Our Government says WHAT inflation rate????

[modhatter]

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I was curious about some of our posters here who have been noticing how much many goods are increasing in cost.. Our government is trying to tell us we have a 2/5% inflation rate currently, but I really think they need to re-think their means of testing. Every time I walk out my door it seems, I am seeing radical increases of 25% increases and higher. Last night went to Sony's barbeque. Baby back ribs went from $13 to $15.99.

I went shopping for tile yesterday to my favorite haunts (have many rentals) and tile I was buying last year for .89 cents a tile is now $1.59. And tile I paid $1.89 to $2.19 per sq. ft. for last year is now $2.98 per sq. ft. Light fixtures at Home Depot are up about 15 to 20%. Paint is up from $21 a galon to $23 a gallon.(Behr)

I for the life of me don't see the 2.5 to 5% increases. They are always much higher. Or perhaps I just don't notice the smaller inflated items.

Maybe in other parts of the country, it's not as bad.  What say you all?

 

[LOL!]

Candy bars that were $1.89 are now $1.00
TVs that were $2500 are now $1500
Laptops that were $2000 are now $1000
Cameras that were $2000 are now $1000
Homes that were $300K are now $260K
Etc.

 

[Bimmerbill]

The only thing I have been noticing is the huge increase in energy costs (heating oil, electricity, gasoline). My costs have been way above the 3-5% claimed inflation.

 

[modhatter]

I knew I should have said (except electronics)  That is the one area I can see, that are continually developing new technology and offer continued lower prices.

Candy bars?  What candy bar is that?  I buy a certain chocolate/fruit& nut bar, (Starts with a C )and I know that hasn't gone down.

 

[LOL!]

Cadbury bars are only $1 nowadays at our local grocery store. They make a Fruit&Nut bar. It definitely has gone down in price.

 

[IHateCNBC]

Cadbury bars are only $1 nowadays at our local grocery store.  They make a Fruit&Nut bar.  It definitely has gone down in price.

Could be because Cadbury is afraid of losing market share.

Cadbury’s defends delay in action after salmonella scare

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=186934680&p=y86935386

I noticed beef prices dropped during the mad cow scare too.   

 

[modhatter]

Hmmm.  Where do you live.  I just bought two bars the day before yesterday and they were $1.39 each.  I live in Jupiter, Fl.  I also have another home in Phoenix, Arizona, and have always noticed that most food items were higher there than here in Florida.

I wonder if there is much difference in food costs in say San Antonio, Texas, or Albequerque, New Mexico, or Huntsville, Alabama.  I wonder if food costs and other items are more georgraphically influenced than I thought.  Besides, real estate and taxes, I never thought the "other stuff" would be much cheaper in different locals, other than the obvious, like New York City and San Francisco.

I did notice someting I was very suprised at a couple of months ago.  I bought an Airo Bed in Phoenix for $99., at Costco, and then three weeks later, the same Airo Bed again at Costco, in California, only the one in California, I paid $129.00 for. (the same exact bed)  That's quite a difference.  I never noticed a price difference in Costco before for same items in different parts of US. Maybe, the price of the bed had just had a price increase.

 

[IHateCNBC]

I just paid my car yearly rego fee.  $23 last year - $29.50 this year.  28% increase year over year.     Paid my car property tax two months ago - 18% increase yet my Kelly Blue Book value on my car went down 7%.   

Went to Walmart to buy my cheapo shaving creme yesterday.  $1.00 last March - $2.34 now.   

 

[Gone4Good]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was curious about some of our posters here who have been noticing how much many goods are increasing in cost.. Our government is trying to tell us we have a 2/5% inflation rate currently, but I really think they need to re-think their means of testing. Every time I walk out my door it seems, I am seeing radical increases of 25% increases and higher. Last night went to Sony's barbeque. Baby back ribs went from $13 to $15.99.  . . .

Maybe in other parts of the country, it's not as bad.  What say you all?

Two things.

1) CPI is actually up 4.1% over the past 12 months (from 194.5 to 202.5).  The 2.5% you're thinking of is "Core Inflation" which excludes things like energy and food.

2) Peoples perception of inflation seems always to overweight those areas that are increasing in price rapidly (gasoline) and underweight those items that are declining in price (electronics).

All-in-all, I think CPI is a pretty accurate gauge of average inflation.  

 

[mathjak107]

Cadbury bars are only $1 nowadays at our local grocery store.  They make a Fruit&Nut bar.  It definitely has gone down in price.

better check the weight...with few exceptions everything is shrinking in size..even a bag of hershey kisses shrank from 14 oz to 12 oz for the same money

 

[LOL!]

Alright ... I'm going to the grocery store now to check this out ... back in a moment.

... OK, Cadbury 127 gram, 10 for $10 or a buck each
Hershey's 141 gram 10 for $10 or a buck each

This is in TX. Now last week at Venice Beach, CA the Cadbury was $2, but you expect to pay more in a 7/11.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Hershey bars went from 7 to 6oz's recently. Prego spaghetti sauce from 28 ounces to "1lb 10 oz", also known as 26 ounces (but doesnt "1lb 10 oz" just sound bigger than 28 ounces? The dog food we used to buy went from a 14oz can to a 12oz can. Most coffee is now sold in one pound packages that contain 12 ounces. A lot of yogurts went from 8 to 6oz packaging. Heck, a couple of beer makers are producing 10 and 11 ounce bottles now.

Not to mention customer service is almost universally worthless now due to cost cutting and outsourcing.

Invisible inflation. Whats going to be interesting is that there absolutely is a floor when companies just cant cut the services any further, or the product size and quality any further, and they have no choice but to raise the prices.

Might have a nice whipsaw effect on the CPI. Might not.

 

[Cut-Throat]

My Inflation rate seems to parallel the CPI. I have actually tracked the costs for the last 5 years. I asked for input from other posters. Here is what I received:

1.) those that actually tracked their expenditures seemed to think the CPI was accurate.

2.) Those with anecdotal evidence were totally convinced that the inflation rate was much higher.


Please track your expenditures.

 

[bearkeley]

Sure some things are going up that what happens in the real world but what I am constantly being suprised by is that some things are really cheap.

I was a shoppers a week or so ago and was stocking up. Chicken is really cheap right now. 1.99 per lb for boneless chicken breast 1.69 with the bones and $1.39 whor the leg quaters. That what it was 20 years ago when I was in college. Beef and Pork are also pretty cheap, as long as you're not getting a suburban housewife cut, just not as cheap as chicken.

 

[Nords]

Maybe it depends on where you shop?

We've been paying the same price for CostCo pizza dinner since Sep 2002... a whole pizza, half combo/half cheese, with two swirl frozen yogurts-- $12.97.

 

[mathjak107]

theres always a product or service that was so over priced to begin with that they may have gone down or stayed the same over the last few years but overall things are up quite a bit...it amazes me in my industry at the price increases on a wholsale level ..im in the electrical industry and with copper up 300% and alum,zinc and steel up 200+ that there are certain products we sell that are the same price for years...it shows you how over priced this handful was to start with if they can keep the same price under these conditions

 

[brewer12345]

Sure some things are going up that what happens in the real world but what I am constantly being suprised by is that some things are really cheap.

I was a shoppers a week or so ago and was stocking up.  Chicken is really cheap right now.  1.99 per lb for boneless chicken breast 1.69 with the bones and $1.39 whor the leg quaters.  That what it was 20 years ago when I was in college.  Beef and Pork are also pretty cheap, as long as you're not getting a suburban housewife cut, just not as cheap as chicken.

Yup, go buy almost any appliance or electronic product. Despite the run up in commodities, virtually every appliance, etc. is cheaper than 5 or 10 years ago, more efficient (power consumption) and often higher functioning.

 

[IHateCNBC]

Yup, go buy almost any appliance or electronic product.  Despite the run up in commodities, virtually every appliance, etc. is cheaper than 5 or 10 years ago, more efficient (power consumption) and often higher functioning.

Outsourcing jobs is working.

 

[brewer12345]

Outsourcing jobs is working. 

Yeah, but the jobs are in many cases being moved from Japan to China and Korea. In 10 or 20 years, jobs will be moving from China & Korea to Malaysia, Indonesia, and Gawd knows where else. Maybe eventually Africa will start to get some of these jobs.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

My Inflation rate seems to parallel the CPI. I have actually tracked the costs for the last 5 years. I asked for input from other posters. Here is what I received:

1.) those that actually tracked their expenditures seemed to think the CPI was accurate.

2.) Those with anecdotal evidence were totally convinced that the inflation rate was much higher.


Please track your expenditures.

Then you missed the numerous posts where I described tracked expenses that are rising at approximately a 6-7% rate per year.

Every single product or bill that I pay has risen at far more than the CPI in the last 3 years. The only bill that went down, temporarily, was my insurance coverage as my cars aged. Thats back up now.

But if CPI is accurate for your spending in your area, and you arent fudging your 'tracking' by purchasing different products, eliminating products, downgrading to cheaper products, or buying in bulk through a warehouse club...then thats terrific!

As far as i'm concerned, throwing out 'tracked' expenses where people have made major changes in their product mixes, purchase channels and not considering quality of services...is worse than anecdotal.

Its my 'anecdotal' observation that service is non-existent. Product quality and lifespan are becoming worse as manufacturers cut costs. Products, including meals, are shrinking in quality and quantity.

Gasoline, electricity, natural gas, water, beef, housing and many other items are up 50...100%. Other than spot sales, I dont see anything dropping in price without some compensating drop in product quality or bundled services.

Hey Nords...sams/costco pizzas are $7.95 here or 8.95 if they cook them and you pick them up. Costco maintains the price of a small range of food products like their hotdogs and pizzas as draws to get people into the store to shop. Its a good strategy for them that works well.

I guess the whole discussion is pointless when people cant even agree on whats being measured and how its being measured. The "25 inch televisions cost less now than 10 years ago" argument isnt worth much without consideration that many people would have loved to have a 25" tube tv 10 years ago and wouldnt be caught dead with anything less than a 42" plasma now...which costs a lot more than a 25" tube tv did 10 years ago or today.

 

[d]

if the reported CPI is so far off the mark, wouldn't you expect that the bond market would recognize that? comparison of TIPs to non-TIPs does not suggest to me that the market has a problem with the way CPI is measured.

 

[justin]

Hey Nords...sams/costco pizzas are $7.95 here or 8.95 if they cook them and you pick them up. Costco maintains the price of a small range of food products like their hotdogs and pizzas as draws to get people into the store to shop. Its a good strategy for them that works well.

Hehe, Sam's club pizzas in N.C. are $7.95 cooked or $6.95 if you bake em at home. Maybe CA has higher inflation?

I must say the Sam's Club Cafe has the worst customer service BY FAR of any company, organization, or entity I have ever dealt with. Including the DMV, Social Security Administration, public health department, etc.

It used to be that 40% of the time I placed a pizza order over the phone, the Cafe wouldn't fulfill the order and I had to reorder when I showed up for pickup. They fixed that problem. Now they don't answer the phone 40% of the time. I recently called at 7:00 pm on a Friday night and was informed they don't make pizzas within an hour of closing time because there's a chance I might not show up. I tried ordering the same pizza from the Sam's a little farther away, but they didn't answer the phone (of course : ). Best pizza but worst customer service. If the pizza wasn't so darn good, I would never go back.

It amazes me when I'm waving money in front of a company's face trying to buy their product and they blow a sale because of stupidity or incompetence. But they know I'll be back.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I suppose if someone could fully understand the bond market and the CPI calculations, they'd note the discrepancy and rail against it.

Oh wait...Bill Gross did that already, and he knows a little about bonds.

I am quite sure the CPI is 100% accurate for what it measures and how it measures it, as a national average. Given that it doesnt factor in housing costs for homeowners and doesnt really incorporate health care costs, I sort of struggle with it as a measure of inflation.

What I am less certain of is when people decide that CPI is a "real" measure of inflation for even a majority of people.

What I'm pretty dang certain of is that early retirees that frequently live in high cost areas or coastal regions where cost of living is higher than "average" may very well see much higher rates of inflation than the CPI reports.

Failure to recognize that possibility might result in an investor that decides to buy CPI indexed securities and spout on about receiving a "real" return, when in fact their returns might be flat or even negative.

That'd be a real owie in 20-30 years when your money has no buying power left.

A great measure that gets past all of these 'buckets' and spreadsheets is to find someone in your area thats been retired for about ten years or so and ask them how much buying power their CPI indexed social security has lost in that period. Pick someone thats kept (or tried to keep) the same retirement lifestyle for that period.

My dads a good example for me. He lives a similar lifestyle to ten years ago, and in fact our spending patterns arent too far from each other. We both eat decent food, mostly cook at home, dont spend big bucks travelling or buying a lot of lavish items, new car every 5-7 years.

He says his CPI indexed social security payments have lost somewhere in the range of 20-30% of their buying power, which means for someone in our area with our lifestyle, CPI undestates our actual experienced inflation by 2-3% a year uncompounded.

We both do the same thing as a result - change our buying habits, buy from different sources, buy different products, and substitute some of our own time in exchange for eliminating service costs or mitigating the lack of service offerings or weaker service offerings.

That I buy stuff in 5 gallon drums, spend 20 minutes fishing through a heap of clothes to find stuff thats my size, buy cheaper cuts of meat, throw products away when they stop working and I cant get worthwhile technical support and change my own oil doesnt translate into low inflation. It translates into a change in purchasing to mitigate it.

Theres also the issue of invisible inflation. Product and service quality are being reduced steadily in the items I buy. Theres a limit to that and a rubber band effect when it hits bottom.

Anyhow, my agenda in these discussions is to point out that CPI may not come even close to personal or regional rates of inflation and that theres a lot more to it than meets the eye. If people who should know better didnt constantly refer to CPI indexed investments as producing a "real" return, I'd care a lot less.

Whats your agenda C-T? I ask because you start these identical threads about twice a month.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Hehe, Sam's club pizzas in N.C. are $7.95 cooked or $6.95 if you bake em at home. Maybe CA has higher inflation?

I must say the Sam's Club Cafe has the worst customer service BY FAR of any company, organization, or entity I have ever dealt with. Including the DMV, Social Security Administration, public health department, etc.

It used to be that 40% of the time I placed a pizza order over the phone, the Cafe wouldn't fulfill the order and I had to reorder when I showed up for pickup. They fixed that problem. Now they don't answer the phone 40% of the time. I recently called at 7:00 pm on a Friday night and was informed they don't make pizzas within an hour of closing time because there's a chance I might not show up. I tried ordering the same pizza from the Sam's a little farther away, but they didn't answer the phone (of course : ). Best pizza but worst customer service. If the pizza wasn't so darn good, I would never go back.

It amazes me when I'm waving money in front of a company's face trying to buy their product and they blow a sale because of stupidity or incompetence. But they know I'll be back.

Same problem here. You have to see what food is coming out of an oven or just being wrapped up and buy that. The pizza sits under a heat lamp until its oil soaked cardboard and the hotdogs sit in buns wrapped in foil in a steam tray until they disintegrate. Last year when I had a customer service issue regarding a store policy I spent about 3 hours trying to get in touch with the store managers and the corporate customer service people. Nobody really gave a crap...as you point out, the phones werent answered, I got put on eternal hold, I got underlings that couldnt solve the problem. Ended up taking my business to costco for most of the next year...about $12,000 worth.

How is all of that malarky measured by the CPI? How much more does the pizza cost when you waste time making calls, get there and theres no product to pick up or you have to wait 25 minutes before its made?

This by the way is more stupid management stuff. Some sams clubs are well run and their food courts are pretty decent. Costco seems to be far more consistently well managed and the prepared foods are almost always decent.

Costco/sams club are interesting inflation mitigators. You can definitely get good deals there that help hold your costs down. Its possible to buy the same products for 20-30%+ lower prices. But while I enjoy the 'treasure hunt' atmosphere, you cant walk into the place with a shopping list and find everything you need/want. You have to buy what they have, usually in a large quantity, and you have to dig to find shoes/clothes in your size. You usually have to go to another department or grocery store to get everything you need. Sometimes they stop carrying stuff and you have to find another source for it.

How do all these impacts on your time and shopping activities get measured by the CPI? Is your time free? The gasoline? The wear and tear on the car? The aggravation?

 

[d]

What I'm pretty dang certain of is that early retirees that frequently live in high cost areas or coastal regions where cost of living is higher than "average" may very well see much higher rates of inflation than the CPI reports.

... which is why CPI is available for various geographic areas, and why they have a CPI for the elderly ("over the 18-year period for which data is available, the CPI-E has grown about 15.31% more quickly than the CPI-W")

ps:

Whats your agenda C-T?  I ask because you start these identical threads about twice a month.

C-T just likes to get you all riled up!