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It’s Booming! Part 4: Those Pesky Prices!

Posted in Thoughts of the Day, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 3, 2024| Leave a Comment »

It’s Booming! Part 4: Those Pesky Prices!

The article, “Inflation is slowing. Here’s why prices still aren’t going down” by Charlotte Morabito, is about inflation and seeks to answer why prices aren’t going down. The author makes the following points: “Historical data suggests a key factor in bringing down prices is a slowdown in consumer spending. Despite nearly half of Americans reporting they’re in a worse financial situation than five years ago, they’re still spending. Retail sales were up 2.1% year over year in the first quarter of 2024 and consumer spending jumped in February and March.” (Morabito, 2024)
The article explains the difference between disinflation and deflation. Disinflation is when the rate of inflation growth is slowing down. Deflation is when the prices go down. “There’s an important difference between inflation increasing more slowly — a phenomenon called disinflation — and inflation reversing itself, which would lead to prices coming down. Economists call the latter deflation, which is typically associated with a shrinking economy and potential recessions.” (Morabito, 2024) So, the prices going downward is actually a bad thing? Good to know.

Apparently, they have a new term for those who have a problem with the higher prices: “money illusion.” ‘“This cycle is a concept called money illusion,” said Sabrina Romanoff, a clinical psychologist. “People with money illusion … don’t take into account the level of inflation in an economy,” she said. “So they wrongly believe that a dollar today is worth the same amount that it was the year prior.” ’ (Morabito, 2024)

Yes, it seems those of us who actually expected an improvement in their personal circumstances are suffering from some sort of mental syndrome. It reminds me of the term money dysmorphia in the Dickler article, which describes how some people don’t see how great they have it since they are too busy comparing themselves to others.

Now we are mentally questionable because we expected the higher interest rates to drive prices down.

Also of note in the article is the following: “Wage-increase data may also seem inconsistent with consumer experience. Wages have been rising since January 2022, but the pace of the increase has been slowing down and, on average, it is just keeping up with rising prices. An analysis from Bankrate estimates the gap between inflation and wages won’t fully close until the fourth quarter of 2024.” Once again we’re supposed to believe that it’s the rate of increase that matters, not the cumulative inflation increase in comparison to the current wage.

The fact is the article reinforces the theory that domestic demand is responsible for the inflation. Both the article and the prevailing theory coming from the woke media seem to ignore global demand, such as from China, for our resources; cuts in supply for things like food, energy, and housing; as well as the printing of money coupled with excessive spending by the federal government. Unless these issues are addressed, how can the inflation be resolved? Instead, the article’s author is content blaming the consumer for continuing to spend. What are they supposed to do, not eat? Not pay their rent? 

Their utilities? Where does this attitude we’re buying luxury (unnecessary) items come from? And what are we supposed to do, hope that people tap out of their credit and can’t pay their bills, so they’ll stop spending money? The implication from the article seems to be that that’s the only way we’ll see a reduction in prices. And one might conclude it’s the only way they’ll lower the interest rates on credit cards as well.

(Dickler, 2024)

Dickler, J. (2024, March 13). “Nearly half of young adults have ‘money dysmorphia,’ survey finds. Here are the symptoms.” CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/13/nearly-half-of-young-adults-have-money-dysmorphia-survey-finds.html

(Morabito, 2024)

Morabito, C. (2024, May 12). “Inflation is slowing. Here’s why prices still aren’t going down.” CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/12/inflation-is-slowing-heres-why-prices-still-arent-going-down.html

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Whose Money Is It Again?

Posted in Thoughts of the Day, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 11, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Whose Money Is It Again?

It’s pretty clear to me that one of the major reasons people vote for big government spenders is that they are hoping to get a slice of the pie for themselves. It can be overwhelming when the propagandists get to talking about trillions of dollars. It feels as though there is a limitless supply of money to be had. But in actuality, there couldn’t possibly be.

I noticed that they sold out our industrial base in the 1990s. I figure that’s largely why Millennials and Gen Z have very few career opportunities that require a college degree now. Those jobs were given away before many of them were born. I realized that a college degree would have a limited payoff attached to it when the 2000s came upon us. But there were still some careers worth having then — that were still worth the college price tag — if you had the talent to separate yourself from the pack. But that’s not the case so much anymore. What we seem to have left are largely unskilled labor jobs. And they are currently flooding those mostly service jobs with labor from other countries. This, of course, will drive up prices for goods like food while suppressing wages. Meanwhile, the service industry is liable to take a hit with the inflation and interest rate hikes eroding the discretionary income of the lower and middle classes. Isn’t that likely to reduce even the unskilled service jobs? Also, the wages aren’t likely to increase if labor is being brought in to compete with domestic workers. This wouldn’t be so distressing if our cost of living weren’t so disproportionately out of sync with our income. And it seems clear that we US citizens aren’t welcome to just go to countries with better jobs or lower costs of living. American citizens are tied to the land. We are not allowed to follow the jobs to other countries. This apparently isn’t the case for citizens of other countries in regards to the United States.

And as an aside, what brought about the re-evaluation of house values that drastically increased the cost of houses not just in regional hot spots but all across the country? Since we middle/lower classes actually have to live in our houses then anything we gain by the price hike will likely be taken away at the other end.

Anyway, we are being told the inflation is due to an increase in domestic demand. But how can that be? If the prices were just a matter of domestic demand, then how can they exceed the amount people are able to pay? I’ve heard that some facets of the economy such as social media and tech companies had been paying quite a bit. But enough to inflate the entire economy? What did these people with substantial incomes do? Start eating copious amounts of food? I doubt that. It seems more likely to me that the inflation is a result of government overspending, competition with wealthier nations such as China, and supply restrictions.

And by the way, when the government overspends the money it isn’t being reinvested in the United States. They begrudge spending the money on us. East Palestine, Ohio and the fire in Maui demonstrated that.

No, we are supposed to fund our own disaster relief with our nonexistent discretionary incomes. We are supposed to pay for our own security now that they’ve defunded the police. When they mandate prohibitively expensive furnaces we have to buy those. (“Biden Announces Restrictions on Gas Furnaces,” 2023) These mandated furnaces are also not as highly rated as the former models. Meanwhile, they are too busy spending the collective funds of the United States, which had allowed the middle and lower classes to live an acceptable standard of living without having to be wealthy, on their own agendas (which also happens to be the agendas of the globalists) to bother with our welfare. If our society, infrastructure, and services deteriorate, we will just have to suck it up. Safety, what’s that? Hygiene? That’s not necessary — not for us anyway. Luxuries like those are only meant for the people who can afford them — so says the people who rule over us with their mansions and private jets.

Biden Announces Restrictions on Gas Furnaces. (2023, October 3). IER. https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/regulation/biden-announces-restrictions-on-gas-furnaces/

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