yep...the ben bernanK blowing a commodity bubble....ultimately collapses discretionary spending....btw, where do we get prices on things like INSURANCE? what 'price' index reflects that?

ours just got hiked 20%....goes STRAIGHT to our bottom line, margin collapse indeed

Check out diesel prices for the trucks that carry everything to your door:

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/wohdp/....

Karl wrote..

I've noted that restaurants have been sneakily-increasing prices

Yes sir

Anecdotal musing on a local well known (and visited) eatery and drinkery here on the east side on the river

Print and bring this coupon for buy one get one (entree items only) through the end of JAN, includes SUN brunch

Buy 100 clams of gift cards, receive 20 clams free. No limit, no expiration, no depreciation

EDIT

no limit on how many times you can print the coupon

The bond market is getting a little grumpy this morning on that PPI read. C'mon big Ben don't let us down.....

From 2008 - current.

This is classic chart propaganda by the way. Note they don't show the chart with a Y-axis starting at zero.

There is no justification for seasonal adjustments in any of this so-called data. It bugs the **** out of me that this goes unchallenged. It's akin to your local tv weather guy telling you that it's a seasonally-adjusted 52 degrees, while looking out your window shows the pond is frozen over.

Isn't this called Stagflation?

FOMC warns on punchbowl????

How much of the gasoline usage dip is former commuters staying home because they don't have a job to drive to?

Regarding the news, I quit watching years ago, I know that they only present their view on things, and not necessarily the truth.
I use the internet for news, where I can easily fact check what I read at my leisure.
Televised news, especially in it's national form, is outdated technology.

Denninger smoked out?

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/201....

Oh, so attempted posting "over the fold"? Bye-bye Logan.

Been good knowing 'ya.

Robert Wenzel wrote..

even when there isn't price inflation.

No Robert you are the ****ing idiot

GOT MILK?

Spotted on c'est net:

"Single most nostalgic moment in Die Hard..."

Restaurants around me are increasing prices lately. This has to hurt business.

I keep a binder of menus for pizza shops, Chinese, and other restaurants around me and occasionally I get updated menus in the mail or from the shop. I compared the prices in the old menus vs. new and sandwiches are up .50 cents and pizzas are up .50 to .75 for a large. Buffalo wings are up .50 a dozen as well. This equates to about 8% price increases.

BBY is already getting clobbered, and the pig in the python hasn't even started to go down yet. Just wait until current input costs show up in retail prices... Oh, it's going to get ugly....

The consumer is in for some unbelievable sticker-shock...

...and shortly thereafter, Wall St is in for some serious misses in retail numbers.

Hang on... Heeeere we go....

Fuel and food prices are just killing OTR truck drivers. Forget no increase in pay for years now; road food has increased significantly. Breakfast for two at Dennies, with tip: 25 beaners. I can well remember 14. Most are now stocking a frig in the cabin. Wally world deli meat and cheese, etc. Alot of vet drivers walking away. Strong health care plans keep those with that need. The whole industry struggles. Cost push...yep.

I feel like Bart Simpson in the back of the car repeatedly asking Homer "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?"

I really agree with Popothebright, this entire situation is exactly like pushing a pig through a python. What comes out the other end as gruel is the scattered remnants of capital to rebuild the country with. It is not going to be easy, that is for sure. The political environment has just begun to change. Even with a low capital base until this crop of the last two decades has made their exit don't expect too much to change.

Whoa Nelley that certainly fired up a ticker

get 'em

If gas prices have reached the point where price is significantly influencing consumption, it seems to me that this is happening at about $1 less per gallon than last time. That can't be good.

I must have missed something. If electronics sales were up big why did Best Buy miss?

I am going to put a few things up here. For one, I eat at a place every day. There are still some days it fills up, but it used to fill up every day. I'm here right now at a 6 person booth by myself. I would say head count is down 15% or more.

The prices can't be sustained. The commodity game is nothing more than the current subprime for Wall Street. They try to flinch natural gas up in price, but look at this table put out by the eia.

http://ir.eia.gov/ngs/ngs.html

I haven't looked at this for a couple of years, but for the majority of the past 5 years that I have looked, the red line has been at the top of the supply range. What this means is that we have a new supply range based on the past 5 years that was a glut when it was drawn out and yet we are still at the top of the range. This means we are in a glut of a glut. Energy equivalent of under $25 a barrel and no demand.

http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_stoc_wst....

Right below where it says total Stocks in the upper left hand area of the webpage, there is an excel sheet to click on called download series history. I will highlight what it reveals.

Dec. 2010
Crude Stocks 355,872,000
Gasoline 213,964,000
Kerosene/jet 45,749,000
Total Fuel Oil 160,211,000
Tot-inc oth prod 1,100,789,000


Dec 2003

Crude Stocks 277,932,000
Gasoline 200,472,000
Kerosene/jet 37,137,000
Total Fuel Oil 132,118,000
Total (inc oth) 912,111,000

There are 188 million barrels of supplies over December 2003 and we are paying shortage prices. That is an extra 9 days of supply in storage and this doesn't include the SPR. Prices at the pump net of taxes were probably half or less in 2003 and I know the story of China demand. But, inventories wouldn't keep piling up if we were in a position of supply shortages. For the recovery buffs, the total inventories the first week of December 2009 were 1,086,269,000 so we have picked up nearly 1 more day inventory over the past year.

I would find it hard to believe that inventories are piling up in the USA and they are bone dry in the rest of the world. This points toward the fact that traders have stepped in between the producers and the consumers, including the refiners and are restricting supply to the markets. How much oil is sitting on tankers, I wouldn't know, but it is somewhere and clearly the holders of this inventory are involved in the collusion. We have 9 days more inventory than 7 years ago based on the rough estimate of 20 mbpd demand in the US, which means those that are holding supplies could go a few days and not even bid on this stuff. Wall Street would need a roll of toilet paper the size of a newsprint roll after the **** backed up from that.

Contrary to debate, these are corners in commodities. If oil is cornered, which the amount in storage would indicate, grains and metals are a piece of cake. 1 billion in inventory is roughly $90 billion at todays prices and we are only talking about the US, which is 25% of demand. IF FMV is 50% of current price, we are looking at a $180 billion gain worldwide on a temporary basis by gaming oil. Look how easy some of the other commodities are to game.

Total wheat production in the world was 682 million metric tons. A metric ton is 2205 pounds. A bushel of wheat is 60 pounds. This gives a total crop of 25 billion bushels. $4 a bushel, which is the normal price yields $100 billion for the worldwide crop. Figuring one could buy enough wheat to have a position then finance a position to create a shortage and push the price of wheat up to $10 and unload the position save the portion they had off the market, they could eat the portion they got stuck with. Farmers would plant and get left holding the bag next year while the trader got his bonus and sailed off into the sunset while his shareholders got stock with the inflated position left. 10% of the crop in normal times costs $10 billion. That becomes a near corner if the crop is bad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internation....

My point is all of this is I don't believe we are looking at inflation here as much as we are looking at Goldman and others ripping off the markets for short term gain. Brooksley Born so much said that they let Goldman in the commodity markets under the guise they needed to play oil to hedge their positions in XOM and other companies, so they could play wheat to hedge General Mills or whatever. What they are doing is playing the world as suckers, their machines gaming these markets and calling the tunes. I have studied the oil markets for close to 40 years and these are inventories where prices collapse, not go up. I had serious doubts the market was gamed a few years ago, but I have spent some time over the years and changed my mind, save for one thing. They can't pile this stuff up forever. You might note how fast oil went from 144 to 34 (I use Fibonacci numbers because I have noticed how oil trades at and between them so often over the years, 3, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144). That would have never happened has there actually been a real shortage to drive the price to a double over a short period of time.

KD, I looked at Logans post. Clearly he isn't as well read and you and I are. I did a study on Robert Shillers SPX data in 2003. You can get it off his website at Yale in XLS form. I was surprised to find that CPI inflation between 1895 and 1920 was about as bad as the inflation between 1970 and 1995. We were on 100% gold standard with banking. Bank credit has always been the source of inflation over a defined period of time, no matter what the specie. I don't blame you for banning a guy who takes an uninformed pot shot at you. I know I disagree from time to time, but I try to bring my reason when I do. The gold guys at this time are about as right as the YHOO guys were when it hit $150.

Where gold does fit is in the case of international settlement of trade. There wouldn't be a huge external debt if we dealt in gold and there would still be an industrial base in the US. Jacques Rueff complained repeatedly in the 1950's and 1960's that the US was seeding the next depression by letting trade get out of balance. This whole bubble is based on that imbalance. I posted a reply to that article with the data he failed to read before he opened his mouth.

http://www.econ.yale.edu/~shiller/data.h....

That's true, but the problem is that gold doesn't prevent it, it just signals there's a problem (which they then deal with my ignoring it, ala Nixon when he slammed the window closed.)

The problem with having *******s in charge is that they'll find a way to loot. Trade imbalance is a big ******* magnet. If I can find a place where I can pollute and use slaves I can tattoo anyone else's cost of production, which means I get to keep more of the selling price. As soon as that advantage exceeds the cost of shipping that's exactly what said jackasses do, which is why you need trade policies that tariff out that arbitrage.