Real cost of inflation to average American household: An extra $175 a month

[Geee]

NY Post

Over the past couple of months, Allison, a wife and mother of a toddler and teenager in Chicago, says she’s been spending about $50 more each week on groceries to feed her family — and that’s at a discount supermarket chain, Aldi’s. 

“I used to spend $70 a week, but all of sudden this summer, I noticed that I couldn’t leave the store without spending at least $120,” said Allison, who works in education. 

Like millions of Americans whose income has not kept pace with inflation — up 5.3 percent in August compared with a year ago — Allison and her family are feeling the pinch of the rising cost of living and giving up some things just to make ends meet. 

Her family is scrimping now. “There are no more splurges like going to Home Depot to buy an extra plant or eating out,” Allison said. :snip:

[Geee]

The Post says: This is a tax you pay for Biden and Dems’ reckless spending

$175 a month. 

That’s the hidden tax the average American household is paying for the Biden economy. 

Some of this is indeed “transitory,” as Federal Reserve officials like to say. The COVID-19 pandemic did a number on supply chains around the world. Workers in Taiwan couldn’t make semiconductors at home, for instance, and are now racing to catch up with worldwide demand. That demand drives up the prices of cars, electronics and more. 

But President Biden and Democrats have exacerbated the problem. They extended unemployment bonuses for months, keeping millions out of the workforce and flooding the economy with cash. Eight million are out of work, even as there are 10 million job openings. 

Just pay employees more, say the Twitterati. But when you’re a small business already squeezed by the rising costs of goods, taxes and ever-changing government COVID regulations, how can you possibly succeed? The only way is raising prices. It’s all become a feedback loop that hits your grocery bill. :snip:

[Geee]

Gas Prices Now Highest Since 2014 Amid Supply Concerns

 

Experts Say Prices At Grocery Stores Will Continue To Rise For Over A Year

[Geee]

Bidenflation: Prices Soar for Hamburgers, Bacon, Ribs, Chicken, Baby Food, and Peanut Butter

Putting food on the kitchen table got more challenging for American households in September, inflation data released Wednesday showed.

The price of food at home jumped 1.2 percent in September, a historically huge gain for a single month and three times the inflation rate recorded in August. Compared with a year ago, the price of food at home is up 4.6 percent, the Department of Labor’s Consumer Price Index indicates.

• Ground beef: + 10.6 percent.
• Steaks: +22.1 percent.
• Bacon: +19.3 percent.
• Pork roasts, ribs, steaks: +19.2 percent.
• Chickens: +17.1 percent.
• Fresh fish: +10.7 percent.
• Eggs: +12.6 percent.
• Peanut Butter: +6.2 percent.
• Apples: + 7.8 percent.
• Ham: +7 percent.
• Baby food: +4.4 percent.

[Valin]

Meanwhile across the Pacific our friends May be having some...issues

China: The Last Emperor Confronts Interesting Times

Oct. 13 2021

In the last few days Evergrande, a major Chinese real estate firm, sitting on over $300 billion of bonds that are as toxic as they come, finally triggered the long-feared financial crisis. After missing its second bond repayment and unlikely to default on the next one, the value of bonds in the “high yield (junk bond)” sector collapsed, with bond prices plunging 75 percent in one day. The junk bond segment of the first to fail when a national economy suffers from too much bad (unlikely to be repaid) debt. China can avoid the bankruptcy of one real estate firm, but only for so long because several other similar firms are also close to default. The Chinese bond market is the second largest in the world, after the United States. With debt, quality (the ability of debtor to repay). The quality of Chinese debt is much lower than the U.S. or the West in general and the extent of this problem was deliberately hidden by debtors, especially local governments, for decades. This makes a Chinese real estate bubble far more dangerous than previous ones encountered in major economies.

Since the 1980s China has been a communist police state with a market economy. That means the government has surrendered total control of the economy, especially consumer spending. In the last year Chinese consumers have not responded to government calls for more consumer spending to help maintain economic growth. Too many Chinese do not believe the economy has really recovered from the 2020 covid19 recession, especially since entire cities are still being locked down to eliminate new outbreaks. Each of these brief halts in business activity ripples throughout the country, triggering a lot of unexpected shortages. This was compounded by a government program to reduce air pollution by cutting domestic coal production as well as coal imports. This triggered a growing number of electricity shortages, which disrupted business activity in many parts of the country and further disrupting the Chinese and economies that depend on Chinese exports. The government tried to ignore the implications of these policies but most Chinese did not and have been hoarding their resources, preferably nothing associated with the Chinese currency (the yuan) or the debt markets.

Another bit of bad news to escape government censors was the growing number of yuan-denominated bonds that are rapidly losing their value because international credit rating agencies are lowering ratings on such bonds because the ability of the issuer to pay interest and eventually the face value of the bond is declining......(Snip)

______________________________________

Related

 

[Valin]

On 10/7/2021 at 11:42 AM, Geee said:

Gas Prices Now Highest Since 2014 Amid Supply Concerns

 

Experts Say Prices At Grocery Stores Will Continue To Rise For Over A Year

 

Have No Fear!