I know inflation is no big deal because the fed just cut rates and what that means is that Ben has disregarded inflation as a problem.
Easy! CPI will now be ex-autos, ex-mortgage payment, ex-food, ex-healthcare, etc. You never had it so good!:eek: :eek: :eek:
Housing prices doubled in 5 years but inflation is real tame? Makes you wonder what they have done to the weighting of real estate when they calculate CPI. Speaking of which, I cant seem to find the calculation anywhere, only the fact that it contains a bunch of stuff and that the stuff is weighted. Anyone have a link to the actual formula?
There are some very humorous posts here , but i'm not laughing. This is serious stuff. We can expect the US market to rise, for awhile at least, and more or less keep pace with inflation, whether there will be any real gains is another matter. We have to think about parking cash in another currency. About concentrating on stocks of foreign companies in stable countries with close to balanced budgets or surpluses (are there any?) or in US companies with a large export or foreign components. Commodities and hard assets are, of course, made more attractive by rampant inflation. I wonder how much, if any, the current, world-wide disdain for US policies hurts exports? We are considered to be the most dangerous nation, and are the least liked. If you're an Indian, African, South American, Asian, Australian or European, and given a choice, will you be buying Komatsu or Cat, Airbus or Boeing? Most of us in these forums have some understanding of financial markets and the monetary side of the economy, and can take measures to reasonably protect ourselves. Those with heavy debt at low fixed interest rates will benefit. But the average Sally or Joe, who may have loads of debt, but not at low fixed rates, and whose wages will surely lag, will probably get hosed and won't even understand what hit them.
But there is no rampant inflation and hi-tech high paying companies like google are hiring americans.