The current global financial disaster is going to make the 1970’s inflation fiasco look like a walk in the park……
Inflation is making headlines all over the country, but the mainstream media is not being honest about the true severity of the crisis. We are being told that the official rate of inflation is still in single digits, but what we aren’t being told is that the way inflation is calculated has changed dramatically over the years.
In fact, according to Forbes “the government has changed the way it calculates inflation more than 20 times” over the past 30 years. \
But even with the highly modified formula that they are now using, the rate of inflation still rose at the fastest pace in almost 13 years last month…
The consumer price index, which represents a basket including food, energy, groceries, housing costs and sales across a spectrum of goods, rose 5% from a year earlier. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting a gain of 4.7%. The reading represented the biggest CPI gain since the 5.3% increase in August 2008, just before the financial crisis sent the U.S. spiraling into the worst recession since the Great Depression.
We all remember what happened in the months following August 2008.
Hopefully we will not have a repeat of that.
Of course the truth is that consumer prices are not just rising at a 5 percent rate in the United States right now.
According to John Williams of shadowstats.com, if the rate of inflation was still calculated the way that it was back in 1990, it would be above 8 percent right now.
And if the rate of inflation was still calculated the way that it was back in 1980, it would currently be sitting at about 13 percent.
But 5 percent inflation sure sounds a whole lot better than 13 percent, doesn’t it?
One thing that I am keeping a very close eye on is food inflation. Earlier today, one CBS affiliate used the term “sticker shock” to describe what consumers are now experiencing at the grocery store…
You may have noticed a significant jump in prices at the grocery store.
More and more grocery shoppers are experiencing sticker shock every day. The price of food — especially meat, fruit and vegetables — is going up.
If prices were increasing at just a 5 percent annual rate, that wouldn’t be a big deal.
Sadly, the reality is much worse than that, and that is especially true for meat prices.
According to one deli owner, the true rate of inflation for meat prices is “probably closer” to 20 or 30 percent…
Jeff Cohen, a deli owner and meat wholesaler, said those factors are making the price of meat out of control. “They said on national news it’s 10 percent. But that’s not true. it’s probably closer 20, 30 percent,” Cohen said.
We will continue to get a lot of happy talk from the Biden administration and from the Federal Reserve, but this is becoming a real national crisis.
When CBS News interviewed one shopper in Maryland, she said that she is now spending about twice as much on groceries as she did before…
Abby Walter said she started noticing her grocery bill creeping up earlier this year. Prior to January, the Maryland resident had typically spent about $75 a week on groceries. Now her bill is averaging about $150 or even more.
I still remember when I could get an entire shopping cart of food for just $25 dollars.
Now if I can get an entire cart of food for less than $200 dollars, I consider that to be a monumental achievement.
It is complete and utter insanity.
But our politicians in Washington don’t seem to care. They are going to continue to borrow and spend giant mountains of money that we do not have, and the Federal Reserve is going to continue to shovel enormous gobs of cash into the financial system.
So more inflation is on the way, and the standard of living for most Americans is going to continue to go down.