Not so hidden inflation

[scaredyclassic]

I do try to wash my clothes less. I think that saves a lot. My kids and I wear pants a long time. America cleans its clothes too often.

[Anonymous]

Three years ago milk prices were plummeting:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2009-03-24-dairy-farms_N.htm

Farmers’ incomes dry up as milk prices plunge about 50%

I don’t remember anyone here mentioning the drop in milk prices. Like I said, anecdotal evidence of inflation is usually biased.

“Wall Street stole all the pension money, and now they’ve stolen all the milk!”

[Rich Toscano]

[quote=jstoesz]I saw an inflation calculation out of Stanford or Harvard not to long ago that used amazon prices or some such thing to determine inflation. Does anyone know what I am talking about? It obviously did not jive with the gov stats, but nothing seems to in my reading. Government stats always land on the conservative side, by design I suppose. Hasn’t the inflation formula changed a couple dozen times since Nixon killed the last vestiges of the gold standard?[/quote]

You are probably thinking of this: http://bpp.mit.edu/usa/

Seems they haven’t updated it since Jan. Looks like maybe they are switching over to a pay model or something?

[Rich Toscano]

[quote=bubba99]shadowstats.com has some interesting articles on inflation and the risk of hyper-inflation. You can view the basic charts and papers without a subscription. Shadowstats is showing inflation averaging over 6%/year for the last 5 years (calculated with the formula used up until 1990) Much closer to what most of us see in real world prices.

The section “Primers on Government Economic Reports” lets you drive down to CPI for an analysis of what is really happening and why it is so different than headline CPI.[/quote]

Unfortunately Shadow Stats’ data is pretty much nonsensical… that was discussed here (and by pri in this thread above):

http://piggington.com/interesting_site

[an]

[quote=pri_dk]Three years ago milk prices were plummeting:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2009-03-24-dairy-farms_N.htm

Farmers’ incomes dry up as milk prices plunge about 50%

I don’t remember anyone here mentioning the drop in milk prices. Like I said, anecdotal evidence of inflation is usually biased.

“Wall Street stole all the pension money, and now they’ve stolen all the milk!”[/quote]
You’ve converted me. I totally agree, anecdotal evidence is usually biased. I personally don’t remember the drop in milk price 3 years ago, but I did noticed the 10% increase in milk at Vons a month or so back.

[jstoesz]

[quote=Rich Toscano][quote=jstoesz]I saw an inflation calculation out of Stanford or Harvard not to long ago that used amazon prices or some such thing to determine inflation. Does anyone know what I am talking about? It obviously did not jive with the gov stats, but nothing seems to in my reading. Government stats always land on the conservative side, by design I suppose. Hasn’t the inflation formula changed a couple dozen times since Nixon killed the last vestiges of the gold standard?[/quote]

You are probably thinking of this: http://bpp.mit.edu/usa/

Seems they haven’t updated it since Jan. Looks like maybe they are switching over to a pay model or something?[/quote]

Thats it Rich, thanks. To bad it hasn’t been updated in a while, and who know if it is worth the bytes it is written on.

I remember the curves diverging a bit more. I probably saw it during the fall of 2010 when the two curves were somewhat divergent.

[Rich Toscano]

Actually I think the MIT methodology is very sound. It’s a little different than CPI as it doesn’t include services (at least it didn’t) but it’s a good gauge of what’s going on.

[jstoesz]

I was impressed by the idea of it, but calculating cpi is about as statistics heavy as anything. So, I start from a heavily skeptical bias.

Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

[sdduuuude]

I’m not sold that big inflation is here to stay, but it seems to creep in here and there, for sure. Definitly out of the deflation portion of our show, for a while anyway.

I will tell you that we don’t travel by plane at all any more as a family. It has gotten noticeably expensive. I just can’t bring myself to spend $2000 for four. I could live with $1200 or even $1500, but it seems like it’s $500 or $600 per person to go anywhere reasonably interesting.

[sdrealtor]

Dunno. You just need to be flexible and plan ahead. For example non stop from Seattle to Long Beach on Jet Blue is $150 or less per person for a one way ticket. I rarely spend over $400 to get anywhere and usually less.

Update: went to book it and found even better fare. $88/per person one way non stop seattle to John Wayne.

[jstoesz]

In the year and a half I have been in n. california, airfare has nearly doubled between here and our three major destinations, minneapolis, orange county, and san diego. The expensive tickets are more expensive, and the deals have gotten very very scarce. SouthWest used to be cheap, now it is the same if not more than the other major carriers. My experience is purely anecdotal, but I seem to read a story about airlines hiking fares every month or so. Frequent flier miles? fugetaboutit.

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