Falling prices.....yay!

[Gandalf]

UK inflation falls to lowest ever level of 0.5% | Business | The Guardian

This type of story is another example of the lunacy in the media. UK fuel prices are a little bit less (nowhere near as cheap as in the states or here), but guys, feel that goodness! Haha, much cheaper here and in the states, but such great reporting!

However, really? Is inflation really lower? No, of course not. House prices, rents, bills, wages? These things are massive. It's just that the government lies about inflation and The Guardian being a toffee nosed wank of a paper gets high on emitting bullshit fumes.

Go Guardian, talk about those workers you really don't report for.

[Gandalf]

If your bills are falling, your house price is falling, and your wages are not falling and fuel is only marginally falling....Well, it's gibberish. Enjoy the low inflation!

The UK, America, Japan, Europe......basketcases.

[Kirkland Laing]

A couple of years ago you were saying we had massive inflation because commodity prices (oil, gold, etc.) were soaring. Now those prices are collapsing. So by your logic we must be seeing massive deflation at the moment, right?

If you look at a commodity index (basket of commodities to show a represenitive trade-weighted price indicator for commodities) chart over the last couple of decades you'll see the graph line going up and down like a seismograph in an earthquake. That's why we don't include things like food and energy prices in how we measure inflation because it gives a false reading.

Here is headline inflation, which includes food and energy prices, and core inflation, which doesn't.




But how do we know that the government isn't making the inflation numbers up? Because clearly that's what's happening according to the fucknuts who've been predicting hyperinflation for the last six years. Because it's impossible that they're wrong -- the only reason for the fact that we're hearing about deflation and not hyperinflation must be that governments are lying.

Except no. Here's an independent measure of inflation, the billion price index, run by MIT it meausres hundreds of millions of consumer and producer prices on the internet. Here it is.



From when it started look how closely it maps the consumer price index (government measure of inflation).

Up to date numbers here.




You could also look at the yearly nominal GDP increaseand add on the government inflation numbers and see if it looks legit, then imagine that you really did have ten or fifteen percent inflation that this would mean that the economy was really contracting about ten percent a year. We know what that looks like -- at the end of the Bush administration it really was contracting that much and America was losing a million jobs a month. Now it's gaining 250 000 a month which is what it should be doing if the numbers are legit. Which they fucking are and the numbers prove it. But this last paragraph is far beyond the comprehension ability of a Korean English teacher.

Stick to teaching English and don't worry your little head about things you don't understand.

[Gandalf]

Eh? You cheeky monkey!

You do not need fancy charts to show me the reality of prices on the ground. Look at house prices, transportation, education, food, rents. All these things are up, up, up. In terms of homes astronomically so. The inflation numbers are a lie. Every time I buy products from the UK I am seeing this from inflation to shrinkflation. The only inflation I see are in the lies of the politicians.

All I need is less of your charts and to simply buy some food items from the UK to understand inflation. Take your standard Cadbury's chocolate bar. Why is it so expensive as compared with a few years ago? And furthermore, why is the bar not only getting more expensive, but it is shrinking in size as well? It isn't only chocolate bars, but food across the spectrum. You are lucky to find a crisp in a packet of crisps. Are they getting cheaper? Or are the prices going up? Am I getting better value for money? No, I am not. There is massive inflation in these things.

You want to buy a house, then is it more expensive today than 5 years ago? Is a railway ticket more expensive? Is your rent? Is that chocolate bar? Is that VAT? Is that degree? Is that everything in this known universe except bloody oil! Oil! Oil! Can I drink oil? Don't answer that question, it is merely rhetorical. Inflation is EVERYWHERE and yet are wages going up anywhere except in your own parasite industry where bonuses are lobbied for and yet welfare cuts are uniformly voted through?

It is all lies. Everything. Austerity, the benefits of finance, inflation, the recovery. It is all lies and has no connection with reality and I know because I look at the size of the tin can, the cost, and take notes with swollen appendices. Your charts are very interesting and I understand them, but where is the missing inflation in the governments numbers? You bankers don't see it because you are too busy looking at charts, snorting blow and spitting on the poor from your ivory towers. I go to the supermarket and sign my deliveries, there is inflation and you cannot tell me otherwise.

The way things are going I am going to be sending them products and be charged for it! Shrinkflation can only go so far. You are seeing it in Europe with negative interest rates. The system is now literally eating itself. Down with this kind of thing. The only good banker is one who ends up in a tin of soup in a world of common sense and less inflation.

[Beanz]

The Americans, I think Hersheys, bought Cadbury and everyone has said that the quality has plummeted, the size fallen and price gone up since. Postman Pat may leave you disappointed.

[Gandalf]

I don't live on the ground there but I do buy a few parcels to help me through the lean times I go through both by design and circumstance and things are getting more expensive and smaller. Chocolate is one of the most obvious ones and also tins of stuff. It's happening out here too. For instance, a packet of minced beef that used to be 220g is now 150g. I buy Tesco's tinned new potatoes here and though the size is still measly, the price has gone up considerably. It seems to be many things and likely here and there.

When people/experts say that there is no inflation, I question what they mean. Surely you cannot judge it on stuff you buy every 5 years like a phone as compared to the real stuff you need to eat daily or the place you need to live in. Of course there is inflation and it isn't that 0.5% nonsense. I am not an airy fairy person and do not buy a mobile phone every 6 months or a new gadget every payday. I live in the practical normal world where people have to watch their money and in that world there is real and obvious inflation. Maybe in the cooked GDP world of drugs and hookers, people don't notice, but on main street in Joe Blogs land, I think it is real.

[Kirkland Laing]

Eh? You cheeky monkey!

You do not need fancy charts to show me the reality of prices on the ground. Look at house prices, transportation, education, food, rents. All these things are up, up, up. In terms of homes astronomically so. The inflation numbers are a lie. Every time I buy products from the UK I am seeing this from inflation to shrinkflation. The only inflation I see are in the lies of the politicians.

All I need is less of your charts and to simply buy some food items from the UK to understand inflation. Take your standard Cadbury's chocolate bar. Why is it so expensive as compared with a few years ago? And furthermore, why is the bar not only getting more expensive, but it is shrinking in size as well? It isn't only chocolate bars, but food across the spectrum. You are lucky to find a crisp in a packet of crisps. Are they getting cheaper? Or are the prices going up? Am I getting better value for money? No, I am not. There is massive inflation in these things.

You want to buy a house, then is it more expensive today than 5 years ago? Is a railway ticket more expensive? Is your rent? Is that chocolate bar? Is that VAT? Is that degree? Is that everything in this known universe except bloody oil! Oil! Oil! Can I drink oil? Don't answer that question, it is merely rhetorical. Inflation is EVERYWHERE and yet are wages going up anywhere except in your own parasite industry where bonuses are lobbied for and yet welfare cuts are uniformly voted through?

It is all lies. Everything. Austerity, the benefits of finance, inflation, the recovery. It is all lies and has no connection with reality and I know because I look at the size of the tin can, the cost, and take notes with swollen appendices. Your charts are very interesting and I understand them, but where is the missing inflation in the governments numbers? You bankers don't see it because you are too busy looking at charts, snorting blow and spitting on the poor from your ivory towers. I go to the supermarket and sign my deliveries, there is inflation and you cannot tell me otherwise.

The way things are going I am going to be sending them products and be charged for it! Shrinkflation can only go so far. You are seeing it in Europe with negative interest rates. The system is now literally eating itself. Down with this kind of thing. The only good banker is one who ends up in a tin of soup in a world of common sense and less inflation.

Yes, who needs facts especially if they're diametrically opposed to your ridiculous worldview.

The plural of anecdote is not data.

Tomorrow when I have the time I'll explain to you in Janet and John language why there isn't significant inflation. If you can manage to grasp the way I explain it, and I'll explain it so simply that even Lyle can understand it, you will have conclusive proof that inflation is at the level the statistics say it is and not at the level you think it is.

Not tomoorw. Next week. Come back next Monday.

[Kirkland Laing]

OK Miles, give me a bit of help in penetrating the force field.

GDP numbers. Relatively accurate or all made up as well?

[SlimTrae]

A couple of years ago you were saying we had massive inflation because commodity prices (oil, gold, etc.) were soaring. Now those prices are collapsing. So by your logic we must be seeing massive deflation at the moment, right?

If you look at a commodity index (basket of commodities to show a represenitive trade-weighted price indicator for commodities) chart over the last couple of decades you'll see the graph line going up and down like a seismograph in an earthquake. That's why we don't include things like food and energy prices in how we measure inflation because it gives a false reading.

Here is headline inflation, which includes food and energy prices, and core inflation, which doesn't.




But how do we know that the government isn't making the inflation numbers up? Because clearly that's what's happening according to the fucknuts who've been predicting hyperinflation for the last six years. Because it's impossible that they're wrong -- the only reason for the fact that we're hearing about deflation and not hyperinflation must be that governments are lying.

Except no. Here's an independent measure of inflation, the billion price index, run by MIT it meausres hundreds of millions of consumer and producer prices on the internet. Here it is.



From when it started look how closely it maps the consumer price index (government measure of inflation).

Up to date numbers here.




You could also look at the yearly nominal GDP increaseand add on the government inflation numbers and see if it looks legit, then imagine that you really did have ten or fifteen percent inflation that this would mean that the economy was really contracting about ten percent a year. We know what that looks like -- at the end of the Bush administration it really was contracting that much and America was losing a million jobs a month. Now it's gaining 250 000 a month which is what it should be doing if the numbers are legit. Which they fucking are and the numbers prove it. But this last paragraph is far beyond the comprehension ability of a Korean English teacher.

Stick to teaching English and don't worry your little head about things you don't understand.

I know a good bit of Politics & will gladly duke it out on anythread, but when it comes to stuff like GDP? I do a Floyd & cherry pick my way out these fights...

[Gandalf]

OK Miles, give me a bit of help in penetrating the force field.

GDP numbers. Relatively accurate or all made up as well?

Utter pigswill is my academic response to the acronym GDP. As cooked as a goose. As fake as Nessie. As authentic as William Hague's manliness. As touched as an Eton schoolboy.

[Kirkland Laing]

OK Miles, give me a bit of help in penetrating the force field.

GDP numbers. Relatively accurate or all made up as well?

Utter pigswill is my academic response to the acronym GDP. As cooked as a goose. As fake as Nessie. As authentic as William Hague's manliness. As touched as an Eton schoolboy.

Trillions of dollars, euros, sterling, yen and other currencies rise and fall on the release of GDP information. Everybody involved in the financial markets -- traders and investors and so on -- obviously believe in the numbers.

Even in the hyperpartisan atmosphere of current US politics, nobody questions GDP numbers.

There are no reputable economists or statisticians who question these numbers either.

Are all these people all part of a giant conspiracy to fool everybody else that the published GDP numbers aren't accurate?

And if they aren't, to what end? What's the point? For what reason?

[Kirkland Laing]

A couple of years ago you were saying we had massive inflation because commodity prices (oil, gold, etc.) were soaring. Now those prices are collapsing. So by your logic we must be seeing massive deflation at the moment, right?

If you look at a commodity index (basket of commodities to show a represenitive trade-weighted price indicator for commodities) chart over the last couple of decades you'll see the graph line going up and down like a seismograph in an earthquake. That's why we don't include things like food and energy prices in how we measure inflation because it gives a false reading.

Here is headline inflation, which includes food and energy prices, and core inflation, which doesn't.




But how do we know that the government isn't making the inflation numbers up? Because clearly that's what's happening according to the fucknuts who've been predicting hyperinflation for the last six years. Because it's impossible that they're wrong -- the only reason for the fact that we're hearing about deflation and not hyperinflation must be that governments are lying.

Except no. Here's an independent measure of inflation, the billion price index, run by MIT it meausres hundreds of millions of consumer and producer prices on the internet. Here it is.



From when it started look how closely it maps the consumer price index (government measure of inflation).

Up to date numbers here.




You could also look at the yearly nominal GDP increaseand add on the government inflation numbers and see if it looks legit, then imagine that you really did have ten or fifteen percent inflation that this would mean that the economy was really contracting about ten percent a year. We know what that looks like -- at the end of the Bush administration it really was contracting that much and America was losing a million jobs a month. Now it's gaining 250 000 a month which is what it should be doing if the numbers are legit. Which they fucking are and the numbers prove it. But this last paragraph is far beyond the comprehension ability of a Korean English teacher.

Stick to teaching English and don't worry your little head about things you don't understand.

I know a good bit of Politics & will gladly duke it out on anythread, but when it comes to stuff like GDP? I do a Floyd & cherry pick my way out these fights...

It's the value of goods and services produced by a country in a calendar year. If you own a factory it's like working out how much stuff you make every year. GDP is just how much USA Inc. produces every year. That's it. Not complicated. Easy to understand, unless like Miles you have a nutter force field around your brain that prevents non-looney information entering.

[Gandalf]

No, I tend not to trust mass governmental data. It tends to be a little suspicious and also seems rather cooked with them doing anything to bolster the books such as counting drugs and prostitution which are supposedly against the law. They shouldn't really arrest you then! Anything to topple the French numbers, eh. Likewise, inflation is a cooked number and has little connection with reality which I think most people on the ground would attest to. Inflation is more than the official figures say and along with wages that do not increase, that inflation becomes a serious burden on people. One of the most obvious signs of inflation is in property and rents. At the end of the day people need somewhere to live and under Thatcher alone rents doubled. Would anyone care to compare the cost of a home or rents since Thatcher? That in itself is crippling inflation. At the end of the day, Kirkland. Inflation is simply about 'Is my cost of living going up?' and most would likely respond with a simple 'Yes'.

[Kirkland Laing]

No, I tend not to trust mass governmental data. It tends to be a little suspicious and also seems rather cooked with them doing anything to bolster the books such as counting drugs and prostitution which are supposedly against the law. They shouldn't really arrest you then! Anything to topple the French numbers, eh. Likewise, inflation is a cooked number and has little connection with reality which I think most people on the ground would attest to. Inflation is more than the official figures say and along with wages that do not increase, that inflation becomes a serious burden on people. One of the most obvious signs of inflation is in property and rents. At the end of the day people need somewhere to live and under Thatcher alone rents doubled. Would anyone care to compare the cost of a home or rents since Thatcher? That in itself is crippling inflation. At the end of the day, Kirkland. Inflation is simply about 'Is my cost of living going up?' and most would likely respond with a simple 'Yes'.

So far you've mentioned chocolate and rents/house prices.

Both of these things have gone up in price but it's due to supply and demand. Nothing to do with governments printing money or anything like that.

Housing in Britain is scare and expensive because of planning regulations and mass immigration. Chocolate is going up in price because of a variety of reasons, poor cocoa harvests and increased demand being two of them.



This isn't going to get through the force field but I'm happy to let events over the next few years speak for themselves. You can continue ranting away about nonexistent hyperinflation while large chunks of the world struggle with actual deflation and start devaluing their currency to try and export the problem somewhere else. I'm not sure if reality will ever make it through your force field but nobody else will be in any doubt as to what's happening.

[Gandalf]

The force is very strong around me. Otherworldly so. If prices suddenly drop significantly lower then I will be more than happy to have been proven wrong on inflation. I do not think there is hyper inflation, but there is significant inflation in the things people need in day to day life. When things shrink and prices go up as in new London flats or chocolate bars, there is inflation. I truly hope there is a massive housing market correction as it would be good for the general population and of course I hope food does get cheaper. But not with a corresponding massive drop in wages as that would be cheating! Inflation is a bad thing, it's only good for shrinking debt, so the twats of the world love it.