from Liberty and Finance
Americans Shop for Halloween Costumes at Thrift Stores as Inflation Bites Into Budgets
by Amy Furr
Breitbart.com
Inflation is pushing many families to find cheaper options for Halloween costumes this year in the Biden-Harris economy.
A Goodwill shopper in the Nashville, Tennessee, area told WSVM it is important for families to consider essentials over things such as costumes, the outlet reported on Wednesday.
“There’s no sense in us parents stressing, getting the kids the best of the top, when they would be okay with something lower, and you don’t have to worry about what to feed your child,” Tiffany Hunt said.
Families in Las Vegas are also feeling the pinch when it comes to high prices. They too are looking to make the holiday season more affordable by shopping for Halloween costumes at thrift stores, KTNV reported October 14.
Inflation Doesn’t Want to Cooperate: PCE Price Indices for Core, Core Services, and Durable Goods Worsen Further MoM
by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street
The YoY “core” PCE price index, the Fed’s yardstick for its 2% target, rose 2.65%, with no progress over the past 5 months. But energy prices plunged.
The “core” PCE price index, the Fed’s primary yardstick for its 2% inflation target, rose by 3.1% annualized in September from August (not annualized, +0.254%), the biggest month-to-month increase since April. And August was revised higher (blue in the chart below). This month-to-month acceleration was driven by:
Four Charts Examining Grocery Inflation
While high grocery prices have remained a hot topic among consumers and politicians, the annual rate of food-at-home prices has held steady at about 1%.
by Catherine Douglas Moran
Grocery Dive
Food prices have remained a hot topic among consumers and politicians — yet grocery inflation has decelerated in recent months, according to government data.
Grocery inflation reached a multi-decade high during the pandemic with a 13.5% year-over-year increase in August 2022 after steadily rising each month after May 2021. Two years later, the food-at-home rate has plummeted and now hovers close to where it was prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since December, the annual rate of food-at-home prices has held steady at about 1%. In September, the rate came in at 1.3%, according to Consumer Price Index data by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Inflation Gauge Closely Watched by the Fed Falls to Lowest Level Since Early 2021
As a presidential race profoundly shaped by Americans’ frustration with high prices nears its end, the government said Thursday that an inflation gauge closely watched by the Federal Reserve has dropped to near pre-pandemic levels
by Christopher Rugaber
ABC News
WASHINGTON — As a presidential race profoundly shaped by Americans’ frustration with high prices nears its end, the government said Thursday that an inflation gauge closely watched by the Federal Reserve has dropped to near pre-pandemic levels.
The Commerce Department reported that prices rose just 2.1% in September from a year earlier, down from a 2.3% rise in August. That is barely above the Fed’s 2% inflation target and in line with readings in 2018, well before prices began surging after the pandemic recession.
Yet some signs of inflation pressures remained. Excluding volatile food and energy costs, so-called core prices rose 2.7% in September from a year earlier for the third straight month. On a monthly basis, core prices rose 0.3% from August to September, up from 0.2% from July to August. The increase in the core rate is higher than the Fed would prefer.
Why Inflation in One Battleground State Could Sway the Election
by Aimee Picchi
CBS News
In a tight presidential race in which Americans cite the state of the economy as the most important issue, one aspect of the country’s performance could prove decisive: How voters in battleground states currently perceive inflation.
Americans rank the economy and inflation as their top two issues in the November 5 election, according to CBS News and other polls. But perhaps even more important than current price levels is how voters in key states interpret their experience with inflation, according to Bernard Yaros, lead economist at Oxford Economics.
All eyes on Pennsylvania
Yaros notes that voters’ views on inflation are particularly important in Pennsylvania, a state experts say could be a tipping point in the contest between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
You Know It’s Bad When 3.1% is Too Expensive
by James Hickman
Schiff Sovereign
The year was 1991. The shoulder pad fashion craze of the 1980s was finally coming to an end, and Kurt Cobain’s “grunge” look was in.
The Silence of the Lambs hit the theaters and swept the Academy Awards that season (with a nice chianti and some fava beans)— Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Picture.
The World Wide Web became accessible to the public that year.
The Berlin Wall was a distant memory, and the Soviet Union was dissolving in front of the world’s eyes. Gorbachev resigned on Christmas Day, and the Soviet flag was lowered over the Kremlin for the last time.
Overnight America became THE dominant, unchallenged global superpower.
The Price of Garbage is Up 18.5% Under Biden-Harris
by John Carney
Breitbart.com
The prices Americans pay for garbage collection have jumped 18.5 percent since Joe Biden and Kamala Harris entered the White House, according to data from the U.S. Department of Labor.
The consumer price index for water, sewage, and garbage collection was up 4.75 percent in September compared with one year earlier. Trash collection inflation peaked at a year-over-year rate of 5.8 percent in June of last year.
The Harris campaign was scrambling on Wednesday after Biden called Trump’s supporters “garbage” in an interview. Biden has said he only meant to refer to some of Trump’s supporters.
“The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters,” Biden said.
Understanding the Roots of Inflation
The causes of inflation are philosophical.
by Dan Schwartz
New Ideal – Ayn Rand Institute
With the recent high rates of inflation, Americans can hardly ignore the devastating effects of their lost purchasing power. Prices of food, gas, and housing are up, and retirement accounts are down. Meanwhile, as Ayn Rand said under similar circumstances fifty years ago, our leaders are “chanting that they want to help” while “pouring paper refuse on the flames.” Her lecture, delivered at the Ford Hall Forum in 1974 (when the inflation rate was 11 percent), was titled “Egalitarianism and Inflation.” She later described it as presenting “a metaphysical approach to economics: the cause, the mechanism, and the moral meaning of inflation.”
Rand’s profound analysis of inflation is as relevant today as it was then. Rand wants us to understand why mankind never seems to learn its lesson: economics alone, without philosophy, is insufficient. In this article she draws a philosophical lesson with epistemological and moral dimensions.
The New Question is What to Do When Inflation Seems in Hand
by Erik Sherman
Forbes
The advance estimate of gross domestic product — call it the economy for short —in the third quarter that ended September 30 was a 2.8% annualized real GDP. A slight slowdown from the second quarter’s 3.0% is still growth. As for inflation, it may well hit 2.0% when the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index comes out tomorrow, as Goldman Sachs projected earlier in October.
Good news if accurate, and even if not, given the rate at which inflation has been dropping, hitting 2% should be in the immediate future if not tomorrow. With growth continued and the labor market where it seems to be, this seems like the definition of a so-called soft landing.
GDP: U.S. Economy Grows at Slower-Than-Expected Pace in Third Quarter as Inflation Falls
by Josh Schafer
Yahoo! Finance
The US economy grew at a slightly less rapid pace than economists had expected in the third quarter.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis’s advance estimate of third quarter US gross domestic product (GDP) showed the economy grew at an annualized pace of 2.8% during the period, below the 2.9% growth expected by economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The reading came in lower than the 3% growth in the second quarter.
While slightly below expectations, several economists noted the third quarter GDP print reflected strong economic growth. Capital Economics chief North America economist Paul Ashworth noted the report shows an economy growing at a solid pace.