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Prices.... Going Up!!!

In 2020 we payed a little less than 4000 Euros for 8000 litres fuel oil, in 2021 we payed 7900 Euros for the same amount.
 
Still reeling from yesterday's trip to the grocery store, farm supply store, gas station and veterinarian's office for prescriptions.
What inflation?.......
 
onwardjames said:
From the article as well..

Only believe official websites and wire-press (Reuters).

Riiiiiight. Good ol' Reuters, owned by the Bank of England, aka The Rothschilds.

Not meaning to be contrary to you, kwayde, and thank you for that link and article.
Click to expand...

I always thought Reuters were rather unbiased in their reporting. Found they are not owned by the Rothschilds.
Who Owns Reuters?
Reuters is owned by Canadian media conglomerate Thomson Reuters. The Thomson family owns a majority stake in Thomson Reuters through a holding company. David Thomson chairs the holding company and is Canada’s richest person, with a wealth upwards of $40 billion. Overall, there is scant evidence that this ownership structure affects Reuters’ bias or standards.

Link here about their reliability: https://www.thefactual.com/blog/is-reuters-reliable/
 
onwardjames said:
Quantitative easing is a phrase we should have abolished.

Print more money, and the inherent value of money already printed goes down.

Not hard to understand.
Click to expand...

Quantitative Tightening

The end of QE may arrive soon, Tim. Or @ least that's how The Market, since ~ February 2021, are seeing things.

Since February 2021 the (then) hottest IPOs and SPACs have been crushed, w/ declining market values ranging from -60% to as much as -90%. Examples include Zoom, Redfin, Zillow, Compass, Virgin Galactic, Palantir, Moderna, BioNTech, Peloton, Carvana, Vroom, Chewy, Nikola, Lucid, Rivian, as well as the EV SPAC and the Lordstown Motors IPO. Note that manyof these were handled/managed by ARK Innovation Funds, which has itself seen a value decline of 55% since February 2021.

Folks looking at today's DOW / NASDAQ / S&P 500 / Etc bourse indices might think to themselves that all is (still) well -- cuz it looks "okay" at the surface ... chiefly b/c the biggest stocks kept gaining or at least didn’t lose their footing.

But below the surface matters are becoming unglued.

Since December 2021, even The Giants -- i.e., Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Meta (FaceBook), Microsoft, NVIDIA and Tesla -- have declined 13.4% -- that's $1.6 TRILLION in paper wealth (cf: Y-Charts).

So you say no big deal, a 13.4% decline, so what? Here's what: This decline is the first-ever such simultaneous decline across all seven of The Giants.

Why the decline? Because The Market finally understands that inflation, now a four-decade problem for the Federal Reserve and a battle the Fed is now (admittedly) losing, has already signaled that it is going to tighten the money supply to gain some semblance of control.

The deliberate constriction of the US's (and world's) money supply to reign in inflation will be effected by the US Federal Reserve thusly:

1. Raising interest rates moderately and
2. Imposing a state of Quantitative Tightening (QT).

But will The Market recognize this as a big deal? Maybe yes, but more likely not. The Market has been spoiled by the years of relentless rising values and will simply re-familarize themselves with two concepts of The Market economics:

1. Stocks can lose value and they can lose all of their value.
2. Cash is trash until it is not.

But there is something else at stake here than The Market: People. The Market value declines ARE a big deal for people whose portfolios full of the stocks, IPO stocks, and SPACs that have and/or continue and/or will crash 60% to 90%.

For these, it may now be time to update the LinkedIn profile and look for a job again.

Upside: Maybe some of the 11 million unfilled job openings can find some takers, lol.

So and we fall into 2022 the dips in The Market are historically the largest in terms of the amount of money decline... ever. There's a lot of money involved in these machinations.

Be careful out there.
 
Yes, some will get hurt but I personally feel most of what you listed were overvalued anyway so they need at some point to come down to a more realistic valuation.
 
The whole economy needs a reset, and it will hurt those who are not so bright and proactive to their own well being.

I will start with this. I remember the first time I bought a home. You are with the relators or the bank figuring out how much you can afford (just as the do with vehicle's) and lets just say they tell me I can afford a 200K home. the general population goes oh that's great. People like me on the other hand go noooo in a perfect world yes but it leaves no room for any disruption in my life which 'will happen" how but we make that 150-160k.

People have very short memories and the vast amount of the population do not pay any attention to much at all
They want the big house, the want the new cars like their neighbors they want the big fancy TV. Facebook headlines are their news source. They buy the most expensive house they cannot afford.

This all happened before our last meltdown, people overvalued themselves, businesses overvalued themselves, as was the stock market was way overvalued.

Then came the $4 a gallon fuel and double energy prices. Yes folks this is all it took to make things come crashing down.

When you are running a big production facility that uses 2-3 Millon dollars a month just for Natural gas (which they do I worked in a hundred of them) plus electricity cost and everything else that went up the cash you said you were worth or had on hand was quickly shown to be not true when you have to cover these Immediate costs.

People were allowed to buy things they could not afford in reality, the big house, big pickups and cars to keep up with the Jonses ect. Energy doubling showed everyone just how on the edge they were living (even businesses) and it all. collapsed.

I saw it coming for years but the whole thing didn't affect me much because as I put a realist evaluation on myself.

So actually, it was good for a while after, people realized no they couldn't really afford they house of thier dreams or the 50k truck that got bad milage and we had a rest.

People sold their big trucks, people were forced to get out of the house they now realize they couldn't afford. Lenders got better at loaning more money for homes than what was realistically affordable. The smart ones started going with 10-15 year mortgages as 30 year ones are just pissing money out the window.

We did better for 3-4 years, stock market was more realistic in valuation of itself and many learned their lesson not to live on the very ragged edge of what they can afford.

Then.....comes the totally repeatable through time people's memory life span of about 3-4 years and it all started happening all over agian. The masses who didn't learn the first time or the ones who didn't pay attention are living the keep up with the Jonses lifestyle again.

The stock market was/is way over valued again (it has to be or we can't spend imaginary money we do not have) while not as many people as the last time, enough people are overvaluing themselves again so it will at some point fall apart and people like me sit and watch it all happen right on schedule.

Its really not hard to figure this stuff out. The good news I "think" is more have figured this stuff out and didn't forget so hopefully the crash will not hurt as bad when it comes. When it does those who can realistically afford the nice big pickup will be able to get them cheap again on the used market.
 
Our home utilities are supplied by two companies - an independent for electricity, and PG&E for natural gas.

Last year's sudden "modification" in the country's oil supply has caused a massive increase in our gas bill.
 
NH-MAN said:
The whole economy needs a reset, and it will hurt those who are not so bright and proactive to their own well being.

I will start with this. I remember the first time I bought a home. You are with the relators or the bank figuring out how much you can afford (just as the do with vehicle's) and lets just say they tell me I can afford a 200K home. the general population goes oh that's great. People like me on the other hand go noooo in a perfect world yes but it leaves no room for any disruption in my life which 'will happen" how but we make that 150-160k.

People have very short memories and the vast amount of the population do not pay any attention to much at all
They want the big house, the want the new cars like their neighbors they want the big fancy TV. Facebook headlines are their news source. They buy the most expensive house they cannot afford.

This all happened before our last meltdown, people overvalued themselves, businesses overvalued themselves, as was the stock market was way overvalued.

Then came the $4 a gallon fuel and double energy prices. Yes folks this is all it took to make things come crashing down.

When you are running a big production facility that uses 2-3 Millon dollars a month just for Natural gas (which they do I worked in a hundred of them) plus electricity cost and everything else that went up the cash you said you were worth or had on hand was quickly shown to be not true when you have to cover these Immediate costs.

People were allowed to buy things they could not afford in reality, the big house, big pickups and cars to keep up with the Jonses ect. Energy doubling showed everyone just how on the edge they were living (even businesses) and it all. collapsed.

I saw it coming for years but the whole thing didn't affect me much because as I put a realist evaluation on myself.

So actually, it was good for a while after, people realized no they couldn't really afford they house of thier dreams or the 50k truck that got bad milage and we had a rest.

People sold their big trucks, people were forced to get out of the house they now realize they couldn't afford. Lenders got better at loaning more money for homes than what was realistically affordable. The smart ones started going with 10-15 year mortgages as 30 year ones are just pissing money out the window.

We did better for 3-4 years, stock market was more realistic in valuation of itself and many learned their lesson not to live on the very ragged edge of what they can afford.

Then.....comes the totally repeatable through time people's memory life span of about 3-4 years and it all started happening all over agian. The masses who didn't learn the first time or the ones who didn't pay attention are living the keep up with the Jonses lifestyle again.

The stock market was/is way over valued again (it has to be or we can't spend imaginary money we do not have) while not as many people as the last time, enough people are overvaluing themselves again so it will at some point fall apart and people like me sit and watch it all happen right on schedule.

Its really not hard to figure this stuff out. The good news I "think" is more have figured this stuff out and didn't forget so hopefully the crash will not hurt as bad when it comes. When it does those who can realistically afford the nice big pickup will be able to get them cheap again on the used market.
Click to expand...

With respect to The Markets as of late January 2022, signs abound that the Wild Bull period of investor behavior that's characterized circa December 2020 through December 2021 is stumbling, and we're probably -- not definitely but probably -- heading into a Bear period of investor behavior: over the past three consecutive weeks the once Wild Bull (nb: defined as when S&P 500 activity has increased by 30% or more over an 18-month period) market has decreased to a level (i.e., 37.74%) that is below its 200-day moving average (i.e., 37.77%).

This does not auger well for investors. Past notable periods during which Wild Bulls slammed into Bears and subsequently market values crashed include:

- 1999-2000 "Dot Com Bubble": At the peak of the dot-com bubble period, the Bull slowed in 1999, bounced along the 200-day average for a while into 2000, but was eventually obliterated by the Bear in a steep crash that started in 2001 and lasted until 2003 that saw an S&P 500 cap of 12% (circa April 2000) reduced by September 2001 to -35.54%. Yeah, negative cap value.

- Crash of 1987: S&P cap of nearly 42% (September 1987) plummeted to 25.39% in a month - by mid October 1987. More incredible is that in that same October 1987, the S&P declined further, from 25.39% to -5.42% -- again, negative territory -- in just TWO days.

Presently, conditions are ripe for a Bear market, which has already awakened, to grow even more intense. Yeah sure, given USA's current strong employment, abundant credit (= cheap money) and (maybe?) waning Corona-V "measures", the market could rally and w/ it the return of the Bull. But @ the end of the day, most of the significant declines in the S&P 500's 200-day moving average have been followed by a virulent Bear market that drives down share prices, imposes listing revaluations, etc.

So investors, especially you big cap action cats, you gotta ask yourselves, ala "Dirty Harry": "Do I feel lucky?"
 
my meager 401k that invests in 1 fund has gained + 20-28%/qtr for the past 5 yrs.
so far this year, - 7%
 
Mystic said:
With respect to The Markets as of late January 2022, signs abound that the Wild Bull period of investor behavior that's characterized circa December 2020 through December 2021 is stumbling, and we're probably -- not definitely but probably -- heading into a Bear period of investor behavior: over the past three consecutive weeks the once Wild Bull (nb: defined as when S&P 500 activity has increased by 30% or more over an 18-month period) market has decreased to a level (i.e., 37.74%) that is below its 200-day moving average (i.e., 37.77%).

This does not auger well for investors. Past notable periods during which Wild Bulls slammed into Bears and subsequently market values crashed include:

- 1999-2000 "Dot Com Bubble": At the peak of the dot-com bubble period, the Bull slowed in 1999, bounced along the 200-day average for a while into 2000, but was eventually obliterated by the Bear in a steep crash that started in 2001 and lasted until 2003 that saw an S&P 500 cap of 12% (circa April 2000) reduced by September 2001 to -35.54%. Yeah, negative cap value.

- Crash of 1987: S&P cap of nearly 42% (September 1987) plummeted to 25.39% in a month - by mid October 1987. More incredible is that in that same October 1987, the S&P declined further, from 25.39% to -5.42% -- again, negative territory -- in just TWO days.

Presently, conditions are ripe for a Bear market, which has already awakened, to grow even more intense. Yeah sure, given USA's current strong employment, abundant credit (= cheap money) and (maybe?) waning Corona-V "measures", the market could rally and w/ it the return of the Bull. But @ the end of the day, most of the significant declines in the S&P 500's 200-day moving average have been followed by a virulent Bear market that drives down share prices, imposes listing revaluations, etc.

So investors, especially you big cap action cats, you gotta ask yourselves, ala "Dirty Harry": "Do I feel lucky?"
Click to expand...

Addendum:

Something I neglected to mention above is that it's a good bet that much of the decline in The Markets over the past three consecutive weeks is investor response to The Federal reserve even mentioning the possibility -- probablity? -- of quantitative tightening (QT). The Fed was very careful in its statement, even going so far as to suggesting that QT would be imposed incrementally, rather than aggressively, which is what The Fed ought to do to cool an economy about to surpass 7% Y/Y inflation... but The Fed doesn't want to spook The Markets, does it? But merely mentioning QT, even incremetal QT, has sparked a selloff.

And so the bubble, if that's what it is, has become so large that it appears to be bursting -- slow leak wise -- even before The Fed raises rates, the cost of borrowing, etc.

Given a market that appears to be breaking at the mere mentio of QT, will The Fed actually impose QT by raising rates and constricting the money supply? I suspect that The Fed might decide to NOT impose QT, and claim that in fact the economy is in too "fragile" a state to weather QT, and will defend its inaction by citing reverse wealth effect from declining stock values and potential increase in unemployment, which together will -- per The Fed -- ameliorate inflation.

Uh huh.

If this is how it shakes out, I think The Fed will have gotten it all wrong.

Stay tuned.

PS: Heck, maybe The Fed will go so far as to cite that we're heading into a War Economy ... a tried and true method for providing economic stimulus.
 
Paid $5.19 for a 2 lb. loaf of Arnold brick oven white bread yesterday in a chain supermarket. Paid 25 cents for the same item when I was a kid.
 
nitrous said:
Paid $5.19 for a 2 lb. loaf of Arnold brick oven white bread yesterday in a chain supermarket. Paid 25 cents for the same item when I was a kid.
Click to expand...

Here, a 240 gram (~ 1/2 pound) baguette costs .49 cents (Euro cents). For two pounds (~ 900 grams) that'd be $2.00 ... er, around 2 Euros.

PS: A loaf of white bread might be even cheaper (here) than baguette, although The Cost of The Baguette is an awfully symbolic "thing" in France.
 
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