Posted on 02/17/2011 6:06:18 AM PST by Free Vulcan
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) The prices that American consumers pay for goods and services rose a seasonally adjusted 0.4% in January, mainly because of higher gas and grocery expenses, according to the latest government data.
More than two-thirds of the increase in consumer prices last month stemmed from food and energy, the Labor Department reported Thursday.
Yet core consumer prices rose a lesser 0.2%. The core data strips out volatile food and energy costs that can make overall inflationary pressure in the economy to seem higher or lower than it actually is.
Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had forecast the consumer price index to rise 0.3% overall, with a 0.1% increase in the core rate.
Consumer prices fell sharply in 2010, and over the last 12 months they are up just 1.6% despite recent increases in food and energy costs.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
As long as you do not include food and energy - you can come up with any number.
Food and energy have gone up huge.
Anyone believe this, the unemployment numbers or any other damn thing this gub mint tells us is a fool.
I was if you figured inflation the same way as they did back in the Carter era it would be running at 10% and I believe it.
Most of my funds go to purchasing food and energy. Not much is left to spend on energy left.
Yes, as long as the gov excludes those goods that have risen in price over the last year, some as much as 70%, there is little, or no, inflation.
Move along.
Oh, beef byproducts!!! Walmart raised prices on basic grocery items by 5 to 10%. Gasoline is anywhere from 3.05 to 3.15. Their “marketbasket” is skewed by items a typical family CANNOT AFFORD. Less than 1/2 percent is bull$hirt.
I know it’s not common for people to read past the headline, but they should at least glance at the first sentence.
We saw this bed sheet set at Target the other day listed as 89.99. When we got it, it rang up as 99.99.
They gave it to us for 89 but apparently were in the process of raising prices on some items.
That is not a small price increase. That’s huge....$10!!! Now I don’t know if this is a common thing or if it’s just a few items that were cheaper for some reason, but if the former we have some real inflation issues just bubbling up.
Paid almost $4 for a freaking carton of cherry tomatoes yesterday. That was a shocking price. It seems everything has gone up about .50 or more.
All well and good but has “Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula?”—Barack Insane Obunghole
Yep, inflation sure is under control except for three things: food, clothing, and shelter. Just learn to do without those and you’ll be fine. Yet another wonderful facet of Obamanation.
And the third sentence...
Produce is a special issue right now, especially tomatoes. We get a lot of ours from Mexico, and the massive global warming we had that caused it to snow in Dallas and Houston also caused widespread hard freezes and total crop failures south of the border. Certain produce items like tomatoes are going to skyrocket in price for the next few months because the supply has been severely reduced.
That having been said, these numbers are bullcrap. Food has been moving steadily upward for months—and if the prices aren’t going up, the sizes are going down. Anybody who actually goes to a supermarket can clearly see it. We’ve been noticing it for over a year now. Anything involving grain is getting more expensive as more land is switched over to growing corn for ethanol, thank you Al Gore.
}:-)4
Tomato prices are up because of the freeze in Florida and Mexico. (Simply pointing out that not all price increases are due to inflation). They’ll come down again next harvest.
“The core data strips out volatile food and energy costs that can make overall inflationary pressure in the economy to seem higher or lower than it actually is. “
Don’t worry folks, it only “seems” like you are paying more for stuff.
You’ve got that right. 0.4% per month, means 4.8% for the year. It’s probably double that, maybe more. I noted this week my favorite ice cream, Turkey Hill is now $3.00 per container, when on special. As little as 3 years ago, it was $2.50 per container, and the containers were 56 oz, as compared to the 48 oz you get now.
Doing some math, I figure that’s about a rate of 13% inflation per year. I know my revenues have not gone up 13% per year.
Read an article this week that said clothing prices would be increasing by 10% this spring. I presume it's due to the increase in cotton prices, which would also impact bed sheet prices, I'd suspect.
The CPI is gamed (manipulated)...the numbers being touted are bogus. =.=
I don’t know, nor do I care what is in the gub’mint’s B.S. shopping basket, but my basket is going up like mad.
I’ll give you one example. My brand of coffee (Chock Full o’Nuts 100% Columbian Blend) went from a 33 oz can down to 27.5 oz a few months ago, while the price at Publix remained the same at $11.89. Two weeks ago they jacked it up to $12.89. That is a 30% hike in the price of that particular product.
The same package resizing has been going on with many items.
At least Chock Full o’Nuts made the physical can smaller too so it was obvious at a glance that something had changed.
Some other products still come in the same size package, just the contents has been reduced, and your only clue is if you read the “net weight” figure on the package.
Figures don’t lie, but gub’mint bureaucrats do it for a living.
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