Or, "The Fed can't get inflation up to 2%".. Hogwash! We've had waaaay higher than 2% inflation for a long time! "...Consider that in 1985 it took 30 weeks at the median wage to pay for big fixed costs like housing, health care, a car, and education; fast forward to today when it takes a mathematically impossible 53 weeks of a 52-week year to buy those things...." https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/d...es-53-weeks-median-wages-year-pay-basic-needs
While the mathematics check out the economics don't. At least outside of the argument for inflation which of course is at least as valid considering real wages haven't moved for the majority of people since 1970 [1]. The point most of these articles miss is that the quality of life improvements have resulted in more expensive consumer good. Better quality control, safer cars, more well built houses, etc all add to the cost of doing business. We can rightfully blame regulation for at least some of this but the drum beat of progress would march on regardless. You could take this as dismissive but the actual solution is to make it tractible either through deregulation, tax breaks, or innovation to sell lower quality or less "luxury" consumer goods capable of being purchased by the masses. You could use hand tools as a microcosm for this. Do you really need to purchase SnapOn or will a harbor freight 10 dollar special do? Right now in many sectors we only have SnapOns to choose from when really people need harbor freights. [1] https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R45090.pdf
Of course there is inflation. I see it every time I buy anything at the store. Prices keep going up and up.
I've moved. For many years I've had a bad shopping habit. Instead of buying weeks worth of groceries I go to the local Italian market and buy one days worth of groceries, a couple of meals. I do this everyday. On land. On the boat I do shop up and fill the galley but at home I have a very different style. I guess its a city thing. There is no little Italian market here on the Treasure Coast. There are no bodegas lol. So I tried to shop like most other folks. At the local Publix (lol l love the place) I bought about $100.00 worth of groceries and it simply disappeared into my enormous kitchen and basically looked like there wasn't much food. So I went back to Publix and spent another $100.00 and it too disappeared into my kitchen looking like there was next to no food. So I rocked up today and spent $250.00 at Publix and finally it looked like a properly stocked kitchen. It literally took 450.00 worth of groceries to make the kitchen look victualed properly. You cannot tell me there is no inflation... I noticed that right about the time the Fed stopped regulating the economy via modulation of interest rates that government reporting of inflation had become profoundly dishonest. Around 2004 was the last time I heard a inflation number that made any sense. Since then its been suppressed, obfuscated, misreported and literally ignored. The government decided to stop telling the population how much inflation exists. I despise lies and I loathe liars. Wish I could have a short chat with President Trump. He alone could reform the Fed and the OMB and restore some sanity. You cannot react properly if you do not have the information necessary.