As expected the high-turn consumable goods are starting to rise in price rapidly. The Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) has released the consumer price analysis from April (remember there’s a big lag) [Top Line Data Here – Detailed Sector Data Here] The trend is rapid inflation continuing with no end in sight. CORE inflation just jumped the most since 1982.
Overall prices are up 4.2 percent year-over-year, which is three times the rate of inflation under Joe Biden than under President Trump. Inflation hurts the lower and middle economic class much harder; and the specific inflation sectors show massive increases on the goods and services that blue collar workers use most.
It is specifically the Biden economic policies that are to blame for the scale of these increased prices. Inflation of this scale is an outcome of policy.
Biden is focused on helping multinationals and Wall Street; President Trump was focused on helping small businesses and Main Street. We are now seeing the impact from these two differing economic priorities.
Regular unleaded gasoline is up a whooping 51.9 percent from last year [Table 7]. Higher gas prices directly hit the middle class the hardest and also increases the cost of transporting all goods. Keep in mind this is a snapshot of prices approximately six weeks ago and gasoline prices have been rising even more rapidly recently. Not good news.
The status of the economy, the employment picture and the stimulus money shows up in the cost of used vehicles rising over 22% last month and 21% compared to last year. People are holding on to their vehicles and when able purchasing newer used vehicles, reflected in the lower inflation on new cars and trucks (2%). Paycheck and wage security is becoming an issue again, especially with the cost of gasoline and food.
The inflation data in the food at home (grocery prices) doesn’t look too dramatic until you drill down into the faster turn fresh fruits and vegetables. Citrus products up 7.8% (lemons, limes and oranges are very expensive) with fresh fruits overall increasing by 6.2%. The less perishable food products, longer shelf life items, reflect slower inflation due to warehouse and shelf inventory (a natural lag). However, the fresh fruits and vegetables carry the immediate price of higher energy and transportation costs. Lettuce up 5.1% year over year. [TABLE 7 has the details]
The rapid increases in price for food and gasoline are hitting the middle-class hard. This will have a downstream effect on more luxury items and durable goods. Spend more on food/gas and you might not be able to purchase that new table you wanted. Durable good inventories increase and layoffs in those sectors begin.
It will be very interesting to watch how the housing market responds over the next few months. If the trendline continues we should see a considerable softening in home sales, again depending on region, as the inflation hits the working class – and the FED might respond by raising interest rates.
PRESIDENT TRUMP – “If there were long and horrible gas lines like this under President Trump, the Fake News would make it a national outrage! Did Joe Biden put Hunter in charge of our energy, with all of his Burisma experience? Even Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is lost!” (LINK)
You don’t worry about a Middle Class when you’re trying to flatten the Socioeconomic Curve.
I’ve got my place staked out under the nearest overpass. Hope you do too. The move “The Road” is a documentary.
*movie*
So was the movie ‘Idiocracy’.
Gasoline at the pump, here in Collin County, TX is up nearly 100% since January 2021 moving from about $1.60/gal to$2.90+/gal. I don’t know where these clowns got their data. It seems obvious this whole fuel supply “crisis” was preplanned as price hikes actually jumped ahead of the start of the crisis…more insider trading and profiteering.
The one phenomenon I have noticed is that the more perishable an item the faster it needs to be rotated off the shelf (no matter if bought, removed to be donated or discarded)….meaning more perishable stuff needs to be moved more often and higher transport cost. That is a major reason for the interesting changed in cost on Table 7 in the article.
Also, if a grocer has an on-site bakery, those items tend to stay cheaper as the bulkier end product does not need to be moved.
California unleaded $4.39
We’re looking at over $5/ gallon in California for the summer “blend” months. All taxes and fees are $1.19/gallon!
And they still aren’t fixing the roads. Which was the stated purpose of the last gas tax hike.
“…I don’t know where these clowns got their data. It seems obvious this whole fuel supply “crisis” was preplanned…”
With the ‘Smartest Men In The Room’ supposedly reading the tea-leaves of financial forecasting, certainly there’s some insider trading going on. Meanwhile, the most significant economic indicator of them all will continue to escape media scrutiny: Communists taking over the US government.
Eradicating that pesky middle class is all part of the plan. It’s all but complete in California and NY. Their raging success is coming to a state near you.
right they are moving to other states to do to those states just what they did to cal and ny. vote red, vote r people are welcoming them with open arms.
Exactly. California’s middle class has been evaporating and the dems are content to replace it with tech elites and a servant class of immigrants while automation catches up to demand. Why do think tech CEOs have been calling for a guaranteed income? Because they’re such philanthropists? It’s because they don’t want the same servant class becoming jacobins and coming for them.
Don’t worry about the middle class in California Buckethead. They’ll be fine. They’re all public sector employees.
We’ll either have the very poor or the elite. So true.
Did you also hear about the shortage of Used Cars and their prices
The plan is crystal clear. Destroy the middle class and import low wage compliant replacement workers and voters dependant on the Uniparty.
What so aggravating about Democrats is 1 year of Carter, 8 years of Clinton, 8 years of Obama and not any government spending resulted in enough green energy to completely replace fossil fuel.
Van Jones told Obama we needed a bridge energy, nuclear power plants, until we replaced fossil fuel with green energy. He was let go.
Now, green energy is still a long ways away from replacing fossil fuel.
And, Democrats are canceling fossil fuel projects.
Why do people vote these clowns into office?
Look at the second graph in the following article and notice how wind power went to ZERO on three days during the Texas power outages in February (2021). Then consider what would have happened to all those people if we were wholely reliant on green energy. Thousands would have frozen to death. Thank God we had gas power that could ramp way up to cover the needs of so many. (Note how gas power production quadrupled, solar power goes to zero every day for obvious reasons, even nuclear decreased because one of the four reactors went down due to a faulty sensor.)
Extreme winter weather is disrupting energy supply and demand, particularly in Texas – Today in Energy – U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)
Haven’t you heard of voter fraud?
How do you know “people vote for these clowns” and not a rigged vote counting machine votes for these clowns?
Agree there’s voter fraud but there are still too many dumb and/or indoctrinated people who do vote for the Dems. They are completely detached from the reality that they’re voting for people that will destroy them economically.
There are dumb and stupid people in every society. Just make sure they represent a low minority. They may be loud, but it is as far as it is allowed to go.
If you saw all the photos of the obese illegal immigrants with several children in tow, crossing our borders you might think somebody wants to mightily change our demographics and keep expanding the welfare state. The crime wave from criminals isn’t abating any time soon. It’s not such a “low minority”anymore.
I lived in California throughout the 1990s. Every few years that state legislature declared that 50% of cars in Calif. would be electric, and auto manufacturers would step up because they had to–the state had mandated so. Of course, it was a pipe dream. These people believe that their whim is sufficient to make their environmental agenda happen. How? Somehow, they don’t know. They just demand it and it will happen. Then they were confronted with the reality that what they wanted was not within the technologically possible. They just moved the deadline down a few years. I don’t remember when they finally gave up, but they had to because what they wanted was impossible. Even now a conversion to all electric vehicles is impossible. (I want a Tesla because I want to have that acceleration off the blocks, but it isn’t practical. I need a vehicle that can travel 1,000 miles on a give day.)
FAKE VOTES along with fake news, fake president, fake etc…
“Why do people vote these clowns into office?”
They are voted in by machines.
everything’s going just like obama planned. it’s a communist’s job to destroy the existing order.
Everything is going as Trump planned for the Communist Democrats and people becoming aware.
The Obama Communist are in panic and imploding all over the place; Inflation, voter fraud, fuel crisis, border crisis, Stock Market crashing, Pandemic exposure, economy, unemployment, failed businesses, war in Mid East, Deep State corruption being exposed, Crime increasing, etc.
No, you got it wrong, People in high places are looking in the mirror and seeing GITMO in their future. Naw you wouldn’t want to be any of them about now. Treason, sedition, coup, overthrow of the United States Constitution is not something you want on your resume. Too big to fall may work in some Countries, but not a Country predominately occupied by American Patriots.
They have another huge turd coming down the pipe soon. There are 19 million households that (in Dec 2020) were $10,000 behind on rent / mortgage payments. I suspect it is up to 15K by now. The rent forgiveness goes through July but some courts have already started ruling that it is unconstitutional. When this finally hits the fan the economy will be a total train wreck!
Since there is limited fuel available on the east coast, how long before trucks stop delivering produce from the west coast, and meat from the plains states.
Sure, there are vegetable growers and packing houses into the east, but can they meet the demand?
If i was a driver, I would turn down anything going east of Pennsylvania, or to the south east.
Why would I want to be stuck on the east coast with not enough fuel to get out of there.
Biden is so much better at being senile than president.
I just sold my 2020 Silverado duamax yesterday for $64000.
I purchased it 1.3.2020 and had driven it 20000 miles. Original sticker was $62800. I paid, $58000 with rebates and GM card points. Riddle me that batman
You are a genius.
Wish the Fed good luck on keeping the discount rate a .25%, with $10 trillion pumped into the economy. They will have to raise short term interest rates sooner, rather than later, or inflation will continue to increase.
Does DC have plans to increase the amount on a food stamp card? The least productive in society, by choice, is always the first class the corrupt and incompetent in DC cater to. Welfare and EBT’ers will be hit HARD. There’s so much fraud in those areas, maybe it’s time that getting on welfare is not so desirable.
THE LEFT WANT A CIVIL WAR… THEIR GOING TO BE SURPRISED…
they don’t want a civil war. they want something for nothing. when the price starts getting paid, they cave quicker than a knats hic-up.
Just as in Nazi Germany, the intelligentsia and proletariat form an unholy alliance against the bourgeoisie — i.e., middle class…
For the average American family with two cars,driven 12k miles a year (everyone uses this figure) and gas prices going up a $1/gallon at avg of 20 mpg, the additional cost is $1200/yr or $100/month. Not to mention burden of transportation costs for everyday household items causing increases.
We’re you better off before Biden?