Anecdotal evidence isn’t always the best evidence but it is a kind of evidence and when the media is suppressing the story, it sometimes is the only evidence we can rely on.
A couple of little reminders from the last 24 hours.
Last night I went online to look for a replacement 15 passenger van, looking for something a couple of years old with 50-70k miles. I did this same search for another guy a couple of years ago and found a dozen in the mid 20 thousand dollar range without looking very hard. Now? Even searching in nearby cities an hour away, a similar van is running minimum $40,000. Nothing fancy, just a long van with 15 seats. I know used vehicles are a hot market right now but dang that is a huge increase and since I don’t want to finance a used van for around $700/month, I guess we will keep this one running.
Then I went to Sam’s Club today. One of the things we always get is Vitamin D “whole” milk. Here is what it was running as of this morning….
For comparison purposes I looked through my history of purchases at Sam’s and the last time I went last month, January 6th, here was what I paid….
More than a buck more or about a 32% price increase in a little over a month. I went back to last year and found a purchase on November 22, 2021….
A little increase, around 5%, from November to January but nothing like what we saw from January to today. I went back a little bit farther to August 16, 2021….
It certainly seems like this one item at least is seeing a dramatic increase in price inflation. Then there was this….
$3.32 per pound for frozen chicken wings?! Those used to be extra pieces parts that were thrown away and now they are getting into beef prices.
Again I looked in my history. July of last year….
Then back to March of last year….
An almost $10 increase for a bag of frozen chicken wings in 11 months. Again around a 34% increase in price over 11 months.
I could go through other items we purchase regularly, some I know haven’t moved much but these two certainly have. Not to mention that even though we were there pretty early this morning, there were lots of empty spaces in the racks, like instant potatoes for example.
Bottom line, just from my own experience which is mirrored by lots and lots of other people, I can say confidently that real inflation is up way more than 7.5%, it is snowballing and it sure as shit isn’t “transitory”.
We are on a speeding car plunging over an cliff economically speaking (as well as culturally and demographically of course) and the guy who is supposed to be steering doesn’t know what day it is.
Good times incoming.
stuff is better than money, or rather paper money. silver and gold are another thing. but you can't eat them, it will not power your car/truck or heat your home.
food always has value. meds have value. and so does shelter.
stock up while you can as this shit is only going to get worse.
and you will need a way to protect your supply as well. people will do a lot of things when they are starving. I seen people kill over c-rations and never forgot it.
the cities will destroy themselves in no time at all when it breaks down. not so much if as when these days. I don't expect the country to be intact by 2024 anymore. hell. sometimes I wonder if we make it pass 2022 without some big fuckup going down.
I hear ya on the van situation. I was looking for one 18 months ago and the prices then seemed a little high. I assumed at the time this was due to the "van life" trend the hipster kids were falling all over themselves to get into. But now? Insane prices, so high I just stopped looking for a van all together, and looking into a Plan B.
And the food prices, sheesh! Just paid 14.99/lb for bacon! Eggs are up, coffee is up, bread is WAY up and yes, lots of bare shelves out here too.
Buckle up kids!
These days are the birth pains, and the contractions are getting more frequent and more painful
If you were wondering why we were sneaking around Ukraine . . .