Cost of Living in America
By Barry Ritholtz - August 5th, 2009, 11:15AM
"While money doesn't buy love, it puts you in a great bargaining position." —Anonymous
Macro Notes
US$ rally continuesPeter Boockvar
Asian currencies continue to sell off vs the $ on the heels of the news yesterday that South Korea said they will look into hot money inflows stemming from the $ carry trade and the Bank of Indonesia said they are looking into the foreign buying of bills. This follows the news a few weeks ago that Taiwan was limiting foreign deposit holdings and Brazil was taxing foreign inflow transactions. As I mentioned yesterday, we may have reached a short term pain threshold in terms of $ weakness and foreign countries are fighting back as they certainly won't wait for...
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August 5th, 2009 at 11:58 am
http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=Linear&chdeh=0&chdet=1249502400000&chddm=326485&chls=IntervalBasedLine&q=NYSE:USO&ntsp=0
August 5th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
So, in Detroit, where the u6 is probably at 20% the CPI has contracted by just 1.5%. What deflation??
August 5th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
The CPI is misleading nonsense. In my experience in the NY Metro area, combined real-life living expenses (e.g. medical costs, energy, food, clothing, entertainment, transportation, etc.) are certainly not flat or down.
August 6th, 2009 at 4:57 am
This is complicated. Based on the Japanese experience, we may well see deflation in big ticket and discretionary items (housing, autos, boats etc..) with modest inflation in daily expenses (energy, food, public transportation).
August 6th, 2009 at 9:08 am
Agreed that it’s not simple. My point is that in practical terms inflation is already evident for everyday type expenses. I am not an economist, but it seems hard to believe that rampant inflation will not take place.
August 7th, 2009 at 12:18 am
I saw today on MSM the new shorty multi-billionaire Paulson explaining that job wages are stratification’g due to technology and the manufacture’g patents … the minds that keep those processes running … so I lowered my costs to lure in more work in these times .. that rebalance’g to robots and foreign labor … now next step is (one or a bit of all) hope .. a new idea and plan .. or downsize (which is deflation in TBP) .. I am leaning to the logical move as being a downsize but my heart says what’ll I do then …… 7x across the USA like Forest might be different?
August 13th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
@tawm 9:08 am
” … it seems hard to believe that rampant inflation will not take place.”
Reality is often hard to believe. That’s the advantage that reality has over fiction. (this meme stolen from Tom Clancy)