I personally don't get wrapped up with all this inflation thing. I see so many things that have not changed prices then have went higher. Lumber nd building supplies have been better now then the last 4 years and gas is the lowest it has been in 4 years here. Somethings go up and I just don't pay them and substitute or do without.

I am in a rare position compared to most people my age at 45. I have very limited bills. But even with limited bills and a lot of overtime I have noticed a very large increase in what my living expenses are costing. From food to utilities and insurance. Our electric has go up im not sure the % but water is up 60%.

What I do know is I often wonder how in the world most people are getting by. I know what im making with all the ot and my limited bills. I know what the jobs around me pay and its why I travel for work. When I see 2 newer vehicles and the new houses going up at what they cost All in can figure is 1. I made bad job/life choices. Or 2. A huge % of people are in a ton of debt.

I lean to 2 since reading about how high consumers credit card debt is and has risen.

So even though I feel the effects of inflation and its not killing me, I know if im feeling it it has to be affecting others not as fortunate much harder.

So even if your not in a spot it directly hits you or me hard when it hits the population and they're spending drops it will negatively effect the economy and that will hit everyone just in different ways.

Luckily inflation has slowed down or at least seems to some to me from how fast things were climbing in price a year ago.

Lumber prices are down as new housing is slowing and the biggest slow down is from those remodeling existing homes as prices got higher and they did not want to sell and move and take on the higher mortgage rates that are present now.
I am 77 so I associate with several retired people and some retired for 20 years and more. Inflation is hitting them hard as it is going up faster on most of their expenditures, rent, utilities of all types, basic food items and services they may need like cleaning, in home assistance etc. etc.
We are planning to sell our home this fall if we can. Our real estate agent is quite sure our modest low cost older home in the 200K range will sell but the young couples with a small family, day care, etc. are really finding being able to save to buy even lower cost homes and afford a mortgage are struggling even with 3.5% UE in our area.

Bryce

Down in MO now businesses moving to bigger locations so things can’t be very bad here.

Inflation is caused by the increase in money supply,,,


When someone goes to a bank and gets a loan,,,,, the bank just gives them the money. If they meet the requirements


The money is not backed by anything,,,


They just print more money!!!!!!!?!!!!


This is what causes inflation,,,,lowering the purchasing power of your dollar


It’s a nasty cycle!!!!

Educate yourself!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have a good memory and can remember how much I paid for groceries, starting from when I first started buying them, back in the eighties. I mostly don't look at prices on groceries anymore except to see which size is the most cost effective. I was in Kroger a couple of days ago and the meat prices were astronomical, other food items were bad, but mostly not as bad. I do believe that meat prices are being intentionally driven up by the globalists, who don't want people to eat meat. Allowing a few foreign owned processors to have a virtual monopoly on the US meat market is an insanely bad idea for most Americans.

Keith

If you have been around long enough, you realize that.
They used to call it currency devaluation when less developed nations did it.

Price, cost,value, etc...
Might seem like synonyms, but not really.

It’s amazing,,,,mind blowing!!!!

How few people have figured this out

While I don't at all disagree with you, I'm not seeing where anyone on this post said otherwise??

Money just facilitates barter. U.S. money is backed by faith. The money supply has been decreasing due to QT and yet inflation persists. Inflation has many causes other than increasing money supply. I'll apparently never get it.

"The U.S. money supply has experienced a significant period of contraction, particularly from late 2022 through much of 2024. The year-over-year growth in the money supply, measured by the Rothbard-Salerno money supply (TMS), was negative for seventeen consecutive months, with the decline being the largest since the Great Depression.
This contraction was driven by the Federal Reserve's quantitative tightening, which reduced its balance sheet, and higher interest rates, which led to a decline in savings deposits."

Source: Goldmansachs.com

There was 3-4 post trying to explain inflation before I jumped In

Inflation isn’t that hard to explain,,,,

QE is way more prolific than QT,,,,,


Just look at who’s buying the bonds ????


It’s the same in in every country,,,,


It’s ugly!!!

It was backed by military and oil (Petro dollar). Not sure where we are today.

Backed by the military foresure,,,,

11 nuclear powered aircraft carrier strike groups



The petrodollar is a myth/dream/fantasy

Any of you read up at all about ATI?

What’s ati?

Give us the summary?

Activist treasury issuance. The treasury manipulating the money supply intentionally by the way in which they choose to issue their debt.

Makes sense

When it’s all said and done we are all paying the same in the end that’s something we all know. LOL

We lost when we got involved with a central banking system. Our currency will fail at sometime. Every fiat in history has.

Not a fan of any type of federal government manipulating the money supply!!!!

The whole fed thing is relatively new,,,,,100 some years,,,,,,,get rid of it in my opinion

History tells us how this all plays out,,,

It ain’t good!!!!!




Study bitcoin!

Buy bitcoin!!!!!!!!!

Exactly, fiat money is backed by faith (confidence) money is a confidence game.
Therefore, do not equate value with price.

Goldmansacs——Barrons——WSJ——all the rest,,,,


They are selling you a bunch of outdated (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman),,,,, protecting their interests

Look thru all that,,,

In what way?

All of this being said, investing in going concerns of intrinsic value (stock in solid corporations) is your best bet to grow your wealth.

Investinging in the S&P 473 isn’t actually that great,,,, hasn’t been for awhile

Yotetrapper,,,,,, they are selling their own book

The money printing,,,,increasing the money supply is the most important thing to think about,,,


Seriously,,,, think about it,,,


You(anyone) can to well,,, once you understand

There is a lot of talk about interest rates and that gets most of the media attention and also from the administration, but the fed can actually contol the amount of money avalible by open markets and buying T bond which puts money in the market as well as lowering the bank reserves which allows banks to lend out more money as they don't need to hold as much back. Yes interest rates are ways to slow the economy or an attempt to keep inflation lower but it is only one tool in the tool kit. Lowering reserve percentages can put high risk taking banks in some poor positions when there are big asset value downward swings.

Bryce

Trumpster wants lower interest rates cuz the payments on the existing debt is so huge,,,,massive,,,,,37 trillion and growing by the second!!

That number is staggering!! And it’s only going to grow..no matter how hard they try to lower it, cut it back


It’s the same with all governments(and businesses) around the world ,,,all debt holders for that matter(mortgage holders) etc

Sucks if you actually have money,,,,and want to earn money from what you have in the “bank”. You would actually be losing money,,,,

The world is running on “easy money”,,,, it needs easy money for things to move forward,,

They are not going to stop issuing “easy money”

NOTHING STOPS THiS TRAIN

Inflation certainly stops easy money. We got a good taste of it during the Biden years until the Fed significantly raised interest rates.

It's not the last taste we'll have of it until lessons are learned.

The Trump Admin is getting blamed for the increase in electric bills, but what has really happened is the subsidies for green energy (wind and solar) have been stopped and the consumer has make up the difference. Folks often fail to recognize that they were the ones paying for the subsidies to begin with via their taxes.

Hey Bryce, you realize there are no reserve requirements for banks anymore, right?

Which is a bigger issue than inflation to me as there are lenders who may well put themselves in real risky loans. Some have not learned very much or more likely forgot what happened 17 years ago, and have short memories or in many cases new managers etc. that have not lived through huge defaults.

The bank we deal with has never gone over the 70% mark, most times the are quite a bit below. They are doing well and now have 3 locations and are local in ownership. They work hard at being able to not be bought out by the larger banks merging in our area.

Ammo is through the roof. So are firearms. I may never need anymore of each at my age. Doubt I can shoot what I have, but I don’t even shop anymore with the high prices I see.

Most banks do still keep reserves as the Fed pays interest on the reserves they keep, but it's not a legal requirement anymore.

The statement that banks in the United States are no longer required to hold reserve requirements is not true. As of March 2020, the Federal Reserve Board reduced reserve requirement ratios to zero percent, effective March 26, 2020. This change eliminated reserve requirements for all depository institutions, allowing banks to lend more money to customers without holding the corresponding cash reserves. However, this change was a response to the COVID-19 pandemic and is not a permanent policy. Reserve requirements are still in place, but at a significantly lower level, and banks are required to meet liquidity requirements, which still involve holding some cash reserves.
Federal Reserve Board

I think it is all relative to value except when the government dictates wages/prices. For example a company has to pay 17 dollars per hour as a minimum per the state. Prices go up on stuff but the per hour wage does not. Perhaps because the company can not charge more for their produced item and the state knows it. Inflation is not fair to the entire economy. Bunch of rules at different levels that effect buy/sell, industry costs/wages, government supplements, etc...

The dollar being a place card globally, for value, does not work. Shortly after "Covid" in my area you could not get .410 shells (nor toilet paper). I needed some so I reached out to friend and traded for some with steaks. We figured what each were going for and valued our trade fairly. Could not do this using my hours worked for shells. My percentage of hours worked versus item purchased would be crazy.

Our economy is very controlled. The only freedom is little to no debt and have something other then money for trade. I know this is not an option for most. My 2 cents.

Yes, prices go up for many reasons and wages is a great example. Local taxes government requirements that tell companies they have to do this and that.
I see many things lower and stable in pricing and nothing more then that things go up in price. We don't in the 1900's any more.

I see tariffs have lowered prices on some products that I use and one is steel the price has gone down. This whole turning of the table will really show its true colors in time.

Hmm. I mean, I guess it's true that 0% is a significantly lower level. LOL. Yes, by law, there is still a reserve requirement on paper, but it has been and still is 0% since 2020. This helps explain.

https://www.federalregister.gov/doc...irements-of-depository-institutions?utm_


Effective March 26, 2020, the Board reduced reserve requirement ratios on all net transaction accounts to zero percent, eliminating reserve requirements for all depository institutions. The annual indexation of the reserve requirement exemption amount and the low reserve tranche for 2025 is required by statute but will not affect depository institutions' reserve requirements, which will remain zero.

When the federal reserve buys treasury bonds,,,,,,,,,basically it’s own debt

They are creating money out of nothing,,,increasing money supply/devaluing the dollar. Causing inflation

Some auctions are weekly,,,monthly,,,,,others quarterly

One more time the Federal reserve has been lowering their treasury ownership . This means they were decreasing the money supply. The last few years with bond yields attractive individual investors have been buying more bonds. This will change once interest rates drop again. They also can create money by buying Mortgage Backed Securities that pay little to no interest. They seem to be having trouble unloading these?


"Quantitative Tightening vs. Quantitative Easing: What Is the Difference?
Quantitative easing refers to monetary policies that expand the Federal Reserve System (Fed) balance sheet. The Fed does this by going into the open market and buying longer-term government bonds as well as other types of assets, such as mortgage-backed securities (MBS). This adds money to the economy, which serves to lower interest rates and increase spending. Quantitative tightening, on the other hand, does the exact opposite. It shrinks the Fed’s balance sheet by either selling Treasurys (government bonds) or letting them mature and removing them from its cash balances. This removes money from the economy and leads to higher interest rates.
1
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. “What Is Quantitative Tightening?” "

The money supply has been decreasing is true. Price inflation is still higher than what the fed would like.


IMHO it's most likely a hangover from the ridiculous amount the world created since 2008.

It's going to get real interesting when they start to flood the supply again.

The only thing banks have learned is the can make poor decisions and get bailed out by Joe Q public

The FED should leave interest rates at normal and see if the world can handle normal anymore. So far the world has been able to survive reducing the money supply and slightly elevated interest rates. JMHO.

The QT vs QE is a constant battle,,,with QE always winning

That’s why they always say they have a 2% inflation target,,,

The 2% number is just a “number” some guy in New Zealand made up years ago,,,,and all the central bankers use this number.

Real inflation is actually much higher,,,,as we are all noticing. Hopefully!!

Didn’t Powell just last say,,, last week,,,,they are going to abandon the 2% target???

No, I think he kinda said the opposite. During covid they abandoned it, by intentionally allowing inflation to run above it, to make up for "past misses" where it was under target. That policy is what they are abandoning... by going back to that 2% target.

The FED should let the markets decide what interest rate levels should be.

I'm scratching my head trying to figure out how that would work and what that would mean for inflation. The Fed's mandate is to control inflation. I think if you ask "the people" if they like free money, they would say yes.

When will we get the stimulus checks from all the free tariff money we will be taking in, lol?

Just like the last one
bad idea. I didn't want that one BUT DID SPEND IT on an American made 6' tiller. Figured i should infact use it to help stimulate the American economy as it was sent out for.

I think the free market can use any interest rate they want? I know I make loans and the rate I charge has to do with inflation and rate of return I can get on other options. Supposedly the FED rate is a guideline? If I completely understood how all this works, I would be a genius from McGrath.