMP Billions MOAR fake dollars into EBT Cards and such and everybody discovers how little there is to buy with that. Gov. com can fake money but not loaves of bread.
CUE Propaganda to the max about Preppers Hording Food to deflect the pitchforks away from the Gov.
If you think propaganda about the Unvaxxed is making us sick was bad WAIT until the Preppers stole My Food and that's why I'm starving.
Got food? Got trusted friends? Got Grey man too large clothing to fake your starving?
Preppers stole our food, accuse the grasshoppers. No, not true, but we do got well armed jaws if you can't grok that, sez the ants. So move along, whilst ya can, bugs.
ReplyDeleteThat is because the inflation rate leaves out food and fuel and is still under-reported, not because the numbers are cumulative. Not arguing that we aren't fast approaching hyperinflation just that misrepresenting what the fake government numbers mean makes you less credible.
ReplyDeleteI actually agree that your "cumulative theory" actually gets us closer to the real inflation rate.
Chuck, I get your point, and that's what they want to call it, but that's not how it is. Prices aren't going up 1%-2% in a month, (and haven't been doing that for months on end) they're going up 30% in a month, and month-to-month. All the "official" CPI is telling you is how far from reality "official" inflation is from actual inflation. Actual inflation is cumulative. And specifically because the inflation of energy prices is driving everything up like a moon rocket, starting with food, the two primary weekly purchases of everyone in the economy.
ReplyDeleteThe CPI is simply lying with fake numbers. As it's been designed to do since the outset.
Those rates are annualized. But, yeah, fake and ghey numbers.
ReplyDeleteThe big scam is all the hedonic adjustments. Because they phased out 3G and 4G, people had to buy a 5G. Your old phone cost $800 three years ago, your new one cost $900, but because the new one is twice MOAR GOODER than your old phone, they "adjust" the price basis of the new phone down to $450. So by their math, you saved $350 over 3 years, which offsets the increases in the CPI. Repeat that with all the bells and whistles for all electronics you are buying. Then consider how much MOAR GOODER they think forcing you into a more fuel-efficient vehicle or smaller home or to buy more soy in lieu of greenhouse gas beef is worth...