July 16, 2008

FLASH: Inflation up most in 26 years

America make sure you send a big thank you to Ben Bernanke and his banker buddies.

Your currency has been debased, and it's only going to get worse. And oh, these "official" government numbers as you should know by now are a crock of sh*t. True inflation is much, much worse.

Yes, inflation is roaring, and Bennie and the Inkjets could care less.

And all of it without a vote. Unelected leaders destroying America.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - Double-digit increases in gasoline prices helped push up the consumer price index by 1.1%, in June, the biggest increase in 26 years, the Labor Department reported Wednesday.

The unexpectedly large increase in CPI was led by a 6.6% increase in energy prices and a 0.8% increase in food prices.

Excluding food and energy prices, the core CPI rose 0.3%, the biggest increase since January.

The figures were worse than expected. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch were forecasting a 0.8% rise in the CPI and a 0.2% gain in the core CPI.

33 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, that "true inflation" story is horrible. I mean the story itself.

Rather than seek the truth in numbers, maybe it's time to do away with a one-size-fits-all CPI?

Anonymous said...

WAR IS PEACE;
DEBT IS WEALTH;
INDULGENCE IS NECESSITY.

Anonymous said...

Did you see the latest article on homebuyers on MSNBC.COM under the business section? It says even after housing hits bottom, people will still be priced out of the market. Makes you think that someone somewhere wants prices to stay within a certain range and make many would be homebuyers suffer for spite.

We can only hope prices are allowed to naturally correct.

Anonymous said...

"Better get used to them high prices son; you're in the big city now."

brokersleaveyoubroke said...

I passed a car dealership on the way home last night. There was a big sign out front "$10,000 off the price if you but any new truck". That's almost half off on some models, and they're still not selling. I don't expect this and many other dealerships to survive for very long.
I've been through several recessions but I've never seen anything like this.

tom12008 said...

Keith,
first, thank you for the excellent job you do updating this blog. Second, thanks for the John Williams link. It makes a lot of sense. It explains how this story the MSM feeds us about low inflation and economic growth is literally a manufactured narrative, a fictionalized account of things.

Anonymous said...

There is a choice to be made: Either we regulate the Banks, or leave it to the vagaries of the free markets to punish those who trade with, or place their assets in the wrong institutions.

BUT FOR THE LOVE OF PETE, do not give us the worst of both worlds -- do not allow banks the freedom to make horrific but preventable mistakes (i.e., only lending money to those who can pay it back), but then expect the taxpayers to foot the trillion dollar bill.

That's not capitalism, its not socialism.


www.bigpicture.typepad.com

David said...

We are so screwed!!

Anonymous said...

UnKle Ben here. Guys quite your complaining. The CPI rose only 0.3%. With growth at 0.5% that leaves us with a net gain of 0.2%. Now go out and buy a house.

Anonymous said...

I have been selling real estate in Bend Oregon since the recession in the late 70s and early 80s. We may be headed there again! Fuel prices and inflation will be the main problem.

Anonymous said...

Something about Wells FArgo beating expectations today really doesn't make sense to me. I work at a County Courthouse in South-Central Illinois and I know foreclosures are at record highs with Wells Fargo being the #1 lender involved. In talking to people, Wells was very aggressive in the pre-foreclosure process and cut the homeowners no slack at all. Then once in Foreclosure, Wells petitioned the court to extend the foreclosure on most of these cases for six months and are now letting borrowers stay in the homes until then with out any repayment agreements? Some of these people said Wells won't even talk to them.

Maybe someone out there has a clue why they are doing this. Is this a way for Lenders to work the system so it looks like they are doing better on the books then they really are (e.g. not counting these as being in default yet). Or could it be another reason such as stalling so they can sell these foreclosed properties later this year by tapping into the 4 billion set aside to buy foreclosed homes as proposed in the upcoming Mortgage Bailout Bill. This way somebody is living in the house taking care of it somewhat while they wait for this money to come available? And I really don't get the reason why they won't let the owners try to catch up on their payments since they are stalling kicking out the borrowers anyway.

Maybe I am just too paranoid about lenders nowadays, but I know that something about what I've been witnessing doesn't feel right.

Anonymous said...

At least we get comedy, like the "$1 store" changing its name to the "$1.10 store!"

http://tiny.cc/4BJ6Y

Mark in San Diego said...

FLASH = MARKET BOTTOM IN - the Canton, Ohio indicator is in. . .my sister in Canton called in a panic and wanted to know if she should pull her money out of banks. . .(she has less than 100K). . .when the sh#t hits the fan in Canton, then the panic has hit, and the bottom is in. . .I shorted Starbucks when they started opening stores in Canton, because I KNEW they had saturated the market. . .when anything makes it to Canton, the bottom/top is in!!

Anonymous said...

Is it just me, or do I see lots of for sale signs on pickups and SUV's?

waikikiphotoblog said...

In the latest issue of Futures Magazine, John Williams of Shadowstatistics says that we'll see official inflation at double digits soon. The cost of keeping the banking system solvent is inflation and the Feds have decided that we'll deal with the latter because the former is too scary to contemplate.

AndrewHac said...

Is the Americano toasted yet ?

Gasoline after 09/11/2001 is $0.90 a gallon.
Gasoline currently 07/16/2008 is $4.50 a gallon.

How stupid can the Americano get when they dumb-assedly elected SHRUB for two terms in a row ?

How stupid can the Americano get when they drive to work in an Ford F-250 8-cylinder ? (This is going to work at a factory as a union machinist, mind you, not some farm work that requires a big ass truck for hauling the cow).

How stupid can the Americano get when they switch their cellular phone every two years ?

-----

The Americano Housing Bubble has revealed the true anatomy of the Americano Australopithecus species. And what that anatomy amounts to is a heap of putrid, rotten to the core, maggot filled, rat chewing pile of garbage.

Greed, Ignorance, Irresponsibility, Laziness, Materialistic-Craze, Hoity-Toity attitudes are all part of the Americano rotted anatomy, stinky gut.

How a fat-ass, obese, beer-gut, rotten teeth, putrid breath, dumb-ass Americano male driving by himself a Ford Expedition on the road, consuming 10-15 miles per gallon of gasoline is just beyond the realm of reasoning.

How a whole family of cracker-nuthead, GrandPa and GrandMa, Joe6Pack and JaneZinfandel, 6 of the spoiled-brat runny nose snotty kids swarming the Walmart aisle after aisle piling junks on the shopping cart is pure hilarious and pitiful at the same time.

How a whole family of Hicks and HillBilly chomping down on oily, greasy McDonal french fries and Wendy’s hamburger is just so resembling the scene of the bunch of hogs roosting and wallowing at the feed trough.

The Americano nation is pathetic and sinful beyond the point of redemption !

Anonymous said...

The longer we wait for market correction the worse it will be.

Anonymous said...

Please stop showing your ignorance by claiming the government inflation numbers are bogus.
ALL OF YOU jerkoffs who claim this is the case need to shut the f*ck up as you do not know what the f*ck you are talking about.
THE TRUTH:
The CPI figures provided by the government are actually about 0.9% *below* the actual CPI. (2003)

Several exhaustive scholarly studies have been done on this:

OECD Conference: Inflation Measures: Too High-Too Low Internationally Comparable? Paris 21-22 June 2005

"Boskin Commission" Report (CPI overstated by 1.1%)"Advisory Commission to Study the Consumer Price Index" 1996

Lebow-Rudd: "Measurement Error in the Consumer Price Index: Where Do We Stand?" 2001 (+0.6%), 2003 (+0.9%).

Shadowstats? What a f*cking JOKE!
Show me the data BITCH! Don't just talk smack and whine about the conspiratorial gubment.
Damn that's one grand conspiracy, involving hundreds of people and no one peeps! Better than the CIA, NSA and Air Marshalls program! Damn those CPAs got some SERIOUS discipline bro! Just like hard core Navy SEALS bro!

Show me the exhaustive peer reviewed studies by eminent scholars BITCH!

Talk about "sheep", man you fools believe anything from shadowstats....

All of you, I mean every single one of you idiots has not even the slightest clue how the CPI is generated.

Blow Me.

Anonymous said...

Come on Keith. That's just a conspiracy theory. Next you'll start saying that 9/11 was an inside job.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!

DOPES!!

Anonymous said...

BitterRenter, I thought you might be interested in this little factoid from Keith's link:

"Shortly after Clinton took control of the White House, however, attitudes changed. The BLS initially did not institute a new CPI measurement using a variable-basket of goods that allowed substitution of hamburger for steak, but rather tried to approximate the effect by changing the weighting of goods in the CPI fixed basket. Over a period of several years, straight arithmetic weighting of the CPI components was shifted to a geometric weighting. The Boskin/Greenspan benefit of a geometric weighting was that it automatically gave a lower weighting to CPI components that were rising in price, and a higher weighting to those items dropping in price.

Once the system had been shifted fully to geometric weighting, the net effect was to reduce reported CPI on an annual, or year-over-year basis, by 2.7% from what it would have been based on the traditional weighting methodology. The results have been dramatic. The compounding effect since the early-1990s has reduced annual cost of living adjustments in social security by more than a third."

Buh-buh-buh, only Republicans are greedy lying pigs, right?

Anonymous said...

fast actin tinactin said...

BUT FOR THE LOVE OF PETE, do not give us the worst of both worlds -- do not allow banks the freedom to make horrific but preventable mistakes (i.e., only lending money to those who can pay it back), but then expect the taxpayers to foot the trillion dollar bill.

That's not capitalism, its not socialism.

I believe its called theft.

JaneZ

Anonymous said...

I passed a car dealership on the way home last night. There was a big sign out front "$10,000 off the price if you but any new truck". That's almost half off on some models, and they're still not selling. I don't expect this and many other dealerships to survive for very long.
I've been through several recessions but I've never seen anything like this.


========

Come one man. Those $10,000 OFF signs have been around since, well forever.

Anonymous said...

How's that gold and oil long position doing everyone this afternoon?

DOPES!

Mark in San Diego said...

Andrew made my week again - he forgot people riding around in FAT CARTS through Walmart, because they are too lazy to walk!!!. . .my truly disabled wheelchair friends HATE those FAT CARTS. . .

Anonymous said...

I would hope, after all these bail-outs for the crooks who cashed in so well for destroying our economic system and the lively-hoods of the majority of citizens across this country, that the rest of people, who are still asleep, will finally wake-up and realize our government (our tax-dollars) are only being spent to benefit the few.

To think that Bernanke/Paulson would allow the US currency to devaluate to the point of toilet paper in order to save the crooks who are behind this problem, is beyond shameful - these people are thieves, and hide behind the flag for protection.

If either Obama/McCain really support hard-working Americans as they say they do, then why are they remaining silent on all these continual bail-outs?
They both know very well that this will lead to only higher taxation (without representation) for the American citizen, and ultimately higher poverty levels.

Actions speak louder than any words coming from the mouths of either of these two candidates.

Anonymous said...

yep, they said this morning that cpi has gone up worse than anytime since 1991 on cnbc squawk box......therefore, let us make this market move shall we? come on suckers. we need some suckers on the other side of these trades.....come on in boys, the water is hot......

Lost Cause said...

Inflation is the way the government gets out of paying its massive debt. You can expect it whenever the debt gets big. None of this is new behavior. The same thing happened after the Vietnam War.

Anonymous said...

someone was talking about cars and trucks above. a car company out of san antonio is now running a ad on the television for 15K off of the list price on their big trucks......heck gas is 4.25/gallon...........

what redneck is going to buy a big 4 wheel drive gas guzzling truck nowadays? gee, go fish car dealers...these punks, will also along with realtwhores and stock brokers and other financial pinheads will be mowing my freekin yard and clipping my damn bushes....and

i like it like that.......ha ha ha

Anonymous said...

Nice fake rally. So are you guys ready for the huge nosedive coming up to fleece the sheeple?

IT'S ALL RIGGED!

Anonymous said...

"...ignorance...jerkoffs...what the f*ck you are talking about...What a f*cking JOKE!...BITCH!...talk smack...one grand conspiracy...BITCH!

Talk about "sheep"... you fools...every single one of you idiots...Blow Me."


Heh. Looks like Mr. "1% of income is gas" is back with another dispassionate analysis.

Anonymous said...

We are the americanos in our fat carts,
Gnawing on corn dogs, chomping on pop tarts,
Oh how we love our americano Wal Marts.

Anonymous said...

what redneck is going to buy a big 4 wheel drive gas guzzling truck nowadays? gee, go fish car dealers...these punks, will also along with realtwhores and stock brokers and other financial pinheads will be mowing my freekin yard and clipping my damn bushes....and

and when you think it couldn't get worse, these gator brains will still vote Republican!

Lost Cause said...

You forgot to mention that wages have also fallen the most in 26 years.