Prices Rise in August, Surprising Economists Consumer prices rose 0.1 percent in August, dashing many economists’ hopes that lower energy prices would be enough to cool inflation, the Washington Post reported. The Consumer Price Index is up 8.3 percent over the last 12 months, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday. Food, housing, and medical care continue to see the largest price increases of the CPI contributors. While the inflation rate is a notch lower than it was in June and July, it is still higher than economists expected. "We thought we’d see inflation start to come down, and instead what we’ve seen is inflation really sort of entrenched," Betsey Stevenson, professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan and a former member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, told the Post. "If there’s no real progress, then that says, ‘does the Fed need to take stronger action?’ And if the Fed needs to take stronger action, what does that mean for the risk to peoples’ livelihoods?" While Americans battle 40-year high prices for everyday consumer products, the Biden administration continues to throw billions of dollars toward climate and green energy initiatives, and President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act will do little to actually reduce inflation, economists say. The 10.6 percent decline in gasoline prices was not enough to offset rising prices of other consumer goods. "The food index increased 11.4 percent over the last year, the largest 12-month increase since the period ending May 1979," the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. "This was a disappointing report," Laura Rosner-Warburton, senior economist at MacroPolicy Perspectives, told the Associated Press. "It raises the risk of higher interest rates and a hard landing for the economy." With midterm elections two months away, the economy is still the main issue on voters’ minds. Last month, A Pew Research Center poll showed that 77 percent of voters think the economy is "very important to their vote," ranking it several points higher than crime and abortion.
Prices have never come down ever since last year. It just increased less in one or two months when Biden relaxed the oil production quota. All you have to do is go grocery shopping and see we are dealing with double-digit increases in prices. I dunno what those economists were thinking. I guess they don't do any shopping. LOL
Even in Canada here, things are getting fucking insane. I was at Shoppers drug mart 2 weeks ago to get a Covid testing kit. A woman in front of me was very upset and asking the teller why the hell the prices of everything are even more so damn expensive every time she stops by. The worker responded that literally EVERY MORNING they have to go around the whole store and re-price everything even higher than they did the previous day. Literally this is a daily process now. Medical stuff is one of our highest inflating assets here. It's becoming more and more like Germany after the English & French raided her coffers after the first world war. Ok, so maybe we're not THAT bad just yet but the spiral has been noticed by everyone but the government apparently, who tries to tell us that everything is just a-OK and the jobs have NEVER BEEN BETTER! I guess thats' why we are still being taxed to death, we just have too much money from our low-unemployment statistics.