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With Citi's chief economist proclaiming "only helicopter money can save the world now," and the Bank of England pre-empting paradropping money concerns, it appears that Australia's largest investment bank's forecast that money-drops were 12-18 months away was too conservative. While The Finns consider a "basic monthly income" for the entire population, Swiss residents are to vote on a countrywide referendum about a radical plan to pay every single adult a guaranteed income of around $2500 per month, with authorities insisting that people will still want to find a job.

New figures from the state statistics office show inflation in Ukraine reached a 20-year high of 43.3% in 2015. That represents an increase of nearly 20% on 2014's figure of 24.9%. Items which saw the biggest jumps include gas, which rose in price nearly four times, hot water and heating, whose prices increased by nearly 80% and vegetables, which were almost 70% more expensive in 2015 than they were in 2014. In annual terms, no goods saw price falls between the two years.

As food prices balloon across Canada, grocers say they are coping with a reported increase in meat product thefts. According to figures released by Statistics Canada in November, numerous types and cuts of meat have seen significant cost increases since 2014. The cost of beef is also predicted to rise another four per cent this year.

Some 63% of people can't deal with a $500 emergency. Americans are starting 2016 with more job security, but most are still theoretically only one paycheck away from the street. Approximately 63% of Americans have no emergency savings for things such as a $1,000 emergency room visit or a $500 car repair, according to a survey released Wednesday of 1,000 adults by personal finance website Bankrate.com, up slightly from 62% last year. Faced with an emergency, they say they would raise the money by reducing spending elsewhere (23%), borrowing from family and/or friends (15%) or using credit cards to bridge...

A Fight for the Soul of Science String theory, the multiverse and other ideas of modern physics are potentially untestable. At a historic meeting in Munich, scientists and philosophers asked: should we trust them anyway? Laetitia Vancon for Quanta MagazinePhysicists George Ellis (center) and Joe Silk (right) at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich on Dec. 7. By: Natalie WolchoverDecember 16, 2015 Comments (17) Share this: facebooktwitterredditmail PDF Print Physicists typically think they “need philosophers and historians of science like birds need ornithologists,” the Nobel laureate David Gross told a roomful of philosophers, historians and physicists last week in Munich, Germany,...

The Federal Reserve has kept interest rates at near zero since the 2008 financial crisis. To raise them, it has come up with a new set of tools. Produced by Katy Burne, Christopher Kaeser, Arielle Ray and Mark Scheffler. But Fed officials face a troubling question: Jobs are on track, but inflation isn't... ...well below the Fed's 2% target. [snip] Low inflation-and low prices-sound beneficial but can stall growth in wages and profits. Debts are harder to pay off without inflation shrinking their burden. [snip] Former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, in an interview, pointed to Congress as one culprit for...

World stocks were on the brink of a two-month low on Friday, as beaten-down oil prices and a slide in China's yuan to 4-1/2 year lows left markets in a somber mood. Volatile oil markets and worries about China, the world's biggest commodities consumer, have pressured many markets ahead of a widely anticipated interest rate hike by the U.S. Federal Reserve next week. MSCI's world stock index .MIWD00000PUS fell for a fifth straight day as emerging markets tumbled again and European shares .FTEU3 opened at a two-month low while the dollar steadied. "We are in risk-off mode," said Piotr Matys,...

McDonald's isn't alone in struggling to get customers to let go of the $1 price. Wendy's tried replacing its 99-cent menu with a "Right Price Right Size" menu, but acknowledged the switch wasn't doing the job. Last month, it began promoting a limited-time "4 for $4" deal that includes a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger, chicken nuggets, fries and a drink. Deborah Wahl, senior vice president of marketing for the U.S., said the McPick platform was designed to give people options. “Customers are looking for choice and flexibility. That’s sort of the new definition of value,” she said. While deals remain a...

WASHINGTON --A gauge of U.S. business prices fell in October, the latest sign of low inflation amid cheap gasoline and a strong dollar. The producer-price index, which measures the prices companies receive for goods and services, decreased 0.4% in October, the Labor Department said Friday. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, so-called core prices were down 0.3% from the prior month. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected overall prices would rise 0.2% and core prices would rise 0.1%. Overall producer prices decreased 1.6% in October from a year earlier, the 10th straight year-over-year decline and the...

A lot of conservative voters — especially those old enough to have lived through the high inflation of the 1970s — are convinced that America is currently suffering from an inflation problem. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) pandered to those voters in a recent Republican presidential debate, blaming the "loose money" policies of the Federal Reserve for raising the prices of various consumer products. But new data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that overall, prices aren't going up. At all. Between September and October, prices actually fell slightly. And over the past year, the inflation rate was...

A lot of conservative voters — especially those old enough to have lived through the high inflation of the 1970s — are convinced that America is currently suffering from an inflation problem. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) pandered to those voters in a recent Republican presidential debate, blaming the "loose money" policies of the Federal Reserve for raising the prices of various consumer products. But new data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that overall, prices aren't going up. At all. Between September and October, prices actually fell slightly. And over the past year, the inflation rate was...

While most U.S. data has been relatively upbeat, retail sales rose less than expected in October, suggesting a slowdown in consumer spending that could temper expectations of a strong pickup in fourth-quarter economic growth. In the meantime, Britain's Bank of England was once pegged as likely to be the first major central bank to tighten policy but prices fell again last month, data will probably show on Tuesday. With inflation so far below its 2 percent target the BoE's Monetary Policy Committee won't be raising its benchmark rate from a record low 0.5 percent until at least April, a Reuters...

In a world in which the Cold War is a fading memory, North Korea and Cuba endure as museums of communism, so no one will forget how criminally insane it always was. In a world haunted by the specter of persistently falling prices, some countries are creating severe inflation, so we can be grateful for its virtual disappearance. One of the governments providing this public service is that of Venezuela, where the currency has lost so much value that even robbers reject it. A recent carjacking victim told The New York Times his armed captors had no interest in his...

Tyler Durden 10/22/2015 Submitted by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog, Whenever we at the Automatic Earth explain, as we must have done at least a hundred times in our existence, that, and why, we refuse to define inflation and deflation as rising or falling prices (only), we always get a lot of comments and reactions implying that people either don’t understand why, or they think it’s silly to use a definition that nobody else seems to use. -More or less- recent events, though, show us once more why we’re right to insist on inflation being defined in...

The math is pretty simple: A lack of purchasing power for consumers has led to a lack of pricing power for companies. When it comes to the U.S. economy big-picture outlook, the ramifications are more complicated, and not particularly pleasant. Wednesday's producer price index reading, showing a monthly decline of 0.5 percent, demonstrates a larger problem: At a time when policymakers are hoping to generate the kind of inflation that would indicate strong growth, the reality is that deflation is looming as the larger threat. Declining prices often would be treated as a net positive by consumers, but income weakness...

WASHINGTON (AP) — There will be no benefit increase next year for millions of Social Security recipients, disabled veterans and federal retirees, the government said Thursday. It's just the third time in 40 years that payments will remain flat. All three times have come since 2010. And there's more bad news. The lack of a benefit increase means that many older people could face higher Medicare costs, an issue that has advocates lobbying Congress. The main reason for no increase next year is low gas prices. By law, the annual cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, is based on a government measure...

The Universe Never Expands Faster Than the Speed of Light Breaking my radio silence here to get a little nitpick off my chest: the claim that during inflation, the universe “expanded faster than the speed of light.” It’s extraordinarily common, if utterly and hopelessly incorrect. (I just noticed it in this otherwise generally excellent post by Fraser Cain.) A Google search for “inflation superluminal expansion” reveals over 100,000 hits, although happily a few of the first ones are brave attempts to squelch the misconception. I can recommend this nice article by Tamara Davis and Charlie Lineweaver, which tries to address...

AMHERST - Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen said Thursday that she expects the Fed to raise interest rates later this year and then continue gradual increases thereafter during a University of Massachusetts address that ended with her seeking medical attention. A spokesman for the university said the 69-year-old was fine after being checked out by EMTs and was to continue her schedule which included a faculty dinner at the home of Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy. A spokesman for the Federal Reserve Board said, "Chair Yellen felt dehydrated at the end of a long speech under bright lights. As a precaution,...

We all remember the promise – President Obama famously told us time and time again that ObamaCare would lower health insurance premiums by $2,500 a year for families. But unless you’re receiving a giant subsidy from the government for your insurance, you’re not paying less in premiums, in fact, for employer sponsored plans, premiums have risen nearly $5,000 since Obama promised to cut them. What about deductibles? They haven’t decreased either. But don’t just take my word for it.A new survey finds that in 2015 deductibles on employer-provided health plans actually rose by almost nine percent.According to a new...

While hardly as dramatic as Bill Gross' last letter in which he urged readers to "go to cash" as a result of the "Frankenstein creation" that ZIRP has created, his latest letter "Saved by Zero" takes a calmer stance and taking a page out of Paul Marshall's FT Op-Ed profiled yesterday, urges central banks to "get off zero" as the "developed world is beginning to run on empty because investments discounted at near zero over the intermediate future cannot provide cash flow or necessary capital gains to pay for past promises in an aging society. And don’t think that...