https://nitter.net/paulkrugman/status/1702658724832145412

  • TrudeauCastroson [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Who needs energy or shelter anyways.

    Also what is this even supposed to tell you about? That candles and fighter jets didn't get more expensive?

    If you exclude the things that makes living expensive, living isn't more expensive is a great point, good job Paul.

  • johnbrownwasright [she/her]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Inflation can be defeated on shelter and food completely by simply sleeping in a Walmart parking lot and foraging for food out of dumpsters. I am very smart.

  • PKMKII [none/use name]
    ·
    1 year ago

    This reminds me of that sports copypasta/meme; “If you take [star athlete] and ignore the top twenty percent of their performances as outliers and then do a regression analysis, you’ll see they’re actually an average athlete for their position.”

  • AbbysMuscles [she/her]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Core price inflation. CORE PRICE INFLATION. CPI. CORE. PRICE. INFLATION. (excluding such outliers as fucking food)

    I hate these people I hate them so much how can you be such a huge dork and wrong literally all of the god damn time and be so evil I hate them I hate them I am going insane where does he live what is his address and favorite restaurant and preferred route to and from work I am going to fedposting so hard I am going to make a-guy look like a fucking liberal

  • flan [they/them]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Yeah I like to exclude the biggest contributor to things too smuglord

  • Infamousblt [any]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Tell that to my local grocery store then. Prices have definitely not fallen there and that's where it hurts many people the most

    • ComradeSharkfucker@lemmy.ml
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      iirc this is the rate of change of price not a change in price graph so as long as that little line is above zero prices rise and that's by intent. That number going below 0 by too much for too long is generally an indication that something is very wrong.

      I haven't taken an economics course in 2 years though so I could be wrong here

  • ClimateChangeAnxiety [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    1 year ago

    “If you only look at things that don’t matter, inflation has slowed. Prices have not dropped back to previous levels, the rate of rise has just slowed.”

  • iridaniotter [she/her]
    ·
    1 year ago

    CPI hasn't been in the negatives, so everything is still more expensive than before. Thus, inflation remains undefeated. Common capitalist L.

    • MemesAreTheory [he/him, any]
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Compare this to a graph of 'increase/decrease in wages' over the same period of time. If wages did not increase, then this inflation affects people remarkable. The price increases are cumulative over time. If someone's wages have not increased then it doesn't matter if inflation slows down or even stops completely, their relative level of income and direct material well-being has gone down.

      We can even make this more nuanced. Rather than look at average wages that can be affected by extreme outliers or just an economy where high earners get a lot more relative to the rest of the population, we could instead look at median wages or quintiles for more granularity. This inflation might not be seen or even affect the bug eating Karen PMC. However, it may be massively painful for a subsection of the population who's wages have stagnated. Even if this segment was a minority, it would be incredibly tone deaf and ignorant to ignore their plight and just focus on the whole population. The issue at hand would then be distribution of wealth - but liberals of course like to ignore that at every opportunity. Enjoy your worsening material consulting, serf. Middle management and shareholders gotta get paid.

          • bigboopballs [he/him]
            ·
            1 year ago

            shareholder profits are only x3 higher than actual labor costs? crazy

            • MemesAreTheory [he/him, any]
              ·
              1 year ago

              That's an estimation. Some companies may be that profitable, but the economy overall in the US is less.

              https://www.fitchratings.com/research/corporate-finance/us-corporate-profit-declines-likely-for-some-sectors-as-gdp-slows-17-04-2023#:~:text=Corporate%20profit%20before%20interest%2C%20taxes,Bureau%20of%20Economic%20Analysis%20data.

              The more important point is that profit is an assumed good, an end worthy of itself. No liberal economist is ever going to tell you a business or economy is too profitable: that's the point of all this. Thus when a firm raises prices to sustain or increase it's rate of profit, that's just business; a decision so basic as to escape scrutiny. But if labor demands more pay/benefits and eats into the rate of profit? Well now that's driving up inflation! Those greedy workers just don't know when they've got enough! Pay no attention to the decision by Capital to raise prices to sustain the rate of profit, that's the only reasonable thing they could do! Their privilege in society must be preserved!

              We could get off this stupid treadmill if we nationalized mature industries and ran them at cost for the public good - but there's no profit in that, so what's the point?

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Capitalist economics is a religious belief system that is not meaningfully related to actually existing economies. That's the most succinct explanation of capitalist economics i can write down.

    • OryonousRowo [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Yes, but don't let the proles hear that or they might demand compensation.

  • Dolores [love/loves]
    cake
    ·
    1 year ago

    thinking about how measures from the very first dictatorship of the bourgeoisie [well okay maybe second if we're going to count a*glos] are heresy in the modern bourgeois ideology.

    a fucking single price control on bread would immediately reduce the cost of living, and be massively popular. leveraging the subsidized food markets (the government is already interfering!) you could shave off hefty proportions of folks' food bills, and get fucking swept into office next year.