@Ostriches -- nicely said!

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Mission Complete

Inflation is definitely still ripping along , albeit at a slower rate of increase than a year ago. That being said many salaries have adjusted to it in my area from unskilled to skilled. I know firsthand what I pay from HS diploma up to post doc and I see whats happening in businesses around me as well. Salaries in this area are close to pacing inflation (not saying thats good, its just the math in my area). Nothing is slowing around here; were going to hit numbers this year and then some.

"I don't have that answer -- but what I'm seeing on the ground is a profound decrease in consumer activity."

This guy has the numbers.
Freight in Recession https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP-f8jNg....

Also, from 2 weeks ago
Essentially FedEx is encouraging its pilots to quit, and to go work for PSA Airlines, a wholly owned subsidiary of American Airlines. Heres how FedExs VP of Flight Operations & Training describes the current situation at FedEx:

"As I recently communicated, our Flight Operations are significantly overstaffed. Air cargo demand remains down, with decreased revenues and volumes similar to 2019 levels. Consequently, Bid Line Guarantees on most of our fleets are at or near minimums and will probably stay there for the foreseeable future. This low demand is not unique to FedEx but is an industry-wide issue impacting the major cargo carriers.
As you may have noticed, the passenger industry is not facing the same issues, and those carriers continue to hire pilots at a pace we havent seen in recent history with no apparent end in sight.
While I understand that this is not something that will appeal to every pilot, for those of you who are frustrated with current flight hours, career progression, or have just been on the fence about available options, you may consider this unique opportunity enough of an incentive to make a move. Frankly, I was pessimistic about how attractive the opportunity might be when first approached, but the details are compelling."

source: https://onemileatatime.com/news/fedex-pi....

Just returned from a weeklong business trip to Appleton, Wisconsin. Traffic was way down especially truck traffic, on the Ohio/Indiana turnpike. My hotel was 3/4 full with mostly business travelers. A somewhat pricy steak house (Red Ox) was less than half full with the waitress saying that business has been down the last few months and the Olive Garden I went to was only 30 percent full. Hadn't been there in a while but food prices were up 75 percent from a couple of years ago.

Seems to be a disconnect in the populace. Prices are still stratospheric; people are bitching but still spending. Just feels like there is still some kicks left for the can.

Tickerguy wrote..

How does this resolve?

Historically, with torches and pitchforks, or the modern day equivalent.

We're not there yet, but we're getting closer by the day.

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"War is when the Government tells you who the bad guy is. Revolution is when you decide that for yourself." - Benjamin Franklin

You can vote your way into Communism, but you have to

"Denninger guillotine sales and service. How can I help you today?"

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Well, when the French have more balls than 'Muricans you pretty much can count on the reckoning being a long, long time off.

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Molon Labe
Where is Henry Bowman when you need him?
How many are willing to pledge this? We mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our Sacred Honor

@Tickerguy: how many more years until you can get Medicare and your refusal to earn more ends? Or, perhaps, the demand for your guillotines would be so high that your Obamacare premiums would be negligible on the whole?

We started with a 12-string guitar, and the government has already snapped 6 strings as they've attempted to re-tune the economy while debt and inflation have run unabated. They are showing you the guitar, and telling you it has always been a 6-string guitar, and nothing is wrong, while you see 6 tuners in the headstock with no strings on them.

When the 7th string snaps from the government's continued bad decisions, they will tell you, and convince you, the 12-string guitar is a 5-string banjo and has been all along. Nothing is wrong.

When the 8th string snaps from the government's continued bad decisions, they will tell you, and convince you, the 12-string guitar is a 4-string Ukulele and has been all along. Nothing is wrong.

When three strings ALL snap at the same time, the government will spend more money and purchase:

12 - Washtubs
1 - 100ft Roll cloths line rope
12 - Flexible wood poles

They will select the best photogenic 12 liars in Congress, six from each party, to now play 12 washtub basses, as they sing the Blues and tell the public they are still playing the original 12-string guitar.

Nothing is wrong.

Ostriches-I wish reducing the amount of income I generated to reduce the income tax I paid would work, but they just print or borrow and fuck me anyway.

Amen! And they don't have the fucking decency to use a condom, either.

Listened to Karl on S&Js today as is my usual Friday habit. They greatest gubmint anal rape is Obamacare. A modest income of $40k means you take the full ten inch gubmint dick where the sun don't shine. No subsidy for you! You'd think they'd at least kick in some money for lube, but Noooooo!

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Time may be a great healer, but it's a lousy beautician.-Dorothy Parker

Boys don't make passes at girls with fat asses.-slightly modified DP

@Tickerguy wrote:

Quote:

This in turn means that either we're going to absorb about 8% inflation (no matter what the government claims), spending must come down by about 30% at the federal level and that is only to stabilize prices, not return them lower, or taxes must go up by about 40% which of course is another expense in the household and reduces disposable income.

I predict that Congress does not decrease spending by 30 %, taxes will not rise by 40 %, the average American will continue to complain about inflation and those that are in the stock market will be gleeful over its performance. Therefore, we are going to have some level of permanent inflation in our economy for years to come.


This is a situation where you can ignore reality but you can't ignore the effects of reality.

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''Whenever law ends, tyranny begins'' -- John Locke, English Philosopher
The United States is a banana republic
Survivors use critical thinking, common sense and intuition

@1crzydmnd WINS the Internets Today!!!!

Quote:

On the plus side, I can now carry $300 of groceries in two hands. Thanks gubbermint!

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"War is when your government tells you who the enemy is. A revolution is when you figure it out yourself." --Unknown
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevita

I have come to the conclusion that the only remedy is SEPARATION OF MONEY AND STATE.

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The cheeze in the mouse trap is always free.

@Raven

So much is about perception. With a lying media that projects everything as being normal, we lose an important source of information. Plus they encourage the majority to normalcy bias.

I won't even try to list the "freak show" ideas which are now presented as normal. That's a sign of social, rather than economic collapse.

I do remember how it worked when I was a teenager. A 16 year old saved $500 then bought a used car. Today I marvel at the kids driving new cars. They must have Arthur Anderson for their accountant!

Being in the grocery industry, the only disfunction I see first hand is the labour shortage. It's pretty extraordinary how desperate the service industry is for workers. That's demographics - Baby Boomers retire/not enough children to replace them. But I also see it as a sign that things are breaking down.

Just finished reading an interesting book, End Times by Peter Turchin. He has done a great deal of mathematical analysis about the rise and fall of civilizations throughout history, and what the underlying causes are.

It's interesting. He pegs it, that the US is a plutocracy, not a democracy, tracking that all the major decisions have benefited the elites (the 1% and other positions of political power) and not the 99%. Real chaos erupts when the elites turn on each other, and on us.

Generally, cultures go through Integration (when the elites cooperate to really better society) and Disintegration phases (when society shatters into battling shards, let by warring elites). Guess which one we're just transitioning into? Change has to come, but it might be anything from mutual cooperation to Mad Max.

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Although the way up leads through the valley,
It is only through the trials in the valley
That we appreciate the heights

I read that our illegal alien friends are getting more money from the government that your typical Social Security recipient.

Food inflation? Check.
Rent inflation? Check.
Medical inflation? Check.

We need MASSIVE deportations!

"Seems to be a disconnect in the populace. Prices are still stratospheric; people are bitching but still spending. Just feels like there is still some kicks left for the can."

The disconnect, I think, is what we can't see: When people downshift, how can one tell? If they would have usually spent at a steakhouse, and opt for Olive Garden, or Olive Garden and opt for fast food, or fast food and opt for a gas station hot dog, the slots still have takers.

The real questions are what are the monthly and yearly numbers compared to norm and relative costs/margin?

We are going out with friends Xmas Eve. Booking a second tier restaurant because none of us want too pay $75 plus tip for a steak at the top tier places. We can all afford it, but choose no to....And I don't think we are alone........And there are A LOT of people out there you don't see at all, that don't have choices anymore.

@Tappedout - right on the money there. I sometimes like to buy me a jalapeno sausage wrap at the local QuikTrip (yeah, not healthy, HDL/LDL, whatever, it's a treat). They're $2.95 now apiece. Noticed corn dogs are $0.99. Guess what I might get next time instead. Will QT notice? Probably not right away, but if it's a broad trend....Katie bar the door.

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"The avalanche has already started; it is too late for the pebbles to vote." - Ambassador Kosh, Babylon 5

Quote:

Prices are still stratospheric; people are bitching but still spending.

Saw somewhere that credit card debt has risen over $1T, for the first time since 2007. That's the explanation for the disconnect. It'll last while their limits stay above their balances...

If I read that Health Insurance writeup from BLS, I believe that the cost of insurance in CPI uses the profit margin of the insurance companies as the "cost" of the insurance. If I am understanding correctly, this drop in insurance costs is due to the insurance companies incurring higher costs relative to their revenue, thereby reducing the profit margin.

This could be indicative that the vax is causing additional cost that the insurance companies did not foresee. The calculation is, in my mind, bullshit. This would also indicate that "sticker" premiums will skyrocket next year...

Consumer PRICE index @Rollformer. Well, allegedly. Except when it isn't, like "Owner's Equivalent Rent", which is an utterly insane and intentional practice that has produced wildly-understated inflation figures for two decades.

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"Owner Equivalent Rent" makes more sense than this. If I understand OER, it is to adjust the cost of owning based on the cost of financing. There is the cost of the house, and the cost of money used to buy it. OER is a composite of those two factors. Is that correct? Maybe, probably not.

The health insurance calculation strikes me as complete nonsense. I pay $4k a year for something that doesn't cover shit until I spend $9k that I don't have.

Well no @Rollformer the INTENT of both is the same; it is to IMPUTE a cost into the CPI rather than MEASURE it.

The argument on the health insurance side is that the actual services purchased are already in the index, so you'd be counting it TWICE if you counted it. But the same thing is true for CAR INSURANCE and HOMEOWNERS INSURANCE, is it not? Indeed its in ANY sort of alleged insurance product (health "insurance" isn't insurance but it is called that -- which is fraud by the way.)

OER is a claim that if you OWN a house the actual "cost we should count" is what you'd have to pay to rent it if you didn't own it. Which is flat-out bullshit, of course.

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I have a thought that is only partially baked at this point. It goes like this.

Congress printed 30% and got the resulting ~8% inflation which has been partially slowed by a series of interest rate increases. So, congress kinda-sorta but not really got away with printing one more time. However, interest rate increases were a one-time buffer to congress mis-management. Congress cant do it again because there is no way that the economy can withstand another round of rate increases equal to the first round.

If congress keeps printing, we are no more than a year away from letting inflation run or crippling rate increases to stop inflation.

My half-baked thought.

Flap

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Here are my predictions for everyone to see:
S&P 500 at 320, DOW at 2200, Gold $300/oz, and Corn $2/bu.
No sign that housing, equities, or farmland are in a bubble- Yellen 11/14/13
Trying to leave

You give CONgress too much credit. (Hah). First of all, they actually CAN continue to do what they've been doing and printing more money. No. They can't do it without the natural consequences but they CAN in actuality be that stupid. I've seen no evidence that any of them even understand where this inflation monster comes from.

Ignorance is bliss. 535 Blissful morons...

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I remember the Diamond Princess.


Slowly at first, then all of a sudden.