I'm glad inflation is starting to cool

[DestinyIsles]

However, people will keep saying the economy is bad based on what they pay at the store. If people are still paying $300+ a week for food, than to them the economy is bad. I get the messaging about the jobs report but if people aren't aren't paying less money at the store, this is will not get them out of their economy is bad vibe. The Biden administration needs to do everything they can to help lower prices in the food sector because that's where most of the cost is coming out of in people's pockets. People laughed about the $16 big mac meal from McDonalds story but that's how most people measure the economy. We need to stop belittling that online.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. Yes, frame as "Bidenomic stability" vs rapacious corporate greed

Even if prices have inflated, if they are relatively stable, then the economy adjust.

But really, folks, we really need to raise minimum wages!

[WhiteTara]

2. we paid $2.42 for gas the other day.

[doc03]

3. The rate of inflation will drop but prices will not drop and

if they do that it is deflation or a depression. Really gas prices are the only prices that do go down.
Whatever we are paying for food is pretty much baked in now. Our garbage collector put on a surcharge
of $6 because of the fuel prices a couple years ago I don't see him taking it off.

[MichMan]

8. This, prices are still going up, just not as fast as they were previously.

[progree]

4. A lot of retirees have seen their retirement nest egg devastated in the last 2 years

Last edited Mon Dec 11, 2023, 06:11 AM - Edit history (1)

The financial punditry keeps yammering constantly that people my age (old) should have about a 60-40 portfolio. Meaning 60% in equities (stocks or stock funds) and 40% in fixed income (bonds mostly).

Stocks have almost recovered (S&P 500 within 4% of it's Jan 3, 2022 all time high, thanks especially to the last 2 months or so), but bonds are still way down (when yields rise, bond prices go down).. Inflation causes fixed income yields to rise.

There has been some recovery in bonds lately, but nothing to make up for the devastation of 2022..

I find it odd that the stock market is always being talked about but the bond market almost never.

In addition to the nominal (plain dollar) drop in account value, there has been the additional loss in its purchasing power due to inflation. A dollar buys 11.2% fewer goods and services than it did 2 years ago, according to the CPI (Oct. 2023 over Oct. 2021) : http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CUSR0000SA0

Old people answer their phones more (e.g. pick up the phone when an unknown number is calling, e.g. pollsters). This may be a significant component to the economic gloom that pollsters and surveyors are reporting despite the large job creation numbers.

[Calista241]

5. IMO, rent and mortgages being out of reach is the main area where inflation is being felt. n/t

[dpibel]

6. The $16 McD story was BS

I don't recall people laughing at it.

I do recall people pointing out that it was a tab for some specialty burger with a couple of sides.

Representing it as the cost of a typical McDonald's meal was a lie.

[progree]

7. The $16 "bic mac" meal

An itemized receipt from the McDonald’s in Post Falls, Idaho, shows Olive purchased a Smoky Double Quarter Pounder BLT, a large fry and a large Sprite. The order totaled $16.10 with tax.

Despite some misleading video headlines on YouTube calling the burger a Big Mac, Olive actually bit into a limited-edition Double Quarter Pounder.

According to an index compiled by the Economist, the average cost of a Big Mac in the U.S. was $5.58 this summer. That’s up 69 cents from $4.89 in December 2020, before Biden took office. ((up 14.1% in 2 1/2 years -Progree)),

Meanwhile, the average price of a regular Quarter Pounder stood at $5.45 in early October, compared to $5.14 last year, according to the Council for Community and Economic Research. ((up 6.0% in one year -Progree)).

https://www.abc27.com/national/a-16-mcdonalds-meal-is-going-viral-again-heres-why/

Emphasis added.