An Interesting Look At Inflation

[bots2019]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cute fuzzy bunny Well now, whose fault is THAT?!? MOVE!

(sigh) if only it were that easy... at least the snow's gone now, spring is on the way

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Hey man, I've had to mow my lawn about 12 times already. Spent half the day yesterday in the pool with my son getting some preliminary skin cancer!

[bots2019]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cute fuzzy bunny Hey man, I've had to mow my lawn about 12 times already. Spent half the day yesterday in the pool with my son getting some preliminary skin cancer!

Ha, just think of the fuel costs I've saved already on mowing, keeping my 'personal rate of inflation' down

Heh, every bit counts.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Yeah but its so nice here all the time, we never have to go on a vacation to somewhere warm!

Plus its a $45 pool!

[Notmuchlonger]

Get goats to eat your lawn! Then you can milk them for goat cheese and milk. Which of course will save you food wise. Then when it gets all old goat steaks! Eureka!

[bots2019]

Good point. I find that I need at least one warm weather excursion a year to keep my sanity (and even then it's a tenuous sanity!).

I guarantee once I ER I'll be somewhere where I get my fair shot at a winter sunburn. Now if anybody has a couple extra million lying around I'd be happy to give it a shot in the near future.





Mmm... goat chese

[Khan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Notmuchlonger Get goats to eat your lawn! Then you can milk them for goat cheese and milk. Which of course will save you food wise. Then when it gets all old goat steaks! Eureka!

I would do so if I did not live within city limits.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I've read too many stories about people getting too attached to their goats.

A few years ago I was looking at a big parcel of fenced land (around 20 acres) with a tiny house on it and thinking I could squeeze into it. Only one acre was grass and trees, the rest was california natural. My plan was to get a bunch of goats to do the mowing and learn about them.

Good thing I bought the suburban house or I'd probably have a half dozen goats living in my back yard along with the plethora of dogs and cats.

[Notmuchlonger]

Sure destroy my dreams.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Dude, if you're dreaming about goats we need to have a little chat...

[barbarus]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cute fuzzy bunny Dude, if you're dreaming about goats we need to have a little chat...

Depends if they're nannies or rams.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Hmm.

How about either way?

[Notmuchlonger]

Right over the plate.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Got a big wood bat for you to swing with too.

[Alan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cute fuzzy bunny Dude, if you're dreaming about goats we need to have a little chat...

DW and I went to an excellent play last night called The Goat or who is Sylvia


I didn't know goats could be so sexy until I'd seen the play

[Notmuchlonger]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alan DW and I went to an excellent play last night called The Goat or who is Sylvia I didn't know goats could be so sexy until I'd seen the play

Oh my friend goats can be VERY sexy..

[REWahoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Notmuchlonger Oh my friend goats can be VERY sexy..

It would appear some people agree with you:

[ladelfina]

Quote:

it's possible that families were spending a higher percent of their incomes on mortgage payments in 2007 than in 1997. If so, they had to spend a lower percent on something else.

nope, they just borrowed more.. as igsoy also points out.
Household debt is 138% of income (end of '06).
Americans aren't the only people who've been running up debt - The Curious Capitalist - Justin Fox - Economy - Markets - Business - TIME

People who look only at income (and are trying to interpolate CPI from "disposable income" as though that were a closed system) are missing the huge debt factor.


Originally Posted by cute fuzzy bunny

Quote:

Well now, whose fault is THAT?!? MOVE!

and then just buy a plasma TV for every room to offset it!

[cute fuzzy bunny]

And a car with antilock brakes? I hear they'll change your life for the better.

[Independent]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ladelfina nope, they just borrowed more.. as igsoy also points out. Household debt is 138% of income (end of '06). Americans aren't the only people who've been running up debt - The Curious Capitalist - Justin Fox - Economy - Markets - Business - TIME People who look only at income (and are trying to interpolate CPI from "disposable income" as though that were a closed system) are missing the huge debt factor.

I couldn't find a source for the 138% in the article, so I tried to find my own. I got debt numbers from http://www.federalreserve.gov/releas...Current/z1.pdf and disposable income from http://www.bea.gov/bea/dn/nipaweb/TableView.asp#Mid

This allowed me to build this table for 1997 and 2007:

Outstanding household debt: $5.5 and $13.8 Trillion
Disposable Personal Income.: $6.1 and $10.3 trillion
Household debt vs. Disp PI..: 90% and 134%
Home Mortgage portion.......: 61% and 102%
Consumer Credit Portion......: 22% and 25%
"Other" ? ...........................: 7% and 7%

I also found a number of references to $1.1 trillion in outstanding HELOCs at the end of 2007, that would be about 10% of disposable income. I'll assume that the Fed puts the HELOCs in with mortgages.

If I add the entire 10% for HELOCs to the 3% growth in "consumer credit", I get a total growth in debt for the 10 years that's available to buy cars, clothes, Coke, etc. of "only" 13%. Frankly, I expected bigger numbers. Maybe you can spot an error here.

For this thread (which is about the accuracy of the CPI), I don't think 13% very big. My crude estimate was that real consumption would have gone down 40% if the claimed error in the CPI were correct. This might move the 40% to 37% or 38%, because the 40% is for only one year but the 13% grew over 10.

For other purposes, like how much margin families feel they have, this amount of growth can be pretty significant. It's especially significant if it's mostly concentrated in working families.