Consumer Confidence Falls
U.S. consumer sentiment deteriorated unexpectedly in early May as Americans grew increasingly concerned about rising prices. The University of Michigan’s preliminary sentiment index fell to a three-month low of 82.8 in May from 88.3 the prior month, data released Friday showed. The figure was well below even the most pessimistic estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists.
Consumers said they expect a 4.6% increase in inflation over the next year, the highest reading a decade, while 43% of the survey’s respondents said prices could rise by at least 5%. As a result, more consumers expected inflation to outpace income growth, representing a risk to the spending that makes up two-thirds of the economy.
17 comments:
More trump news......his promise to eliminate the deficit failed with a record trillion dollar deficit, a depression and millions of lost jobs....Lil Schitty tries a new thread to make him feel like a man.......BWAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!
I have been reading about this for several days.
Some economists say that increasing the minimum wage, will balance out the cost of inflation.
If they work together towards the infrastructure plan, the higher average income disparity will decrease, and letting the middle class get the economy growing at a record pace and the inflation will start slowing down instead of going up during the Jimmy Carter administration.
The biggest problem might be the middle east clashes.
As a result, more consumers expected inflation to outpace income growth, representing a risk to the spending that makes up two-thirds of the economy.
Doubling the minimum wage is a almost 100% so the average person will have more money than before.
If we take the national debt out of the conversation. Trump set an all time record high national debt.
At least your not spreading false information about the President.
Since I cleaned your ass today
IDF, Destroyed a Hammas building.
Biden attacks Israel.
Roger carries water that Press is under attack.
What fucking kind of stupid typed this?
😂Some economists say that increasing the minimum wage, will balance out the cost of inflation.🤣
PAUL KRUGMAN
What Do Used Car Prices Say About Biden’s Agenda?
So, should President Biden scrap his economic agenda because Americans are rushing to buy used cars?
OK, I’m being a bit snarky here, but only a bit. That’s pretty much what economists trying to draw big conclusions based on Wednesday’s inflation report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics are saying.
It’s true that while almost everyone was expecting a spike in consumer prices, the actual spike was bigger than expected. The one-year inflation rate went above 4 percent, surpassing its previous recent peak, in 2011.
It’s not silly to ask whether unexpectedly high inflation means that the economy has less room to run than both the Biden administration and the Federal Reserve have been assuming; that could be true, and if it were, Biden’s spending plans might be excessive and the Fed might need to consider raising interest rates sooner rather than later.
But neither the details of that report nor recent history support those concerns; they suggest, on the contrary, that policymakers should keep their cool. This doesn’t look at all like 1970s stagflation redux; it looks like a temporary blip, reflecting transitory disruptions as the economy struggles to recover from pandemic disruptions. And history tells us that it’s a very bad idea for policymakers to panic in the face of such a blip.
To see why, let’s revisit what happened in 2011, the last time we saw this kind of inflation blip.
There was a surge in consumer prices in late 2010 and into 2011, driven mainly by rising prices of oil and other raw materials as the world recovered from the 2008 financial crisis. Consumer price inflation hit 3.8 percent, just a bit below the latest reading.
And inflation hawks went wild. Representative Paul Ryan (remember him?) grilled Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman, over his easy-money policies, intoning, “There is nothing more insidious that a country can do to its citizens than debase its currency.”
Bernanke, however, refused to be rattled. The Fed stayed focused on “core” inflation, a measure that excludes volatile food and energy prices and that it (rightly) considers a better gauge of underlying inflation than the headline number. And the Fed’s cool head was vindicated: Inflation quickly subsided, and the dollar was not debased.
Policymakers elsewhere weren’t so levelheaded. Like the United States, the euro area saw a spike in headline consumer prices but not in core inflation. But the European Central Bank panicked; it raised interest rates despite very high unemployment, and in so doing worsened the continent’s burgeoning debt crisis.
The lessons of 2011 are twofold. First, you shouldn’t have a hair-trigger reaction to short-term fluctuations in inflation. Second, when you do see a bump in prices, look at the details: Does it look like a rise in underlying inflation, or does it look like a blip driven by temporary factors?
Which brings us to last month’s price rise. Does it look like something to worry about? No, not really.
It’s true that focusing this time on the usual definition of core inflation, excluding food and energy, doesn’t change the story much. Over the past 12 months core inflation was 3 percent, not too far short of the headline number, and in the month of April alone core inflation was slightly higher than the overall inflation.
But a number of economists, myself included, have been arguing for a while that price changes over the course of the next few months will probably be bloated by temporary factors that conventional measures of core inflation won’t control for. A month ago I warned that “we’re going to have a weird recovery,” with an “unusual set of bottlenecks” causing “a lot of price blips outside food and energy.”
Sure enough, those April price numbers were driven to a large extent by peculiar factors obviously related to the economy’s restart. When people talk about underlying inflation, they rarely have the price of used cars in mind; yet a 10 percent monthly rise in used car prices — partly because people are ready to travel again, partly because a shortage of computer chips is crimping new-car production — accounted for a third of April’s inflation. There was also a 7.6 percent rise in the price of “lodging away from home,” as Americans resumed going places amid a waning pandemic.
And then there were “base effects”: A year ago many prices were depressed because much of the country was in lockdown, so that simply getting back to normal was bound to show up as a temporary rise in inflation. White House estimates that correct for these effects show considerably tamer inflation.
These arguments for discounting short-term inflation numbers aren’t after-the-fact excuses. I wrote about bottlenecks and blips a month ago; White House economists warned about misleading base effects around the same time. What we’re seeing is what we expected to see, just a bit more so.
None of this means that all is necessarily well with the Biden economic program. Maybe it will indeed turn out to be excessively ambitious. But the latest numbers, on either inflation or jobs, tell us nothing at all about whether that’s true.
Roger I already taught you "wage push inflation".
This doesn’t look at all like 1970s stagflation redux; it looks like a temporary blip, reflecting transitory disruptions as the economy struggles to recover from pandemic disruptions. And history tells us that it’s a very bad idea for policymakers to panic in the face of such a blip.
I actually said that before
And you are wrong, both times.
The Federal Reserve will not raise rates, they can't.
Gasoline is up about a Dollar nation wide, Biden has zero plan for that.
Lumber costs are high and going higher, Biden has Zero plan for that.
Communist Overlords at YouTube Delete Viral Interview with Dr. Cole Revealing Covid Jabs Have Killed More People Than All Vaccines in the Last 20 Years Combined
Where is the $15 an hour US House Bill and the US Senate Bill?
Congresswoman Liz Cheney criticized Fox News in an appearance on the network on Thursday evening, saying that the right-wing cable news channel has a "particular obligation to make sure people know the election wasn't stolen." Cheney's remarks come after House Republicans voted to remove her from her leadership position on Wednesday.
"We all have an obligation, and I would say Fox News especially, especially Fox News, has a particular obligation to make sure people know the election wasn't stolen," Cheney said in an interview with Fox News anchor Bret Baier.
Cheney's ouster was a result of her frequent criticism of former President Donald Trump, and her condemnation of his repeated false claims that the election was stolen. She has also urged Republicans not to downplay the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6 by a violent mob of Trump supporters. Cheney was one of just 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach Mr. Trump on a charge of incitement of insurrection in January, and survived a previous attempt to expel her from her post in February.
In a tense exchange with Baier, Cheney argued that "we have to be in a position where we are being clear," and said that Fox News "needs to make sure" that they are debunking lies about the election.
"We need to make sure the American people recognize and understand that the election wasn't stolen, that we shouldn't perpetuate 'the big lie,' and that there's real danger," Cheney said. Baier replied that Fox News has reported "numerous times" that the election was not stolen.
Fox News is largely sympathetic to Mr. Trump. One of its flagship shows, "Fox & Friends," is a favorite of the former president, and anchor Sean Hannity is close to Mr. Trump.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy supported the effort to oust Cheney, and argued that there needed to be unity in Republican messaging ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, which could not be accomplished by criticizing the former president. McCarthy said last week that Republican members were concerned Cheney couldn't "carry out the message" of the conference.
But Cheney has been defiant in the face of opposition, saying Wednesday that she "will do everything I can to ensure the former president never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office."
"We cannot both embrace the 'big lie' and embrace the Constitution," she said, referencing Mr. Trump's false claims that the election was stolen. "And going forward, the nation needs it, the nation needs a strong Republican Party. The nation needs a party that is based upon fundamental principles of conservatism."
Yesterday in posts starting at 10:45AM and stretching through 1:55PM
I, JamesNewLeaf, walked all over Ch/Scottie's "Short Fuse Joe" thread MIScharacterization of the NYT article supposedly making Biden look incompetent, an article Ch lyingly called a "hit piece."
I constantly challenged him and others to give us extensive quotes proving his lies
AND HE NEVER DID.
NOR DID ANY OTHERS.
NO, NOT ONE SINGLE TIME DID CH OR OTHERS EVEN ATTEMPT TO DEFEND HIS LYING THREAD ARTICLE WITH GENUINE QUOTES.
Excuse me while I take a much deserved VICTORY DANCE.
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