There are government inflation statistics, and then there’s what you pay at the grocery store. Who are you going to believe? From Jeffrey A. Tucker at The Epoch Times via zerohedge.com:
Commentary
There’s something about employed intellectuals. When they are trashing popular wisdom and perceptions of regular people, they are truly in their element.
They love nothing better. It’s a way for them to show off their superior understanding, flash their credentials, and dazzle others with the merit of their time and expense in schooling. It justifies their social standing and income. And it assures their jobs.
Where would we be without them? Wallowing in ignorance, no doubt.
The trouble is that very often the popular wisdom is correct whereas the intellectuals are wrong.
We’ve seen many examples of this recently with regard to inflation. It seems that most people think it is getting worse and going in the wrong direction. A recent poll of swing-state voters shows that 74 percent of people say exactly this.
By wrong direction, plain English means: prices are not going down but rather still going up faster than one would desire.
In fact, the commodities markets seem to agree. Look at the record gold and Bitcoin prices. Even the Federal Reserve is worried.
But the Wall Street Journal’s (WSJ) Greg Ip explains that the notion that inflation is still bad and even worsening is “simply not true. I’m not stating an opinion. This isn’t something on which reasonable people can disagree. If hard economic data count for anything, we can say unambiguously that inflation has moved in the right direction in the past year.”
He goes on to explain that over 12 months, the pace at which inflation is worsening is getting worse at a slower pace than previously. This is what Ip calls moving in the right direction. You can tell yourself that as you put on less weight this month than last, but it would not be a good idea to confuse this with losing weight.
As for prices going down, Ip sniffly dismisses that idea: the price level “rarely goes down.”
Oh.
Intellectuals are shoe shine boy navel gazers and the world will be ruined by educated derelicts? (s/)
Like the Thomas Sowell quote about the past few decades becoming throwing out everything that has worked for millennia just to please the faculty lounge because it sounded good on paper.
Even a naive child learns early that no one has his interest at heart besides self, hopefully.
Saw a screenshot of $7 butter and I think it is out of the south. (h/t-OJB)
Locally it is about half that and we have a nice stock.
Another page was a grocery flyer saved from when Trump was rigged by the stig of beels and now prices with some items almost tripling and it was essential items.
This just in from the Meters:
Thinking.