Ranting And Raving -- Where Are My Meds? November 19, 2022

Updates

Later, 9:52 p.m. CT: WSJ confirms my feelings about the "misery index" and why there was no "Red Tide."

• inflation rate of 5% vs 8% not even noticeable by most voters;
• unemployment at record lows a much better "indicator" -- everyone has a job who wants a job
• an accurate misery index must overweight employment/unemployment; underweight inflation
• if employed, can mange inflation;
• if unemployed, inflation doesn't matter;
  

Original Post 

You have no idea how many e-mails I get from readers regarding the price of turkeys compared to the few replies I get regarding the Bakken. LOL. 

We have it pretty good in America when our chief concern seems to be the price of a Thanksgiving dinner.

While on the treadmill earlier today, I was thinking about that. I doubt any of my readers are affected by the price of:

• hotel rooms on a daily basis;
• used cars on a yearly basis;
• furniture, ever;
• appliances, ever;
• clothing, ever; or,
• recreation, on a daily basis.

And that's where the inflation is. See below.

Ex-energy.

Ex-groceries.

With regard to groceries, that annual increase can be managed relatively easy.

Transportation? My hunch: total annual transportation costs have decreased as a percent of disposable income for most of my readers over the past ten years.

And used cars? Talk about transitory:

****************************

Inflation

From September 13, 2022:

Whenever I see stories about high inflation here in the states, I keep coming back to this graph:

I was reminded of that when I came across this today (link: https://twitter.com/LanceRoberts/status/1549346241737379843):