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Consumer Prices Jumped. Should You Worry? That's Sparking A Heated Debate

Gee... talk of major tax increases are bringing on higher consumer prices.

What a catastrophically stupid thing to say. That does not even begin to make sense. Let whomever ordered you to run with that narrative know that that they have got their wires crossed.
 
WOW!

Keep the economy shuttered- Issue Checks to ALL- Freeze prices.

Sounds like a Socialist Nightmare come true.

In this case, it actually IS a Socialist nightmare Come true.
Well the Government isn't seizing the means of production, so it's not actually a "socialist nightmare".
 
You ain't seen nothing yet.

Trump's policies resulted in stable consumer prices with virtually non-existent inflation. Biden enters the picture and his handler's policies result in immediate price increases and an immediate rise in inflation. It will only get worse.

But seriously...you should know that government price controls is the absolute WORSE solution to this problem. Price controls only result in two things: Increased demand and decreased supply.

Any time the government puts their thumb on the supply/demand/price scale, bad things happen.
You KNOW the FED is going to artificially keep interest rates down.
 
Good grief. Broken record much?

We heard that BS after the 2008 recession, and it DIDN'T happen.

We aren't "printing $10 trillion." The federal government is borrowing it, at insanely low interest rates. And that doesn't cause inflation.

How many years in a row do y'all have to be wrong about this, before you accept that you're wrong?


anything that injects money into circulation without a corresponding increase in the value of our economy is going to cause inflation.

the last few years is the first time i think we have seen regular trillion dollar spending bills. that is a lot of money injection.
 
Did you purposefully, miss the point I made about "Stimulus Funds" being injected into the system, and suddenly prices increased. did you not understand that Infrastructure Projects use "consumer created goods". "Geez!!! You went so far as to try and interject Trump into the subject matter, but you can't understand the relations of Consumer prices and Stimulus Funds, whether those funds are dispersed to people, or to infrastructure projects.

It's why I said to your first comments, if you don't understand the subject matter "context"... why speak. It was not an insult it was a point of fact. You do understand that Infrastructure Projects, will use "Stimulus Funds"... or do you not understand that?
The "Stimulus Funds" are unrelated to "Infrastructure Projects". There is separate legislation to deal with the infrastructure stuff.
 
quote
Consumer Prices Jumped. Should You Worry? That's Sparking A Heated Debate

Prices for some of your favorite things are going up. The big question is how long the price hikes will last.

Consumer prices rose 0.6% in March, according to the Labor Department — the sharpest increase in nearly nine years. Over the last 12 months, the department's consumer price index has risen 2.6%. Excluding volatile food and energy prices, inflation was 0.3% in March and 1.6% over the last year.
end quote

Nothing more than GREED, the minute the merchants saw that Stimulus Money go into people's hands.

I think Biden, should have called for a "Price Freeze' the minute those checks started going out. We know the history of "greed in society. The more people are helped, the greed monsters come in and truly and rob them by price hike fixing.

There should be some policy put in place when the Infrastructure Plan goes into effect, of a "Price Freeze on Building Materials" !!! Or the same set of character will do nothing but invoke price hikes to fleece all they can.
Every material items bought, rented and leased with Stimulus money should have to be managed by "Government Contract Pricing Controls", because history has shown us, that the same set of character will fleece the system of those "everyday peoples' tax money to enrich themselves, by price hikes. Clauses should be written in every contract that hold those who get the Contracts to strict limits on Change Orders Pricing Hikes, and any other kind of Price Hikes.. that these criminal types have always engaged.
Everything that is needed to be bought, leased and rented should be entered into a Government Data Portal, and the payment issued through a Government Data Payment System.... so we can top the Criminals in their tracks... and any who submit padded data can be tracked down, and make them pay back 10 times the amount they try to rip off and they get 10 yrs jail time for each count.

Do the exact same thing HUD did, when it saw the people ripping off programs by claiming excess Administrative Cost, and put a CAP on how much goes to Administration.

Have the Army Corp of Engineers, to scrutinize the materials necessary to build a project, so there is no more of these contractors and supplies "over exaggerating the amount of materials', and filling each others pockets with through that game, and then the Contractor or the greed chasers comes in and buys the excess and the project contractors profits from selling off the excess.

It's everyone's tax money that pays for this, and people need to "wise up" and stop acting as if they are unaware of this historical game of rip, strip and fleece.

We have enough computer systems, CAD systems and Material Tracking systems to put a stop to the old historical game of rip off that happens any time there is a public construction project.

We need to employ "On Time Delivery" the same as many warehouse have used for decades to ensure there is no "overstocking", which results to be sold off at a discount into a secondary market.

People sit mindless as if they don't think about this stuff, and then complain when projects go over budget and become inferior in quality and durability, while the contractors walk away with a kings ransom.
Wake Up Time People.

If you want to cry my tax dollars, then pay attention and learn how to demand systems use the technology to manages accountability!!! Or shut up about "my tax dollars'. These types love to complain about any money that goes to help general citizens, but they have been trained through history to hold a blind eye to the contractor rip off game, because its basically been dominated by wealthy white men. It's time to change that dynamic, and only deal with "honest contractors" and don't just trust them, use the data system that 'manage the process', because blindly trusting them has never worked.
Can you link to the part of the constitution that allows the president to put a price freeze in place.
 
inflation is a coming. it's not done yet, by a long shot.
Well duh. The only salient question is what does the prospect of inflation mean today, for the current economy?

The answer right now is, "not much."
1618325457953.png
Prices were up 2.6 percent from a year ago. But that measure — usually closely watched by economists — was skewed by the comparison to March 2020, when prices fell as consumers pulled back spending in the face of the pandemic.​
To be sure, climbing prices could last for a while as businesses reopen, consumers spend down big pandemic savings and producers scramble to keep up with demand. Economists and Federal Reserve officials do not expect those increases to persist for more than a few months, but if they did, it would matter to consumers and investors alike.​
 

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You ain't seen nothing yet.

Trump's policies resulted in stable consumer prices with virtually non-existent inflation. Biden enters the picture and his handler's policies result in immediate price increases and an immediate rise in inflation. It will only get worse.
Oreally? You can probably pick out the months from the dip caused by COVID, but otherwise, looks pretty consistent over this period.

Screen Shot 2021-04-13 at 10.51.31 AM.png

And tariffs, which the Trump admin was proud to impose, are INTENDED to raise prices over the natural level, to make US goods more competitive, or foreign goods less competitive. Do you not understand it's a kind of price control, or just don't care because Trump did it?
 
print that 10 trillion dollars more for "infrastructure" and see what happens,.
What will happen is pretty much the same thing that happened the last time right-wingers were running around with their hair on fire about screaming "inflation!" "inflation!" and "debasing the dollar!":

In 2009, many prominent conservative economists predicted an imminent rise in inflation; here’s a representative sample:
○ John Taylor, Stanford: “There is no question that this enormous increase from $8 billion to $3,365 billion [in the money supply] will lead to higher inflation unless it is reversed.”​
○ Martin Feldstein, Harvard: “The unprecedented explosion of the U.S. fiscal deficit raises the specter of higher future inflation.”​
○ Arthur Laffer, economic consultant: “To date what’s happened is potentially far more inflationary than were the monetary policies of the 1970s.”​
○ Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve Board chairman: “Statistical analysis suggests the emergence of inflation by 2012.”​
Indeed, many Republicans predicted not just inflation but hyperinflation.
○ Representative Dan Burton of Indiana: “We are heading toward hyperinflation again.”​
○ Senator John McCain of Arizona: “My great worry is that if we do not account for this debt in some way, if we continue trillions of dollars of unnecessary and wasteful spending, then obviously we will find ourselves back in the situation we were in the 1970s, when we had hyperinflation and had to debase the currency.”​
○ Representative Paul Broun of Georgia: “I think we’re fixing to head for hyperinflation.”​

Some people just never learn.
 
Oreally? You can probably pick out the months from the dip caused by COVID, but otherwise, looks pretty consistent over this period.

View attachment 67328314

And tariffs, which the Trump admin was proud to impose, are INTENDED to raise prices over the natural level, to make US goods more competitive, or foreign goods less competitive. Do you not understand it's a kind of price control, or just don't care because Trump did it?
Please provide a link to the source for that graphic.

In any case, why are you singling out "All Urban Consumers"? Why not "All Consumers"?
 
Gee... talk of major tax increases are bringing on higher consumer prices.
Tax increases are not inflationary. Deficit spending is supposed to cause inflation, but the evidence lately is pretty weak. At any rate, if you guys cared about inflation you'd have been screaming about it while Trump and the GOP jacked up deficits the past few years. Of course the benefits went mostly to the wealthy, so they don't like it when people whine about deficits due to their benefits.

Bottom line is what the "globalists" don't want is higher wages for the bottom 80% or so. And they don't care about whether the little people have any money, or can afford healthcare, rent, etc. So the inflation hawks come out over spending, but not deficit fueled tax cuts, because that's the way the globalists like it. Good to know you're a globalist who doesn't care about the little people.
 
anything that injects money into circulation without a corresponding increase in the value of our economy is going to cause inflation.
Yes... and there are lots of other forces that are also causing deflation. People are traveling less; hotel rooms, restaurants, bars, concerts, sporting events are well under capacity; credit is still incredibly cheap, unemployment/LFPR is still worse than it was in January 2020....

The net effect is that inflation might increase by a few points, but only on a short term basis. Just like we saw in 2009-2010.


the last few years is the first time i think we have seen regular trillion dollar spending bills. that is a lot of money injection.
And again, that "injection" is not happening in a vacuum.

When the federal government spent trillions last year, it didn't call up the Treasury Department and ask them to mint a few $1 trillion coins. No, what it did was borrow it from the public. When it did that, enough investors decided "y'know what, this is a massive recession, I'm going to hunker down instead of spend." Well, the safest way to store that money right now is by lending it to the federal government... which spends it.

And in case you missed it, a massive amount of money was sucked right out of circulation last spring.

That's how Keynesianism works. Instead of people stuffing money under the mattress, the government gets it back into circulation.
 
We have very sophisticated software today, that can be put to use.... I'm involved right now, in the process to bring it into our organizations, the company that developed it, previewed last year a database I made, and they had their people to develop one that can do everything I designed mine to do, and theirs does more and made an very easy to read dashboard, where even a Untrained observer can see the parallels and collaterals and such, and then it breaks it down in graph form.
I've been trying to get the organizations to use these systems for 10 yrs, I built the one I use in 2012, and when we got new leadership who had experience in the field, he recolonized the benefit right away, and the department started using it in this year. I used it anyway since 2012 by keeping the data up to date... even when the previous admin, avoided using it, but they kept coming back over the years asking for the same info, but did not respect the system of how I could provide that info on demand.
I had to create an elaborate Excel to provide similar data, because they were more comfortable with excel than investing to understand the capabilities of well designed data management system.

The Government has some very good systems, I watched HUD create a system that better tracked CDBG Block Grant Funds and Projects it supported, and they were able to save huge sums and become more efficient in how the programs and projects were funded and held accountable. It will only get better, with the availability of how data is processed and managed.

People forget, this is the age of information.... Guess work based on someone personal notoriety does not work anymore... Data Management, Data Analytics is more important today, because we have the tools to make it a fundamental and easy to manage system.
Volker was not about personality. He was about using the tools he had effectively and not loosing his nerve when everybody else was.

Your solution is not bad but sort of unworkable regardless of what the information and data systems can do. You want to increase taxes on corporations on top of what will already be a corp tax increase. I would say your chances of getting that done at all are SLIM and done in an a time table that matters NONE. Regardless of qualities of contemporary information systems you need a tool that acts like a faucet. You might get one tax increase but you won't get more than one whereas the Interest rate spigot can be modulated in real time.

At any rate I expect there was a considerable amount of price pressure building up in the system. While I do worry about Inflation having lived through the raging inflation and then stagflation, I don't think we are at the point where anything would make sense beyond some careful work with Interest Rates.
 
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Please provide a link to the source for that graphic.
First of all, your focus on the source allowed you to avoid this point: "And tariffs, which the Trump admin was proud to impose, are INTENDED to raise prices over the natural level, to make US goods more competitive, or foreign goods less competitive. Do you not understand it's a kind of price control, or just don't care because Trump did it?"

The source is in the graph - FRED - Fed Reserve St Louis. It's a standard source for this kind of data, presented just about any way you want to present it. But here's a link.


In any case, why are you singling out "All Urban Consumers"? Why not "All Consumers"?
OK, this is a little different presentation but shows the same thing: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPALTT01USM657N

Screen Shot 2021-04-13 at 11.10.59 AM.png
 
The arguments that inflation hasn't been seen around much lately, or that people have predicted it and it hasn't yet happened, are pretty weak.

Yes, it is surprising we haven't seen much inflation after the enormous cash inflows since 2008. Personally, I think that's because the deflationary headwinds were much stronger than many people appreciated. Part of this may have been the downward pressure on wages coming from globalization. It may be that monetary policy was just about right.

But there is no question that continued increases in the money supply without a corresponding increase in output will lead to inflation. And high inflation is very nasty for everyone. Anyone who lived through the 70s and early 80s does not want to see that again.
 
WOW!

Keep the economy shuttered- Issue Checks to ALL- Freeze prices.

Sounds like a Socialist Nightmare come true.

In this case, it actually IS a Socialist nightmare Come true.
Yes, we need prices freezes, and you can call it what ever you want...

Right Wing, Republican and Conservatives would be an advocate of putting government funds into the system and supporting private business to "increase prices to suck it all up". Then Right Wing, Republican and Conservatives be the first on whining and crying about "my tax dollars", and claiming that the tax dollars did not produce the result it could have.

I'm so sick of Right Wing, Republican and Conservatives slinging out the stupidity of ignorance in their usage of the word Socialism. America has been a system with Socialistic Processes since its inception. Why do you think the first white men who claimed themselves as the "only one" to be considered as "person" and only those considered as person, could vote ? It was so they could divert all social gains to themselves. Why do you think wealthy men pursue the power of political office? to make damn sure the general public gets as little as possible of anything, and the lion's share goes to the wealthy, the industrialist and the money manipulators within and of the stock markets.


Geez.... Right Wing, Republicans and Conservatives, never seem to learn, they have been so deeply groomed into worship the Serf Master, until they can't even see beyond that consumption that has overtaken them for centuries and decades, which is why many are dire poor and working poor struggling and whining everyday, and still ignorant enough to back giving the wealthy another tax break, and another and another.
 
You KNOW the FED is going to artificially keep interest rates down.
At this time, there is no need for Interest Rates to Go Up!!! Government Money put into the system, does not mean "money changers, can drain it off with higher interest rates".
Hell, already many are operating on "government money they borrowed at "0%" and some even have borrowed at "negative %" which means they have built in tax credits for borrowing money.
 
anything that injects money into circulation without a corresponding increase in the value of our economy is going to cause inflation.

the last few years is the first time i think we have seen regular trillion dollar spending bills. that is a lot of money injection.
Price freezes can stop the stupidity.... (and it damn sure needs to happen with anything that is needed to improve and build better our infrastructure(s). Infrastructure shows its results over the long term, it is not something that anyone should be price gouging to upgrade...

People need to learn Civics of America, and American Democracy and Respect The Nation more than their personal greed and obsession over money, which they put above respecting anything.

China and Other Nation will continue to outperform America... because we have too much ignorance within America and as we see much of it sits in the minds of those who support greed mongers, Republicanism and it's agenda of "feed the wealthy at any and every expense of the nation and its people".
That's how people have been groomed for 100's of years and in the 21st Century and the Age of Information, Ignorance is still pervasive!!!

Thank goodness none of the participants in this site who twist and spin to support inflation, are not in government position and don't have a role to make a decision about anything of this magnitude.

Too many people can't see beyond their greedy mind of today, to even have a concept of what it takes to build for the future, they want to hoard and support the greedy hoarding anything and everything they can. They are the prime reason we have the problems we have in this country, such types are the problem, have always been the problem... and its up to the "thinking people who respect America and the Future of America, that has to keep alert and not get sucked in by such ignorance, so we can build a better future... without goons and greed monsters trying to fleece it every step of the way.

Put Technology To Work!!!!!

These are PUBLIC PROJECTS - not designed for "For Profit Rip By Contractors and Suppliers".... The Government should employ "Experienced Category Specific Comptrollers" (A comptroller is a management-level position responsible for supervising the quality of accounting and financial reporting of an organization.) to do the data checking to ensure there are none of the historical fleece and robbery of public resources in the process of developing public infrastructure projects. Use the Technology we have to make sure every project has strict "monitors", and let Auditors do what they do, to check, and Comptrollers invest themselves to ensure that we get long term value for every dollar spent.
 
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Yes... and there are lots of other forces that are also causing deflation. People are traveling less; hotel rooms, restaurants, bars, concerts, sporting events are well under capacity; credit is still incredibly cheap, unemployment/LFPR is still worse than it was in January 2020....

The net effect is that inflation might increase by a few points, but only on a short term basis. Just like we saw in 2009-2010.



And again, that "injection" is not happening in a vacuum.

When the federal government spent trillions last year, it didn't call up the Treasury Department and ask them to mint a few $1 trillion coins. No, what it did was borrow it from the public. When it did that, enough investors decided "y'know what, this is a massive recession, I'm going to hunker down instead of spend." Well, the safest way to store that money right now is by lending it to the federal government... which spends it.

And in case you missed it, a massive amount of money was sucked right out of circulation last spring.

That's how Keynesianism works. Instead of people stuffing money under the mattress, the government gets it back into circulation.


who is buying bonds at the current basement interest rate?
 
But there is no question that continued increases in the money supply without a corresponding increase in output will lead to inflation. And high inflation is very nasty for everyone. Anyone who lived through the 70s and early 80s does not want to see that again.

We need to remember all the supposed angst on the political right with respect to inflation and Obama's stimulus package.

In 2009, many prominent conservative economists predicted an imminent rise in inflation; here’s a representative sample:
○ John Taylor, Stanford: “There is no question that this enormous increase from $8 billion to $3,365 billion [in the money supply] will lead to higher inflation unless it is reversed.”
○ Martin Feldstein, Harvard: “The unprecedented explosion of the U.S. fiscal deficit raises the specter of higher future inflation.”
○ Arthur Laffer, economic consultant: “To date what’s happened is potentially far more inflationary than were the monetary policies of the 1970s.”
○ Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve Board chairman: “Statistical analysis suggests the emergence of inflation by 2012.”
Indeed, many Republicans predicted not just inflation but hyperinflation.
○ Representative Dan Burton of Indiana (p. H459): “We are heading toward hyperinflation again.”
○ Senator John McCain of Arizona (p. S1392): “My great worry is that if we do not account for this debt in some way, if we continue trillions of dollars of unnecessary and wasteful spending, then obviously we will find ourselves back in the situation we were in the 1970s, when we had hyperinflation and had to debase the currency.”
○ Representative Paul Broun of Georgia (p. H3796): “I think we’re fixing to head for hyperinflation.”

Much of the inflation rhetoric today is the fear of Biden and the Democrats successfully leading a strong economic recovery. Some of it stems from conservative antigovernment-for-any-reason ideology. And some of it reflects sincere concern.

For the latter group, take solace in the fact that mainstream economists are pretty united in their lack of concern. An important reason for that relative lack of concern is that the Fed is pretty good nowadays at controlling inflation.

Also, what I don't see being discussed here much is the danger of undershooting the recovery and slipping into economic stagnation.

In other words, it's a smarter play to overshoot a bit on economic recovery than undershoot.
 
This is from the blog of economist Simon Wren-Lewis, Oxford:

Last week’s IMF World Economic Outlook illustrates a point a number of people have made. While both the UK and EU countries are prepared to gradually return what they believe as their non-inflationary level of output from below, the approach in the US is to overshoot, running the economy slightly hot for a period. This table from the Outlook shows expected GDP growth. The key figure is the last column, which shows overall growth from the start of the pandemic to when the recovery is largely complete. It shows how focusing on just 2022 growth, as I’m sure many in the UK and Europe will, is completely misleading.​

1618330907013.png

So what are the relative merits of undershooting compared to overshooting and thereby running the economy a little hot after the recovery? With interest rates stuck at their lower bound, the answer is unambiguous.​

The risks of a more rapid recovery are not a problem in either case, because they will mean a mild inflation overshoot and a quicker rise in interest rates. The chances that any above target inflation (or inflation due to higher commodity prices) becomes entrenched in the US, UK or Euro area is zero.​

The downside risk if you are planning to undershoot are serious, because that means a more prolonged recession with interest rates unable to fall because they are stuck at their lower bound.​

...despite the lesson from the UK and Eurozone of a post 2010 recovery that crashed because of unwarranted deficit concerns, both the UK and Eurozone seem to be making the same mistake (albeit in a more modest way) after the pandemic. They should follow Biden’s example, and use fiscal stimulus to end the COVID recession rapidly once vaccination is complete.

How nice to see American economic policy being held up as an example to follow, for a change.
 
We need to remember all the supposed angst on the political right with respect to inflation and Obama's stimulus package.

In 2009, many prominent conservative economists predicted an imminent rise in inflation; here’s a representative sample:
○ John Taylor, Stanford: “There is no question that this enormous increase from $8 billion to $3,365 billion [in the money supply] will lead to higher inflation unless it is reversed.”
○ Martin Feldstein, Harvard: “The unprecedented explosion of the U.S. fiscal deficit raises the specter of higher future inflation.”
○ Arthur Laffer, economic consultant: “To date what’s happened is potentially far more inflationary than were the monetary policies of the 1970s.”
○ Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve Board chairman: “Statistical analysis suggests the emergence of inflation by 2012.”
Indeed, many Republicans predicted not just inflation but hyperinflation.
○ Representative Dan Burton of Indiana (p. H459): “We are heading toward hyperinflation again.”
○ Senator John McCain of Arizona (p. S1392): “My great worry is that if we do not account for this debt in some way, if we continue trillions of dollars of unnecessary and wasteful spending, then obviously we will find ourselves back in the situation we were in the 1970s, when we had hyperinflation and had to debase the currency.”
○ Representative Paul Broun of Georgia (p. H3796): “I think we’re fixing to head for hyperinflation.”

Much of the inflation rhetoric today is the fear of Biden and the Democrats successfully leading a strong economic recovery. Some of it stems from conservative antigovernment-for-any-reason ideology. And some of it reflects sincere concern.

For the latter group, take solace in the fact that mainstream economists are pretty united in their lack of concern. An important reason for that relative lack of concern is that the Fed is pretty good nowadays at controlling inflation.

Also, what I don't see being discussed here much is the danger of undershooting the recovery and slipping into economic stagnation.

In other words, it's a smarter play to overshoot a bit on economic recovery than undershoot.
Yes, and it will take more infusion into the nation's system. We've been out-built around the world in prospering nations 1000:1, and we stupidly gave away our industrial capacity, which was overtly evident at the start of the Pandemic, when we could not even provide the simplicity of safety gear to our medical professional, or the general public. That should have awakened people, but they were so hung up on "worship Trump" until they blinded themselves to the realize of facts that were exposed.
Republicanism is so obsessed as they have been with block, tackle and attack anything and everything, and trying to regress the government and many of these right wing imbeciles want Trump to be their dictator.... yet, the same one go crazy when Democrats take a Pro-Invest in America Position. Most of the Trumper's did not care if the country goes to crap, they only cared to try to recreate white nationalist vile and ignorance of the 1950's, the same vile and ignorance that left many of their parents and grandparents as poor as their parents and grandparents, to have produced the generational vast size of the poor white segments of society, all in trying to keep minority non white people disenfranchised and seeking to make minorities even poorer than the poorest whites people. That's how stupid the Trumper's Mentality has been and is, and we need not let them dictate a narrative about anything.
We have a 21st Century to Build and Make Real...... Screw spinning in their ignorance and vile groomed mentality of defeat something and attack everything.
We don't have any more time for that!!!! nor do we have any more time to deal with it.... !!!! Let time deal with them!!! and they will be crying again, "we've been left behind"... when fact is: their fear and ignorance and desperation to promote racist stupidity won't let them keep up.
 
quote
Consumer Prices Jumped. Should You Worry? That's Sparking A Heated Debate

Prices for some of your favorite things are going up. The big question is how long the price hikes will last.

Consumer prices rose 0.6% in March, according to the Labor Department — the sharpest increase in nearly nine years. Over the last 12 months, the department's consumer price index has risen 2.6%. Excluding volatile food and energy prices, inflation was 0.3% in March and 1.6% over the last year.
end quote

Nothing more than GREED, the minute the merchants saw that Stimulus Money go into people's hands.

I think Biden, should have called for a "Price Freeze' the minute those checks started going out. We know the history of "greed in society. The more people are helped, the greed monsters come in and truly and rob them by price hike fixing.

There should be some policy put in place when the Infrastructure Plan goes into effect, of a "Price Freeze on Building Materials" !!! Or the same set of character will do nothing but invoke price hikes to fleece all they can.
Every material items bought, rented and leased with Stimulus money should have to be managed by "Government Contract Pricing Controls", because history has shown us, that the same set of character will fleece the system of those "everyday peoples' tax money to enrich themselves, by price hikes. Clauses should be written in every contract that hold those who get the Contracts to strict limits on Change Orders Pricing Hikes, and any other kind of Price Hikes.. that these criminal types have always engaged.
Everything that is needed to be bought, leased and rented should be entered into a Government Data Portal, and the payment issued through a Government Data Payment System.... so we can top the Criminals in their tracks... and any who submit padded data can be tracked down, and make them pay back 10 times the amount they try to rip off and they get 10 yrs jail time for each count.

Do the exact same thing HUD did, when it saw the people ripping off programs by claiming excess Administrative Cost, and put a CAP on how much goes to Administration.

Have the Army Corp of Engineers, to scrutinize the materials necessary to build a project, so there is no more of these contractors and supplies "over exaggerating the amount of materials', and filling each others pockets with through that game, and then the Contractor or the greed chasers comes in and buys the excess and the project contractors profits from selling off the excess.

It's everyone's tax money that pays for this, and people need to "wise up" and stop acting as if they are unaware of this historical game of rip, strip and fleece.

We have enough computer systems, CAD systems and Material Tracking systems to put a stop to the old historical game of rip off that happens any time there is a public construction project.

We need to employ "On Time Delivery" the same as many warehouse have used for decades to ensure there is no "overstocking", which results to be sold off at a discount into a secondary market.

People sit mindless as if they don't think about this stuff, and then complain when projects go over budget and become inferior in quality and durability, while the contractors walk away with a kings ransom.
Wake Up Time People.

If you want to cry my tax dollars, then pay attention and learn how to demand systems use the technology to manages accountability!!! Or shut up about "my tax dollars'. These types love to complain about any money that goes to help general citizens, but they have been trained through history to hold a blind eye to the contractor rip off game, because its basically been dominated by wealthy white men. It's time to change that dynamic, and only deal with "honest contractors" and don't just trust them, use the data system that 'manage the process', because blindly trusting them has never worked.
Its not naked greed.

Paid covid leaves = increased costs
Rising energy costs = increased costs
Commitments on 15$/hour = increased costs

Biden has no damned power to call for a price freeze. I'm not sure even Congress can do so constitutionally unless we are under a declaration of war and the materials are vital to that effort.

You're kidding? You are just now figuring out government bids are full of graft and corruption?
 
That's how Keynesianism works. Instead of people stuffing money under the mattress, the government gets it back into circulation.
 
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