Inflation - temporary or long term?

[Charles West]

If Hawaii gets to 70% vaccination rate, mainlanders don't need to prove negative Covid Test.
Please, please reach 70% by time I go. Please.

I had no idea. I've got my vaccination card.

 

[Mark K]

Hard to believe but it seems the Feds can't get their heads out of their azzes. Now they're saying that it might last longer than they originally thought? DUH?

Maybe they went to a gas station, or Home Depot to buy a 2x4, or tried to buy some house wiring (up 4X), or visited a grocery, or tried to buy a used car, or......

Maybe they took more than 2 seconds and thought about the effect of printing Trillions of $$ and dumping them in the economy all at one time.

Friggin Morons.

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/government-economy/federal-reserve-officials-say-temporary-inflation-surge-may-last-longer-than

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

The Fed said it's temporary and prices should get back to normal.

And when has the Fed ever been right? Remember Helicopter Ben assuring everyone in 2008 that there was "no contagion" between the fall in home prices and the economy. Nope. Completely separate.

High fuel prices guarantee rising prices for just about everything.

High oil prices precedes every downturn in the economy since 1973. 1979, 1993, 2008, with the exception of the Covid downturn which is an outlier. We are now at prices we can sustain so long as they don't significantly increase. I do not see how you can expect not to import increasing amounts of oil in the coming years under the Biden administration.

That's without the foolish lie that we will all drive E cars. I put on 310 miles yesterday. Tell me where I would have had to recharge the car and for how long in NE Oklahoma. Where will the lithium, cobalt, and nickel come from for the batteries- not in the US? We have precious little here. How fast can we ramp up building nuclear power plants-the only source of low-carbon energy capable of meeting the demand of 10 million new E cars per year. You need to build a new nuclear plant every three weeks to meet that demand by 2035. Even without the E car, we need a lot more nukes to make up for all the coal fired plants being mothballed.

I don't think we saw the price spikes many were afraid of (myself included) coming out of the '08 recession.

The market conditions are vastly different than 2008-2011 and as much as we owed, it was a drop in the bucket to what the Fed is printing/ borrowing now.

 

[Carlos Danger]

The rooster thing is true. Tyson switched breeds on roosters and less eggs hatched. I figured Terrel would fill in the details.

 

[IlliniApp]

Hard to believe but it seems the Feds can't get their heads out of their azzes. Now they're saying that it might last longer than they originally thought? DUH?

Maybe they went to a gas station, or Home Depot to buy a 2x4, or tried to buy some house wiring (up 4X), or visited a grocery, or tried to buy a used car, or......

Maybe they took more than 2 seconds and thought about the effect of printing Trillions of $$ and dumping them in the economy all at one time.

Friggin Morons.

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/government-economy/federal-reserve-officials-say-temporary-inflation-surge-may-last-longer-than

I don't know why these current and former Fed board members feel that the have to freakin' opine on every economic issue every other day. Guess it's something for the financial reporters to report on and moves markets.

 

[gogatah33]

Hard to believe there won't be inflation. I'm laying low. I'm sure not paying $175 for a football ticket.

 

[Restrain]

Spot oil forecast to go to $100/bbl. conversely wood construction spot prices have fallen from $1700/KBF to $875/KBF, but still over $350/KBF. Hamburger now pushing $6/lb, can of beans $1.70 vs $.95 last year. Fed forecasting 5% inflation, but betting on double digit inflation. Won’t be less unless the government plays with numbers.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

The rooster thing is true

Cobb-Vantress is a division of Tyson. They produce the grandparent stock. The chickens that make up the hens who produce the eggs to make into layers who then produce the eggs going into the broiler house. The males are bred as a separate line. For years, the top international male bird was the Peterson Male. The geneticist was from Korea working at the Peterson Industries breeder farm. After he died, the bird fell out of favor and the geneticist who took over wasn't all that good apparently. This gave Cobb and what used to be called Ross (Aviagen now) a chance to sell their males to the producers who didn't have their own genetics staff. Another early genetics firm was Arbor Acres (also in NWA and now part of Aviagen.) Of course, Tyson used Cobb hens, but also developed a line of male birds. I don't recall the exact numbers but there was a 400 bird, a 500 bird and maybe 18 months ago the went to a new bird line. There was complaints about vaccinating baby chicks for a gut protozoa. The "food police" of course didn't know one end of a chicken from the other but in an effort to respond to critics, Tyson et al have been trying to develop a chicken that is resistant to this coccidiosis disease. They introduced in about 2019 and growers promptly begin losing large numbers of their baby birds. After about 3 weeks or so, the bird builds a natural immunity for the most part. Anyway the new 600 series chicks or whatever the name was, was suffering high mortality due to coccidiosis.

A grower told me that this new bird was costing him about $40,000 a year or about $6,000 per flock. His field man admitted that he was probably about average. When you have invested $2,000,000 to get a $200,000 a year job, and you just sliced off $40k, well, it hurts.

I say all this to give you an idea how fragile the whole system is. When Lloyd Peterson was selling the Peterson Male worldwide, it was more popular overseas than here. The Ross/Cobb breeders were focusing upon maximizing white meat. Lloyd personally liked dark meat and couldn't understand that fried chicken was being displaced by chicken planks, chicken nuggets, and other processed white meat products. That's why you see an 8 lb. bird or "large broiler" occasionally in the store. I picked up some chicken recently and I thought it held a half dozen breasts when in fact it was 3 of the largest such pieces I've ever seen. I tried to bbq it but it was hopeless. I should have put them in a crockpot and make chicken dumplings or something. pitiful. I'd rather have the old 3# broiler any day.

In the end, Lloyd ran his company into the ground and died well into his 90s, and Peterson was ultimately sold to Simmons Foods but some part of the hatchery is still developing new chicken lines being run by his grandson. There is, in fact, a completely serviceable hatchery idle in Decatur, AR that could be put back in production and hatch baby birds. Simmons has a much bigger operation nearby so I suppose they don't need it. They just built a new processing plant on land once part of the Peterson Farms ranchland. One of the, if not, the largest such plant in the world.

Tyson's is a much larger firm than Simmons, which is still owned by a family, and have facilities all over. But they do independent research on these male and female lines to produce the chicken you eat. There are probably a dozen or more such outfits who do the genetics to develop these male lines separate from the egg producing female lines. They also work to produce birds expressing for the free-range chicken, egg producing chickens (which are smaller) etc. It's a complex business.

 

[djd09]

The Most Splendid Housing Bubbles in America: Holy Moly. June Update​

by Wolf Richter • Jun 29, 2021 • 424 Comments​

What we’re looking at: Raging House-Price Inflation.​

San Diego metro:​

House prices jumped by 3.2% in April from March, after having jumped by 3.4% in March from February, and are up 21.6% year-over-year, the second-hottest annual house price increase behind Phoenix. Prices have soared 231% since 2000:

The Most Splendid Housing Bubbles in America: Holy Moly. June Update | Wolf Street

 

[Joe Flacco]

I think inflation is real and is not transitory but the rate of inflation doesn't have to be as extreme as the 70's.