US Price Inflation Year-to-Year Prediction - Reset after Mid-Term - December 2022 Title Update

Excluding the especially volatile food and energy categories, so-called core prices rose 5.2% in March from a year earlier. That was slightly below the 5.3% year-over-year increase in February, and it was the first time that 12-month figure has declined since February 2021, before the inflation spike began. And on a month-to-month basis, core prices rose 0.3% from February to March, the same as from January to February. Previously, it had risen by a half-point for four straight months.

Q1 earnings season continues in earnest and of the 368 S&P 500 companies that have reported thus far, roughly 67% have topped sales expectations and about 79% have bested profit projections, per data compiled by Bloomberg. So far, y/y sales growth is tracking to be up 14.1%, and earnings growth is on track to be 5.9% higher.

Axios wrote:The jobs machine is still revving rapidly.

Employers added 428,000 positions in April, and the unemployment rate remains just a smidgeon above its five-decade low, according to new jobs data.

Between the lines: Tiny cracks are showing, suggesting the jobs boom could fade as this year progresses.

Why it matters: One huge question for the economy in 2022 is how the labor market will hold up as the Federal Reserve shifts toward tighter money, causing higher interest rates and higher recession risk.

So far so good, even as the breakneck job market of the winter could be giving way to something more measured.

By the numbers: Average hourly earnings rose 0.3% in April and are up 5.5% over the past year. The annual rate edged down from its March level, and over the last three months, wages rose 0.9%. That's the lowest three-month reading in a year.

The good bad news: Employers are not having to pay up quite as aggressively to find workers, which should lower inflation pressures.

So far, inflation isn't being caused by higher wages. The Fed wants to keep it that way.
What they're saying: "The underlying inflation trend may be lower than I thought and coming down," tweeted Harvard economist Jason Furman.

The details: While the unemployment rate was stable at 3.6%, the details underneath that number worsened a bit.

The proportion of working-age people who have a job or want one fell by 0.2 percentage points to 62.2%, and the number of people not in the labor force rose by 478,000.

Construction employment rose by a mere 2,000 jobs in April, which again could be a statistical fluke — or could be the canary in the coal mine suggesting that higher interest rates are starting to bite in building industries.

The bottom line: The job market remains in excellent shape for now; indeed, Fed chair Jerome Powell has called it "tight to an unhealthy level." If it softens in the months ahead, he won't be upset.

Consumer prices jumped 8.3% last month from 12 months earlier, the Labor Department said Wednesday. That was below the 8.5% year-over-year surge in March, which was the highest rate since 1981. On a month-to-month basis, prices rose 0.3% from March to April, a still-elevated rate but the smallest increase in eight months.

RQA wrote:The day AFTER Xiden's big inflation speech the April inflation rate comes in HIGHER than expected!

Joe is crushing it!    

Trapper Gus wrote:

RQA wrote:The day AFTER Xiden's big inflation speech the April inflation rate comes in HIGHER than expected!

Joe is crushing it!    

The world of Economics is beginning to realize what TR knew over 100 years ago. Allowing too few people in the private sector to be in control of too much of the economy is a really bad idea. Reagan is the one who changed the US from TR's ideas back to the Robber Baron's in charge. The cause of this inflation is the greed of the 1%.

Biden did what he could for the 99% but he, and very few do, didn't realize how entrenched the power to force slave wages onto the 99% has become.

Unequal Power How the assumption of equal bargaining power in the workplace undermines freedom, fairness, and democracy

RQA wrote:

Trapper Gus wrote:

The world of Economics is beginning to realize what TR knew over 100 years ago. Allowing too few people in the private sector to be in control of too much of the economy is a really bad idea. Reagan is the one who changed the US from TR's ideas back to the Robber Baron's in charge. The cause of this inflation is the greed of the 1%.

Biden did what he could for the 99% but he, and very few do, didn't realize how entrenched the power to force slave wages onto the 99% has become.

Unequal Power How the assumption of equal bargaining power in the workplace undermines freedom, fairness, and democracy

Like Joe, you refuse to accept blame for harming America.

RQA wrote:

Trapper Gus wrote:

The world of Economics is beginning to realize what TR knew over 100 years ago. Allowing too few people in the private sector to be in control of too much of the economy is a really bad idea. Reagan is the one who changed the US from TR's ideas back to the Robber Baron's in charge. The cause of this inflation is the greed of the 1%.

Biden did what he could for the 99% but he, and very few do, didn't realize how entrenched the power to force slave wages onto the 99% has become.

Unequal Power How the assumption of equal bargaining power in the workplace undermines freedom, fairness, and democracy

Like Joe, you refuse to accept blame for harming America.

Trapper Gus wrote:

RQA wrote:

Like Joe, you refuse to accept blame for harming America.

I assign the blame where it logically falls. On Reagan & the Republicans who illogically cut the taxes on the wealthy and corporations, changed the laws to allow single corporations to control more than 3% of the market and changed the stock laws to allow total gaming of stock prices via stock buy backs.

Our economy today is the result of these changes. The inflation today is because of a lack of meaningful competition between corporations while labor has no power to demand the wages for the value it creates.

Bredo Morstoel wrote:

Trapper Gus wrote:

I assign the blame where it logically falls.  On Reagan & the Republicans who illogically cut the taxes on the wealthy and corporations, changed the laws to allow single corporations to control more than 3% of the market and changed the stock laws to allow total gaming of stock prices via stock buy backs.

Our economy today is the result of these changes.  The inflation today is because of a lack of meaningful competition between corporations while labor has no power to demand the wages for the value it creates.

Ahem...

On January 1, 1994, Preident Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement into law.  Throughout his first year in office, Clinton consistently supported ratification of the treaty by the U.S. Senate. Clinton and most of his allies in the Democratic Leadership Committee strongly supported free trade measures.

PennSpartan wrote:

RQA wrote:

Like Joe, you refuse to accept blame for harming America.

Harming America? Has inflation killed anyone? Trumpvirus has killed a million Americans so far. I remember well his jokes and laughter regarding “Kung Flu”.

Trapper Gus wrote:

RQA wrote:

Like Joe, you refuse to accept blame for harming America.

I assign the blame where it logically falls. On Reagan

RQA wrote:

PennSpartan wrote:
Harming America? Has inflation killed anyone? Trumpvirus has killed a million Americans so far. I remember well his jokes and laughter regarding “Kung Flu”.

It's the Xidenvirus now. Joe said he would end COVID yet more people have died and continue to die of Covid under Xiden than Trump.

Sorry, that's the science.

PennSpartan wrote:
Sorry, but the science says Trump let it into the country.

RQA wrote:

PennSpartan wrote:
Sorry, but the science says Trump let it into the country.  

Nope, that's not the science.

But remember when Xiden said he would stop COVID?  

RQA wrote:

Trapper Gus wrote:

I assign the blame where it logically falls.  On Reagan

So Trapper blames an inflation rate of 8% in April 2022 on a guy who died almost 20 years ago.

Trapper also thinks Dodge owns Jeep..................

RQA wrote:

PennSpartan wrote:
Harming America? Has inflation killed anyone? Trumpvirus has killed a million Americans so far. I remember well his jokes and laughter regarding “Kung Flu”.

It's the Xidenvirus now. Joe said he would end COVID yet more people have died and continue to die of Covid under Xiden than Trump.

Sorry, that's the science.

MiamiSpartan wrote:

RQA wrote:
It's the Xidenvirus now.   Joe said he would end COVID yet more people have died and continue to die of Covid under Xiden than Trump.

Sorry, that's the science.  

Thats like blaming the car manufacturers for the people who die in car wrecks because they weren't wearing their seat belt.

The VAST majority of those that have died from Covid under Biden are dead because they chose to put their lives at risk over politically based lies.  Cry me a fucking river.

Trapper Gus wrote:

RQA wrote:

So Trapper blames an inflation rate of 8% in April 2022 on a guy who died almost 20 years ago.

Trapper also thinks Dodge owns Jeep..................

Gaslighting again, why do you do that?

Reagan's changes to the law, which were almost 40 years ago, are causing over 50% of the current inflation.

By lowering tax rates he allowed the wealthy to gain a greater share of the wealthy.  Wealth is power, which they use to gain control of the economy using the second change, the change in the anti-trust law that allows corporations to own as much of a given market as they can, which means there is no price competition, and as we see now, they raise prices to whatever they want.

Saudi Arabia and Russia fueled inflation, but Biden’s relief plan probably didn’t, and there are hopeful signs even with high prices likely to continue into 2023.
What about the view, prevalent in some economic circles, that Milton Friedman finally got it right and the current inflation is a case of too much money chasing too few goods? Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers is a notable supporter of this explanation, placing much of the blame for “too much money” on the Biden pandemic relief program, passed in early 2021.

That case is doubtful at best. After the pandemic lockdowns, demand began to recover in June 2020, with support from the first tranche of pandemic relief in April 2020. That stimulus may have contributed modestly to an uptick in inflation in early 2021, but that was a small cost to prevent a protracted deep recession. Inflation indeed began to take off in March 2021—along with energy prices—but given the long lag between fiscal policy changes and changes in prices, Biden’s American Rescue Plan passed in March 2021 could not have been responsible for that. That program, along with the bipartisan infrastructure bill and deft vaccine distribution, did fuel the extraordinary job gains of the last 15 months. In that way, the Biden relief may have helped sustain the early 2022 uptick in inflation that, again, was driven much more by energy prices.

Trapper Gus wrote:Saudi Arabia and Russia fueled inflation,

RQA wrote:

Trapper Gus wrote:Saudi Arabia and Russia fueled inflation,

So in addition to Reagan being the cause to today's inflation it is also being caused by Saudi Arabia and Russia.

And in other news from Trapper......Dodge owns Jeep!

Bredo Morstoel wrote:As a great man once said, "If you're explaining, you're losing."

The average American isn't smart enough/doesn't care about Trapper's nuances.  They're just going to know that shit's expensive and Biden was at the reigns when it happened.

Trapper Gus wrote:

Bredo Morstoel wrote:As a great man once said, "If you're explaining, you're losing."

The average American isn't smart enough/doesn't care about Trapper's nuances. They're just going to know that shit's expensive and Biden was at the reigns when it happened.

I am aware that this is a long term struggle to educate people as to what needs to be done.

A good start would be to rework antitrust laws in the US along with outlawing stock buy backs (which cause poor management of corporations).

Bredo Morstoel wrote:

Trapper Gus wrote:

I am aware that this is a long term struggle to educate people as to what needs to be done.

A good start would be to rework antitrust laws in the US along with outlawing stock buy backs (which cause poor management of corporations).

How do stock buy backs cause poor management?

I tend to blame the quarterly performance cycles more than anything else.  People expect huge numbers ever 90 days.  It's crazy.

Trapper Gus wrote:

Bredo Morstoel wrote:

How do stock buy backs cause poor management?

I tend to blame the quarterly performance cycles more than anything else. People expect huge numbers ever 90 days. It's crazy.

My definition of poor management is one which uses stock buybacks to keep stockholders happy, which most do today. Instead of totally focusing how to run the business to increase earning corporations today have the option of buying back stock to keep their P/E growing. The Trump corporate tax cuts gave them a windfall to do just that, which they did, instead of using it as an investment in organic growth. Furthermore, as that play was petering out Trump strongarmed the Fed into ending its balance sheet drawdown and the Fed then continued QE which allowed corporations to borrow cheaply via bonds and continue this stock buyback scam.

So basically instead of being required to figger out how to manage the business so earnings grow stock buybacks are a get out of jail free option for corporate management.

Bredo Morstoel wrote:

Trapper Gus wrote:

My definition of poor management is one which uses stock buybacks to keep stockholders happy, which most do today.  Instead of totally focusing how to run the business to increase earning corporations today have the option of buying back stock to keep their P/E growing.  The Trump corporate tax cuts gave them a windfall to do just that, which they did, instead of using it as an investment in organic growth.   Furthermore, as that play was petering out Trump strongarmed the Fed into ending its balance sheet drawdown and the Fed then continued QE which allowed corporations to borrow cheaply via bonds and continue this stock buyback scam.

So basically instead of being required to figger out how to manage the business so earnings grow stock buybacks are a get out of jail free option for corporate management.

I guess I see your point, but the company still needs the liquidity to be able to enact the buy back.  It's a get out of jail free card only if you've done some good things previously.

A monopoly in the market

The baby formula market exists as a shared monopoly, with only a few manufacturers controlling nearly all supply.

Abbott had an approximately 43% market share a decade ago, according to a USDA report from 2011 — the most recent number available. Little has changed since then. The company still maintains exclusive provider contracts in many states with WIC, the USDA’s supplemental nutrition program for low-income families, which makes up nearly half of formula sales nationwide. A few other manufacturers, including Mead-Johnson and Nestlé, also have WIC contracts and control the rest of the market.