Inflation

[The Atheist]

I'm sure it must be a Boomer thing.

Take a serious thread on a serious subject and turn it into a discussion on the most first-world issue you could possibly come up with.

 

[Thermal]

You might have missed it, but the derail was not about coffee. It was about misreporting of inflationary stats, and downplaying it fairly dramatically. You really missed that?

 

[The Atheist]

You might have missed it, but the derail was not about coffee. It was about misreporting of inflationary stats, and downplaying it fairly dramatically. You really missed that?

100%. It's not very relevant. Inflation isn't applied evenly, so anomalies exist. Big deal.

Petrol is a classic example. I don't pay for it, so I don't care how much it costs and the inflationary effect oin me is whatever inceased logistics cost accrue to things I do or buy. Points of a percent.

The family 2 km down the road whose dad earns $25 an hour and who's seen petrol increase 40% doesn't get the same benefit and his inflation rate might be 7 or 8%. To and from work, maybe to and from schools as well - it wouldn't be hard to be a massive number

Lies, damned lies, and statistics. (definitely Mark Twain - no way did dry old Disraeli come up with that)

 

[The Atheist]

Which goes neatly back to your ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ coffee!

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Eta: the short life span of the 50% tarrif really doesn't do much to explain the multi year trend, but it is at least something that could be pointed to as a wildly outscale cost multiplier

"Wildly outscale cost multiplier" is what you get in a commodity market when demand is inelastic. Why? Because buyers are willing to pay whatever it takes to get the supplies they need.

The 50% tariff wasn't expected to be 'short' when introduced. The futures market priced it in for a longer time, guaranteeing the price would stay high for years. This trend continued even after the tariff was reduced because you never know what Trump's going to do. The increased uncertainty alone causes the price to go up because the risk is higher. Combine that with other cost increases and you have 'structural' inflation.

Mo Eta: for all this talk about Vietnam's weather tripling prices, 97% of their exports are Robusta beans. The States import 97% Arabica beans, with hardly any Robusta in the market.

Err...

{Eta: watch how simple- Vietnam had a bit of weather for the last 6 years and the entire country is currently under 10 meters of water. Most people don't know that Vietnam supplies 75% of the world's coffee beans, so this created a massive global shortage, which made every other bean supplier producer say "well that had nothing to do with me, but imma jack my prices up now bitch, just because I can". By the way, there aint been no ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ coffee shortage, with mother ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ jonesing outside the shuttered up Starbucks. Demand is more thsn adequately being met}

Turns out that yes, Vietnam did 'have bit of weather'. It doesn't supply 75% of the world's coffee beans of course, but does supply 40% of the world's Robusta. If people can't get one type they may switch to another, putting pressure on that supply.

The whole market is interconnected, so when the price goes up in one place it will do the same in other places. You say "that had nothing to do with me, but imma jack my prices up now" when in reality the supplier could just be making up for a loss they suffered previously. This is common in farming, where an entire crop could be wiped out by bad weather and the farmer will want to make up for it the next year - which means they need a bumper crop and/or a huge price increase just to break even.

You say 'demand is being adequately met', but people in the industry say otherwize. I guess you think they are all lying as they collude to jack prices up for no reason.