The markets were gaga today with an inflation report of 7.7% (annual rate) down from 8.2% the prior month (40-year high) and a monthly rate of 0.4%.
Those are the numbers, but folks seem unable to understand how they apply. So, please allow me to provide an example.
1. Suppose a year ago, a dozen eggs cost $2.00. With me? Continue reading
The other day I used the above phrase — the canary in the coal mine — and a person said, “What does that mean?”
Canary in a cage with an oxygen bottle resuscitator. Real life thing.
Miners carried canaries in special cages into the depths of underground coal mines because the canary was more sensitive than humans to deadly gases like carbon monoxide.
If the canary died, then the miners hauled ass and, hopefully, revived the canary. Continue reading
We have had it good here in America for a long time. Pre-pandemic we had the strongest economy since before the American Revolution.
Then, the pandemic upset the apple cart, but we always thought it would return to some sense of normal and that normal was good, very good.
Do y’all recall when inflation was “transitory?” When the Secretary of the Treasury and the POTUS used to assure us that inflation was going to come and go? That the target would continue to be 2% – which, in fact, it had been?
Well it’s more than a year later and, clearly, that is not going to happen. In fact, we are in this inflationary spiral for the long term — meaning three years until there is any relief.
Let’s review the bidding to see how we got here, shall we?
This chart is not lying to you. Study it.
Yesterday, the Consumer Price Index report came out showing that the CPI increased by 8.5% (seasonally adjusted) year-over-year. This means that the CPI is 8.5% higher than it was in July 2021.
Wages were 5.5% higher, so you only lost 3% in buying power. Haha. Sorry.
[I personally find this incomprehensible as every commodity and food stuff I look at is wildly more expensive over the last year than 8.5% — eggs are up by 40% — but that’s just me.] Continue reading
When Sec Treas Janet Yellen was appointed, she inherited a steady string of Trump Era/Pandemic inflation at a rate of 1.5%. If she had advised the new President, “Steady as you go, Old Boy” things would have been hunky dory, no?
Ten minutes ago, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its Producer Price Index numbers for April 2022 – this is, of course, a month in arrears. The print was 11% meaning the cost of final demand goods from producers was up 11% when compared to April 2021.
These are Jimmy Carter numbers.
This is the fifth month in a row in which the annualized increase was double digits — again, when compared to a year earlier. Continue reading
In the changing world in which we live, even the most Old School manufacturing companies are finding themselves having to change their ways to find, hire, and retain workers.
John Deere makes farm and construction equipment and its work force is unionized under the United Auto Workers.
Production lines at Deere are hard places to work and it takes a toll on a woman’s/man’s body.
The UAW has had a hard time convincing Deere management to increase wages and the UAW would admit that for the last 20-30 years they had their asses handed to them in every contract negotiation.
Meanwhile, the company has done well with a CEO making $16,000,000, a 160% increase when compared to 2019. This is 220X the average worker at Deere.
“My name is John May and I’m doing good. I’m the Chairman of the Board of Directors and the CEO of John Deere. Let’s play 36?”
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