Posted on 06/13/2010 9:14:20 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Very good point.
The cost of college effects not just those in it, but everyone trying to save to send their kids to college. It’s gotten to where it is now nearly impossible for even upper middle class folks to send their kids to college without student loans, which are now entirely the province of the Fedzilla. The result is college grads will be debt slaves to the government. At the same time, except for some technical degrees, the typical college grad is less well educated than high school grads were 50 years ago.
People need to and will find alternatives to the college racket. A college education is simply a bad investment.
You need to address them individually not separately.
20 can case of Coke vs 24 before
net weight of everything in same size packages (potato chips, cereal, etc).
cars with 7 yr loans
one slice of cheese on double cheeseburger
etc.
It also says the cost of jeans is going up. Has the author been to Walmart of Target lately? I just bought a nice pair of khakis for ten bucks at the Walmart. A few years ago I had to pay at least twenty.
Whats going up is education and healthcare, which of course are the sectors that Fedzilla pumps untold billions into.
I think people are mostly concerned with the prices of following essentials : Clothing, Food, Transportation, Housing, Energy.
The rest are non-essentials and optional.
My “basket of goods” includes “Zone” bars from
the diet food section. Walmart sold them for
$4.77 for a box of 5. Same for Target. Both
dropped the price to $4.33 for a couple weeks.
Walmart has raised the price to $5.33 over the
last 2 weeks. Target was still at $4.33 last Friday.
I’ll be stopping a Target on my trips to Idaho
Falls. The price spread for 5 boxes almost covers
the cost of gas to go there from Pocatello.
They can call it inflation. But isn’t it, that costs are going up because we aren’t actually paying the cost for the items we buy but we are paying for union wages, retirement packages, and healthcare packages, and their prescription drug plans?
I think people are mostly concerned with the prices of following essentials : Clothing, Food, Transportation, Housing, Energy.
(I would have added healthcare too, but I’m not sure if normal, healthy folks consider it an essential ).
The rest are non-essentials and optional.
"This is neither inflation nor a symptom of inflation, but rather a symptom of an overwhelming deflationary trend coupled with foolhardy government regulation in a completely unbalanced economy."
-- Mike "Mish" Shedlock
Higher ed is building a large bubble for themselves.
Bread will be about $10.00 per pound by next summer it is now $4.50 in parts of Los Angeles County.
If you are a nudist hippie living off the land at the correct local latitude (accounting for altitude and climate), you are probably most concerned with the cost of weed seed and not being visited by The Man.
Right!!!
Assume as you will. Food and energy prices are volatile and are usually not included in core CPI for that reason.
What did M3 do last year?
I agree.
Much of it is cheap junk, worse than what the Japanese produced in earlier decades. Much of it toxic to boot.
correct. There is a difference between rising costs (add energy costs to your list) and inflation. The article is really discussing rising costs and not inflation.
1. An average is -- an average, some things go up more , and some less.
2. Look at quality. A 40 inch TV costs only a little more (or even less) than a 19 inch 20 years ago. If you price a basic basket of the basic stuff you bought 20 years ago, you would see a lot of things that have "inflated" much less than average.
3. If you want hyper-hippie granola biscuits , that may have gone up a lot. If you buy flour and make your own biscuits, compare that price to 20 years ago. It will cost more , but not by as much as the general rate of inflation.
Not to say inflation is a problem or not, but you can't "disprove the evil government" by pointing to a few items and ignoring all the rest. The folks who have posted about rent, e.g., are right on.
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