Elon Musk. Twitter. Babylon Bee.

[Ken]

Ken, you seem ideologically committed to the idea that right now is the greatest economy ever, and no amount of evidence will change your mind.

But the icing on the cake is you insisting that there’s no inflation and that we aren’t in a bear market either.

There you go again. I have never claimed that we are in the greatest economy ever. I have no ideological commitments to the economy one way or the other. And as for evidence? EVIDENCE? I'm the only one who is actually presenting any in this discussion, not you.

It would actually be refreshing if you got around to presenting some actual evidence. That way we wouldn't be constantly subjected to the slow motion train wreck that constitutes your assertions and arguments, mildly amusing as they all may be.

Then we can get back to talking about Elon Musk, which is more interesting.

[Josh]

Ken, you seem ideologically committed to the idea that right now is the greatest economy ever, and no amount of evidence will change your mind.

But the icing on the cake is you insisting that there’s no inflation and that we aren’t in a bear market either.

There you go again. I have never claimed that we are in the greatest economy ever. I have no ideological commitments to the economy one way or the other. And as for evidence? EVIDENCE? I'm the only one who is actually presenting any in this discussion, not you.

It would actually be refreshing if you got around to presenting some actual evidence. That way we wouldn't be constantly subjected to the slow motion train wreck that constitutes your assertions and arguments, mildly amusing as they all may be.

Then we can get back to talking about Elon Musk, which is more interesting.

Ken, there’s no point in presenting evidence to you. Every time I have, you have found some reason to discredit it, doubt it, reject it, or just ignore it. It’s a complete and total waste of time.

But let’s go back to your claims:

You claimed we have no inflation problem and that inflation is only 2%. To believe that you need to live in a complete fantasy world. Real inflation is closer to 20% year over year.

[Robert]

Both of you need to speak for yourself and not to what you think the other is saying.

I think we are in a time of high inflation, bear market, and recession. I think the recession will get worse.

The government can not spend the amount it has with no money in the coffers and not create these situations. It is a result of unchecked spending.

[ohio jones]

The CPI-U rate for November 2022 was 0.1 percent as you can see on the graph above, which actually equates to an annual rate of 1.2%.

It's silly to extrapolate the monthly rate into an annual rate when the actual annual results are available in the data you posted. Simply adding up the monthly rates for Dec-Nov, neglecting compounding, gives an annual rate of 6.8%. The article itself references annual increases of 7.1, 6.0, 13.1, and 10.6% depending on which index is being considered.

[Ken]

Ken, you seem ideologically committed to the idea that right now is the greatest economy ever, and no amount of evidence will change your mind.

But the icing on the cake is you insisting that there’s no inflation and that we aren’t in a bear market either.

There you go again. I have never claimed that we are in the greatest economy ever. I have no ideological commitments to the economy one way or the other. And as for evidence? EVIDENCE? I'm the only one who is actually presenting any in this discussion, not you.

It would actually be refreshing if you got around to presenting some actual evidence. That way we wouldn't be constantly subjected to the slow motion train wreck that constitutes your assertions and arguments, mildly amusing as they all may be.

Then we can get back to talking about Elon Musk, which is more interesting.

Ken, there’s no point in presenting evidence to you. Every time I have, you have found some reason to discredit it, doubt it, reject it, or just ignore it. It’s a complete and total waste of time.

But let’s go back to your claims:

You claimed we have no inflation problem and that inflation is only 2%. To believe that you need to live in a complete fantasy world. Real inflation is closer to 20% year over year.

Instead of just making things up, feel free to respond to what I actually wrote. It is right there a few posts up for all to see. I just pulled up the actual current month-to-month inflation numbers from the BLS and reported them. It is not my "claim." It is just what the BLS reported unless you are saying that I am mistaken about what the actual currently monthly inflation numbers are or lied about them.

Your turn. Year over year numbers are, indeed different than monthly numbers. One tells us where we have been. The other tells us where we are going. But go ahead, show us the inflation index you are using to support your claim that inflation is currently running at closer to 20% year over year. Are you by chance mistakenly looking at Zimbabwe or Russia?

Go ahead, I'll wait.

[Ken]

The CPI-U rate for November 2022 was 0.1 percent as you can see on the graph above, which actually equates to an annual rate of 1.2%.

It's silly to extrapolate the monthly rate into an annual rate when the actual annual results are available in the data you posted. Simply adding up the monthly rates for Dec-Nov, neglecting compounding, gives an annual rate of 6.8%. The article itself references annual increases of 7.1, 6.0, 13.1, and 10.6% depending on which index is being considered.

Monthly rates give us a picture of where we are going. Year-over-year rates give us a picture of where we have been. Both are useful but for different purposes. For example, I-bonds, which are set based on inflation projections for the future use monthly rates for the most recent 6 months, not year-over-year rates. Because they are interested in capturing the current trajectory, not something that happened 12 months ago. Social Security COLAs do the opposite. They are intended to catch up with past price increases not predict future trajectories so they use the year-over-year rates.

If the current year-over-year rate is 6.8% but most of that increase happened 9-12 months ago that tells us something different than if the current rate is 6.8% but most of that increase happened in the past 3 months and is accelerating. Both pieces of information are useful to know.

[temporal1]

I think we are in a time of high inflation, bear market, and recession.
i think the recession will get worse.

The government can not spend the amount it has with no money in the coffers and not create these situations.
It is a result of unchecked spending.

Congress spending in the trillions terrifies me. Brace for worse/much worse.

It's silly to extrapolate the monthly rate into an annual rate when the actual annual results are available in the data you posted. Simply adding up the monthly rates for Dec-Nov, neglecting compounding, gives an annual rate of 6.8%. The article itself references annual increases of 7.1, 6.0, 13.1, and 10.6% depending on which index is being considered.

About this time last year i made an “executive decision” to take out a loan for some needed dental work i’d put off for years. (nothing visible, i was able to put it off without anyone knowing, and, i was not in pain.) i began fearing, tho, that my good fortune might run out, i really didn’t want to risk emergency dental work. so, i took deep breaths and borrowed money. i was ok with it. i had a plan to repay, i looked forward to getting this behind me. i banked the cash, planning to pay as the work was done.

INFLATION+OVERALL HIGH PRICES+HIGH FUEL PRICES

i was able to get SOME work done, but the increasing cost of living terrified me to continue. the banked (dental) loan cash has been used to cover increases in COL. i’m afraid to 1) have more work done; 2) afraid i’ll need another loan to cover COL 2023; 3) afraid i won’t be able to borrow for 2024, if i get there.

i’m sure this is happening “everywhere” and my situation is NOT the worst.

i have a young friend who is a nurse. she has 2 children, was working 3 jobs BEFORE 2022. what’s happening with them?
she hasn’t been in touch for months. i presume she’s too tired to think, with no time to think, even if she had the energy.
how many jobs are necessary? - when Congress decides to spend in multiple trillions? it seems they don’t believe there are enough homeless.

her situation is NOT the worst. thankfully, she is a devoted believer.

i really-really do not want to take out another loan. for dental work is almost out of the question.
i never minded being thrifty, i was born into humble circumstances, we knew love, and that was what mattered.
by comparison, what i “have” now is so much more than we could have imagined. but inflation+COL squanders it.

it’s really baffling.
today’s economy seems to be built on fantasized very high “average” incomes. some have much more than average.
i suppose this is a story of the growing divide, poor/wealthy, vanishing middle class.

the large comfortable working middle class was a historical anomaly, anyway. one where people like me could hope to get by, and even hope to do better. i guess i now need to accept i experienced part of a historical anomaly, life will be more “normal” for my children+grandchildren. they won’t have long-term dreams, they might work hard now and have hopes for handouts later.

because incompetent+corrupt Congress is spending in multiple-trillions, deciding winners+losers by socialist policies.
they appear to be DELIGHTED with themselves.

2023 / “Social Security’s Annual Raise Lagged Inflation by Almost 50% This Year”
https://www.barrons.com/articles/social ... 1670957939

[ohio jones]

Monthly rates give us a picture of where we are going. Year-over-year rates give us a picture of where we have been. Both are useful but for different purposes.

In August, would you have used the June rate or the July rate to forecast where we are going? The picture would have been totally different.

[Ken]

Monthly rates give us a picture of where we are going. Year-over-year rates give us a picture of where we have been. Both are useful but for different purposes.

In August, would you have used the June rate or the July rate to forecast where we are going? The picture would have been totally different.

If we are tying to do an annual catch up to account for price increases over the past year like we do for the Social Security COLA then we would want to use year-over-year numbers.

If we are tying to come up with a good estimate of future inflation then a running average of the recent past months would be more appropriate. The government uses a 6-month running average of the monthly inflation rate to calculate I-bond rates. That seems reasonable to me. Is 6 months the magic number? I have no idea. I'm sure they have put about 1000-times more thought into it than I have and that is their expertise not mine.

If we were to look at the most recent BLS data release: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cpi.pdf and do that as of last August we would get a 6-month running average of 0.77% which equates to an annual rate of 9.2%

If we were to do the same thing today we get a 6-month running average of 0.38% which equates to an annual rate of 4.6%. Next month it will probably be lower still when the big June number drops off.

That is how we got an I-bond rate of 9.62% back in May 2022 which has already dropped to 6.89% in November 2022. What the new rate will be in May 2023? who knows. Based on the current trajectory it will continue to fall. But the future is always uncertain.

[RZehr]

My Oregon electric rates are going up by 14.8% this year.