Peter, you are just the BEST! We consistently get the most complete and accurate picture of the economy from your data and analysis, so thank you once again!
I am also usually left with minor questions evoked from the data. For example, why should new car prices start going up after months of deflating? Is it because the big car companies…
Peter, you are just the BEST! We consistently get the most complete and accurate picture of the economy from your data and analysis, so thank you once again!
I am also usually left with minor questions evoked from the data. For example, why should new car prices start going up after months of deflating? Is it because the big car companies have been losing billions from making EVs that nobody wants, and so they are desperately trying to make profits elsewhere? Do they figure that for the declining sector of the populace that can still afford a new car a few extra bucks on the price tag won’t matter? I don’t expect you to know; the data just raises speculation in me.
And I see this more accurate picture of the economy as being helpful to Trump’s election chances. Nobody likes to be lied to, right? People can sense when a candidate like Harris is feeding them massaged data and, well, bullfeathers. It’s annoying to feel like someone is trying to con you. Annoyed people don’t feel inclined to vote for the con artist. Trump wins!
Demand curves shift all the time. And keep in mind that new car prices rising after deflating for an extended period merely means the market bottom has been reached.
In the case of energy we probably have not seen the market bottom yet (and this has major implications for global energy producers as well).
And if you saw my note about John Ginsburg's question about COLA for SSI, that's an excellent real world example of the distortion effect inflation has on consumer behavior, which is an argument I have been making for years.
Yes! And the distortion effect is hugely important. It’s one of the reasons that command economies cannot work, and one of the reasons that most economic forecasts end up being wrong, and wrong in unexpected ways.
I should clarify - I’m referring to ‘distortion’ in the largest possible macroeconomic picture. When government uses certain data (or rates, or whatever), and bases calculations on that, the results of which affect other assumptions or calculations, well, it just snowballs. You end up with predictions that don’t materialize as planned, because the beginning metric of the chain of calculations was the wrong version to use.
Peter, you are just the BEST! We consistently get the most complete and accurate picture of the economy from your data and analysis, so thank you once again!
I am also usually left with minor questions evoked from the data. For example, why should new car prices start going up after months of deflating? Is it because the big car companies have been losing billions from making EVs that nobody wants, and so they are desperately trying to make profits elsewhere? Do they figure that for the declining sector of the populace that can still afford a new car a few extra bucks on the price tag won’t matter? I don’t expect you to know; the data just raises speculation in me.
And I see this more accurate picture of the economy as being helpful to Trump’s election chances. Nobody likes to be lied to, right? People can sense when a candidate like Harris is feeding them massaged data and, well, bullfeathers. It’s annoying to feel like someone is trying to con you. Annoyed people don’t feel inclined to vote for the con artist. Trump wins!
Demand curves shift all the time. And keep in mind that new car prices rising after deflating for an extended period merely means the market bottom has been reached.
In the case of energy we probably have not seen the market bottom yet (and this has major implications for global energy producers as well).
And if you saw my note about John Ginsburg's question about COLA for SSI, that's an excellent real world example of the distortion effect inflation has on consumer behavior, which is an argument I have been making for years.
Yes! And the distortion effect is hugely important. It’s one of the reasons that command economies cannot work, and one of the reasons that most economic forecasts end up being wrong, and wrong in unexpected ways.
I should clarify - I’m referring to ‘distortion’ in the largest possible macroeconomic picture. When government uses certain data (or rates, or whatever), and bases calculations on that, the results of which affect other assumptions or calculations, well, it just snowballs. You end up with predictions that don’t materialize as planned, because the beginning metric of the chain of calculations was the wrong version to use.