What are your inflation expectations

[ejman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ziggy29 I believe we've been in a "biflationary" environment for years now, where there are two inflation rates: one for the consumable essentials (with a high inflation rate), and one for discretionary items and certain asset types (which have little to no inflation or even negative inflation). Unfortunately too many household budgets have the flat or falling "inflation" of their income, while the essential day-to-day stuff they buy is inflating rapidly.

Maybe so. It's not statistically valid but I've found that my expenses have been more or less flat for many years now. Perhaps it is due to the ability since ER to get better deals or research things more but I find the personal inflation rate in ER to be a fairly controllable item for a lot of things.

[palomalou]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Live And Learn I use 3.5% inflation and 5% return for a 50/50 portfolio. I tend to be very pessimistic when running these numbers, knowing that things will end up better than they calculate at.

I've been using 3% and 5%, respectively.

[sengsational]

It looks like wars might cause inflation (ww ii and viet nam on your chart), but I no longer think any destruction is good for the economy. Say someone destroys property, say throws a rock through a window. There might be a winner, like the repair man, but overall society loses. When I heard about pallet loads of 100 dollar bills shipped to Iraq is when I got worried more about inflation. I though, incorrectly as it turned out, that the money presses would churn out too much money to pay for the war, and cause inflation. As Ha indicates, it's not something guessable.