Insert thisisfine.jpg memes.
Again the real number is not 9.1% as reported by the media but is instead much higher. Regardless it is skyrocketing.
Most notably for me in the linked article:
In another worrisome sign, shelter costs – which account for roughly one-third of the CPI – sped up again in June, climbing 0.6%, matching an 18-year high set in May. On an annual basis, shelter costs have climbed 5.6%, the fastest since February 1991.
Rent costs also surged in June, jumping 0.8% over the month, the largest monthly increase since April 1986. Rising rents are a concerning development because higher housing costs most directly and acutely affect household budgets. Another data point that measures how much homeowners would pay in equivalent rent if they hadn’t bought their home, also jumped 0.7% in June from the previous month.
If you are looking for a place to live right now? Yikes.
You can’t afford gas, you can’t afford food, you can’t afford a place to live. How are people going to respond to this?
The cracks in the current world order are getting larger by the day and at this point any sort of soft landing seems out of the question. What remains to be seen is just how hard it hits the ground and who gets to pick up the pieces afterward.
You can't afford gas, you can't afford food, you can't afford a place to live
And yet, the roads in my area are clogged 24/7 with SUVs and pickup trucks, the local populace waddles from one fast food eatery to another, and the price of houses here in scenic suburbia continues to spiral upwards. I suppose that all this might mean is that pressure is building, building, building and will eventually explode, sending millions into bankruptcy and foreclosure.
But WHEN will it get here? I see virtually no change in anyone's behavior or consumerist habits. We all just grumble a lot more, while charging up the visa at the Big Box. Amazon sales certainly aren't hurting, if the fleets of delivery vans out on the roads around the clock are any indication. (BTW, the price of gas here in South Texas has dumped by as much as 50 cents per gallon in just the past two weeks. Crisis averted, or calm before the storm?)
I've been preparing for the worst for years now, and even those who used to be sorta on board with the notion of being ready are starting to smirk, asking me just what those dusty #10 cans of dehydrated beef up in the attic are doing for me these days. Are we on borrowed time, and will that explosion really happen? Or will fate, crazy unpredictable fate, once again find a way to avert disaster? It never hurts to be ready for anything, but Chicken Little syndrome is a very real thing.
All true but I also posted previously (see: https://www.arthursido.com/2022/01/pandemic-of-indebted.html and https://www.arthursido.com/2022/06/the-age-of-scarcity.html ), people have exhausted their savings and are hitting credit card limits. The easy credit that drives the economy is drying up.
Yeah, it's pretty bad. Just came back from 1 of the grocery stores in town and their prices are ridiculous. (way higher than the other one I go to, i hate the 3rd, starts with a W). I just kept putting stuff back. Yeah, ain't paying that for that.
Gas however dropped 10 whole cents last week. And that totally matters when ti's right at $5/gallon. Seriously 10c is a rounding error, who cares.
I have been telling my wife that a wave of homeless is coming. They say there are 67,000 homeless is LA alone. The zombie scenes from the older movies are now pretty much actually real. I worked in Phoenix a few years back and we went to a gas station before work at like 5:30 am and homeless people were literally stumbling out from the bushes all around the station, it was weird.
I never hear anyone advocating modern monetary theory anymore
Nobody wants to hear it but in the year 2022, $4 is a fair price for a gallon of gasoline. $8 is not fair, nor should it be accepted.
The worthless pie in the sky speculative tech stocks, which a year or two ago were leading the stock market, have already lost 75% of their value so that correction has already happened. The current market leaders, energy, health care, industrial materials, actually have value in this economy, so the stock market is as it should be, is the way I see it.
When (not if) the euro becomes worthless, that will cause some trouble. If globohomo's plan is what I think it is, to get Europe switched over to the USD, that will solve the USD's inflation problem overnight. Perhaps this will be done with some sort of USD based CBDC. Would probably buy another half century of prosperity for the GAE just as Kissinger's petrodollar gambit did. Without which, all of this could have happened much sooner. No wonder he is so revered in those circles.
They are obviously sticking with Plan A, push the jabs hard to create and (now) maintain an international pharmadollar to augment the fraying petrodollar. This past week I see the usual suspects are in the media promoting more jabs. Health minister of Canada saying boosters every 9 months will be mandatory. The Canadians will line up to take them. This is an economic strategy first and foremost, always has been.
So I guess our question is how long can Americans tolerate inflation at this level. History says at least a decade. Question is how much worse will it get. If I'm right about globohomo's plan, it will get a lot worse for Europe, but only briefly. American markets may shudder in sympathy to that, but they should be able to avoid 1929 redux if the plan is what I think it is.
Like the other anon above, constant traffic here and plenty of customers at all the fast food places and fancy shops and restaurants. We have an appt with a local real estate agent who works for one of the national bankster/hedge fund groups that buys houses to then rent at outrageous rates to look at ours and make us an offer. If it's sufficient, we're essentially swapping our suburban property for many acres of heavily treed, beautifully prepared rural property (with a well, stream, generac, propane tank, wood stove, outbuildings etc.) and NO mortgage. Housing inflation may be insane, but since it's caused by said banksters and the massive importation of the third world, f**k 'em. We'll sell our crappy suburban pile of bricks for as much as they claim it's worth and use it to our advantage. Hope they rent it to some really vibrant folks – the 'neighborhood' of subcons and Han needs some real diversity.
Blackrock loves to buy houses. Economic activity, though, is down here in Modern Mayberry – expensive stuff (high priced fancy coffee drinks) are the first to go.