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A pretty good argument imo, says that it is

US core inflation is currently near record low levels and while some commodity prices are rising, that doesn't have much to do with US Fed policy. Commodities are bought and sold globally, and their prices are set globally. The factors causing commodity prices to rise include high demand from China, economies emerging from the recession and starting to buy stuff again, and events threatening supplies (such as unrest in the Middle East affecting oil and drought in Russia affecting wheat). None of those are affected by US Fed policy. Meanwhile the Fed's current activities are the only form of help the US economy is getting, as politicians have given up on stimulus.

Laelia Komi Anomalocaris

I'm frustrated I can't remember the explanation in it's entirety, but food prices are turning into a bubble for the same reasons the housing market bubbled - meddling. Eventually those prices are going to take a huge shit when the bubble pops. I wanna say it was ethanol subsidies, but don't hold me on that one.

Other reasons food prices would/have gone up are because gas (which is used to ship much of it, and many a thing that gathers it) has gone up, and supply being brought down by corn being used in ethanol.

Gas prices have gone up because of two reasons:
1 - Shit's a little nuts in the middle east.
2 - We refuse to tap a whole lot of our own resources.

I will quest to find the explanation now.

VIA Video--- Those numbers don't include Food and other costs, kind of like how government US unemployment numbers don't include people who have already come off of "unemployment", but still do not have a job.

Even if bad graphs were correct, they still show CONSTANT inflating- when do we say enough is enough, we want the dollar to be worth MORE instead of increasingly LESS, hopefully it will be before we are paying $5 for gas and $7 for a happy meal.

YOU DONT WANT $7 HAPPY MEALS DO YOU?

Actually Weena, in response to your second reason. All crude oil is sold as a commodity on the open market overseas. I am not a stock or trade expert, but I read a very extensive article on the subject when gas was sitting at 4 dollars or so and remember it vividly. Because our oil fields are privately owned, all oil that is produced in the US, minus the small stockpile we apparently have, is sold as a commodity on the open market, which sets the price of processed crude, and then is processed here in the states, mostly East Texas/Luisianna areas and then shipped to the highest bidder. Countries like Argentina where the oil industry is owned by the government, will sell gas to its citizens for the actual cost. At the time of the article, the data they had put US average around $3.50 or so but that was study data from earlier in the year, and in Argentina at that same time gas was going for about $.40 a gallon. I may do more research to see if I can find the article, but it was eye opening to see what countries that did not privatize the oil industry pay a fraction of what we do in gas and heating oil cost.

So TLDR greedy mother fuckers drive up gas prices, not oil reserves.

9 level 90s and 10 85s, Damn I need another hobby.

You are leaving out the biggest argument of all, the worth of the dollar is DECREASING directly due to the existence a Federal Reserve, which not only empowers our government to indebt itself by lending it money - debasing the currency / creating inflation, at the cost of TAX PAYERS. Not just passing the problems down to the next generation, fuxing us over and over but making our money worth less immediately. So effectively the Fed's goal, is to try to make our money worth less slower, while they steal from us.

So in regards to oil, yes the middle east problems (see current: Libya) and our lack of being able to drill in reserved areas of places like alaska or the places china is now drilling off coast is raising costs, our weakening dollar is making it worse.

Very good info here imo, but I think the argument about reserves would be like... if we had MORE of something on the open market, prices would go down as a result because they would be trying to sell the product and competing prices etc

Core inflation is the more useful number to look at in this case precisely because it excludes volatiles like oil and food where the prices are primarily determined by things happening overseas. Core inflation is the number the Fed's actions are affecting, and it's very low. Inflation is not a bad thing when it's at reasonably low levels. It encourages people to spend (because savings are worth less over time), thus stimulating the economy, and makes debt worth less over time. Conversely, deflation encourages saving over spending and makes debt cost more over time. Right now the US needs more spending and less debt if you want to get back to normal unemployment levels.

As for the long term effects of inflation of slowly increasing the cost of consumer goods, they don't really matter. Wages also slowly rise with inflation (if there was deflation, you would expect falling wages to match falling prices), and the fact that something costs a dollar now when it only cost 5 cents when your grandparents were kids is only relevant if you happen to own a time machine.

Laelia Komi Anomalocaris

I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around what you're saying, Bane.

The only way oil companies in the US could gouge US buyers (as far as I can tell) would be for the oil companies to agree on a price collectively and no merchant drops below said price.

Which is illegal. And given the average person's hate for gas prices, I can't imagine such thing happening so under the radar. On top of that, the difference between .40 and 3.50 is a huge space for profit - profit a foreign company could easily use to sell gas in the US at 2.50 (as an example) and hit big bucks.

A government selling oil to their citizens for less than the market price doesn't mean oil is actually worth less than the market price, it's just a form of government subsidy. If the government sold that oil at market prices they would have more revenue, which could be used to pay for various programs or to offset tax cuts (or to reimburse people for heating/gas costs). You may think that keeping gas prices artificially low is a useful role for a government, but it's important to keep in mind exactly how it's being done. Besides, whatever gas prices are in the US, they're still too low - the emissions from burning oil have a significant cost that's totally lost in current accounting. Until we have carbon taxes or some other method of accounting for these costs, we're only paying for a fraction of the true price of oil.

Laelia Komi Anomalocaris

Ok, if our dollar is worth less, and makes food and the price of oil go up for us, and the federal reserve inflates our dollar, that is inflation.

I think attributing food and oil prices separately is an outright sham. What do you think happens to our buying power when other's country's reserve currency is the dollar, and our dollar weakens due to the Federal Reserve's actions. I'll mention again how well our government presents numbers like "unemployment" when they exclude folks who are no longer on "unemployment" but still do not have jobs. Why should we subject ourselves to those kind of projections?

It would be like if someone screws you in the ass without permission and calls it something like "instigationary pleasure", and calls the bleeding "lubricational effectiveness".

That's about how I feel about "core inflation" straight up BS'ing the theft of tax dollars and the destruction of my country's currency and saying "oh baby it only hurts a little don't focus on the blood baby let's just focus on how little it hurts" and like the Fed calling the actualization of creating more currency through debt and manipulation "quantative easing" to make us feel better.

Bottom line of the argument with all jokes aside: Nicety names and deceptive numbers do not change the results at hand, our dollar is consistently increasingly weaker and even if it does encourage spending what you're doing is creating bubbles via a manipulated (artificial) market when throughout history not only fails in the end but fails hard. Nothing is perfect, but why allow ourselves to be subject to something historically fails: The Federal Reserve independent from checks and balances fiat money system, when we can have something that was historically working much better for us; free competitive currency or indepedence from a federal central bank.

Also, oil is traded on the open market based on the value of the American dollar, I forgot about that in my other post, so when the dollar looses value it forces up the price as well.

9 level 90s and 10 85s, Damn I need another hobby.

I made this point to a friend who was giving the same "omg inflation" argument the other day, and came up with a good analogy (for reference, it was about 3 degrees outside when I said this).

Inflation can be a real problem, but worrying about inflation right now is like walking outside in a pair of shorts and a tshirt because you're worried it might be too warm. Yes, some day it will get warmer, and eventually it will be smart to take measures to make sure you're not too warm, but if you take those measures right now you're just going to freeze your nuts off. It's never a good idea to react to problems you aren't actually having.




Decreasing currency value relative to the world market is not inherently bad. In fact, in our situation, it would be generally a good thing. You can put the word "decreasing" in capital letters to make it look scary but it still isn't. There's a reason China has been artificially suppressing the value of the Yuan - it bolsters their exports and lifts their economy up at the expense of the countries around them.

Akina: bitch I will stab you in the face

You seem to be confusing inflation with international exchange rates. International exchange rates don't have much to do with inflation, as most important currencies around the world inflate at roughly the same rate, and rates are affected as much by the perceived strengths of other currencies as by the strength of the US dollar. In fact, part of the reason the US dollar has remained high is that China has been trying to keep an artificially low value for their own currency by buying US dollars. Either way, as Dek says, a lower exchange rate on the dollar isn't necessarily a bad thing - it increases the attractiveness of US exports on international markets, and thus could boost economic activity in the US.

As for the idea that the US economy was great until the Fed started, it's is just wrong. There have always been cycles in the economy, and they were many recessions and bubbles before the Fed. If anything, the Fed has helped things, as recessions now tend to be shorter and more infrequent than there were earlier. Having monetary tools available allows to Fed to act to lessen the effect of recessions and speed recoveries. With the current state of the US economy, a speedier recovery is unequivocally a good thing.

Laelia Komi Anomalocaris

Yes - The Fed is partly responsible for the increase of goods and services because of printing money to inject into the economy when the printed money has no backing. It's all printed out of thin air and it devalues the dollar in the process.

Because I don't care that much to get into why I think this, I'll let a cartoon do the talking.



inb4 eturnal dumb, doesn't know what he talking bout, link cartoon, cartoon wrong, etc etc.