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Inflation

Inconclusive yet - a lot of that will be the price of oil, which is down over 25% from its peak.
 
Puppycow said:
Which would mean that a lot of it was the price of oil to begin with.
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It was.

Puppycow said:
Here's the chart for core inflation, which excludes food and energy prices (including oil, of course):

https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_core_inflation_rate
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Good pick - that shows a 1% fall, against the wider 2% you showed above. Half the fall being oil feels about right.

USA also has the unfortunate situation that workers aren't receiving pay rises near the rate of inflation, only getting 4.8% in the year to December '22. When you factor in a fall in hours worked, it seems fairly clear workers are bearing the brunt of stopping inflation by having the blood squeezed out of them.
 
The December inflation report is out:

Prices fell in December as inflation continues to moderate

For the first time in nearly three years, inflation fell on a monthly basis.

Consumer prices decreased by 0.1% in December, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday in its Consumer Price Index. The last time prices were lower than the previous month was May 2020.

The closely watched inflation gauge also showed that year-over-year prices continued to cool last month, slowing to 6.5%, from 7.1% in November. It’s the smallest annual increase since May 2021.

Stripping out food and energy prices, which tend to be more volatile, core CPI came in at 5.7%, down from November’s 6% annual rate.
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Puppycow said:
The December inflation report is out:

Prices fell in December as inflation continues to moderate
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Here is something interesting on the report to me

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.t02.htm

Almost exactly 1 third of the CPI-U calculation is cost of shelter which were up .8% for the month. Homeowners are almost entirely protected from that. So, for a homeowner, costs went down not by .1% but by .4% if my math is correct. For ever dollar I held, I made 4 tenths of a cent return in December (thats not really how deflation works but there you go).

And for the year inflation was only ~4.3% if you exclude cost of shelter. For those of use who outright own a home, or on a fixed rate mortgage, 2022 was not all that bad by my reckoning.

And looking at the trackers: https://tipswatch.files.wordpress.com/2023/01/small_dec.jpg

CPI-U has been pretty low each month since July.
 
I see our good pals in the House of Saud have decided to help out Mr Putin by cutting production 1M barrels a day.
 
Recently there was a wave of avian influenza that resulted in hens dying and egg prices rising. However, the rise in egg prices may have had just as much to do with corporate greed as with reduced supply.

Cal-Maine Foods, which controls about 20% of the U.S. egg market, announced last week that its revenue for the quarter ending February 25 rose 109% to $997.5 million, while profit for the same period skyrocketed 718% to $323.2 million.

...

"While working families paid record prices for eggs, Cal-Maine raked over 700% more in profits—without reporting a single case of avian flu," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) tweeted on Thursday. "We need to crack down on corporate price gouging to provide Americans with relief at the grocery store."
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/why-are-egg-prices-so-high
 
The_Animus said:
Recently there was a wave of avian influenza that resulted in hens dying and egg prices rising.
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Pfft.

Come to New Zealand, where an insane policy by the government has resulted in such short supply of eggs they are now $1 each. That's up about 300% in the space of 6 months.
 
The Atheist said:
I see our good pals in the House of Saud have decided to help out Mr Putin by cutting production 1M barrels a day.
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Roger Ramjets said:
At least somebody is doing the right thing. If only we could get the rest to follow suit...
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I've always wondered about politicians (or anyone) who say that we need to cut down on fossil fuels to combat global warming but then complain when the price of fossil fuels goes up.
 
Puppycow said:
I've always wondered about politicians (or anyone) who say that we need to cut down on fossil fuels to combat global warming but then complain when the price of fossil fuels goes up.
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The problem is, it needs to be done in a planned manner.

Pushing the price of petrol up this way disadvantages the poorest people, who can't afford electric vehicles, while Tesla drivers sit and laugh.
 
The biggest study of ‘greedflation’ yet looked at 1,300 corporations to find many of them were lying to you about inflation

The article also mentions another study from back in June

A June study by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) found that 45% of eurozone inflation in 2022 could be attributed to domestic profits. Companies in a position to benefit most from higher commodity prices and supply-demand mismatches raised their profits by the most, the study found.
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I wouldn't be surprised if the numbers were similar for the US. Just shy of half the inflation was just corporate greed.
 
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