Anthony LoFi
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I think one needs to do a bit of research on the author.
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I See Inflation At Crutchfield
- Thread starter Jim Creek
- Start date
That's correct. For a little while, I think it was 25% (or was it 30%?) which almost put our plans in jeopardy. "Thankfully," our government changes its mind every day and it went down to 15%. Still have to figure out how we handle this.
solderdude
Grand Contributor
The original picture was edited by someone and posted it a bit hastily.
The original picture was from 2011 so there was no covid back then nor was Trump sworn in so.... that was added by someone else later on.
Replaced it with an original picture.
Ohhh.. I know about his reputation/history ... does it make his findings/theories worthless ?
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This is a nice change for those of us who call China home; the price of the Silver 100 is now cheaper in China than the USA. When I bought my Silver 6’s back in 2013, the USA pricing was nearly 40% cheaper. Now in 2025, I can get the G7 at the bargain price of CNY10,980 (from official MA store) or US$1,529.
ShadowBoxer
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eg Bernie Madoff (ie fraud)
About the same as any other economist which is mostly worthless.
Any economist who really can make accurate predictions will be a billionaire living on a private island. And they wouldn't make their predictions public as just doing so might well change the outcome.
There's just too many unknown variables. How many economic predictions made in 2019 took Covid into account?
In this graph it is an index number.
Not really by design. If you look at the time series it reflects two external economic shocks: Covid, and then the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and those have largely been overcome by now. Thus far, those two have been far more important for US consumers than the tariffs and the pretty steep decline of the dollar from January 2025 (but they will soon begin to hurt). In the more normal pre Covid years inflation sometimes even dipped below the desirable 2% rate. You really do not want to risk deflation.I see inflation everywhere not just in audio and food ...
It seems to be by design.
Why The Rich Get Richer And The Poor Get Poorer
The United States economy is currently exhibiting a "K-shaped" dynamic, which means that the wealthy are benefiting from asset appreciation, while middle and lower income groups are confronting higher costs and financial strains.www.forbes.com
The trend from the mid 1970s towards greater inequality is clear, however, and not just in the US, although it is greater there.
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As someone with an economic background I can testify that cars are about the financially worst asset (so we drive a 27 year old one), and consumer credit is the worst way to finance.
Sticking to the gold standard for too long was part of the reason why the depression lasted so long. If a country is in a recession, you want to increase the money supply and raise the public debt. If you don't as many governments did in the 1930s, you get deflation, and that incourages people to stop buying anything: you go down the rabbit hole because everything will be cheaper tomorrow. Deflation, therefore, is something you want to avoid at all costs, hence the practical monetary target of about 2% inflation.Any expense hurts poor people more...But poor people aren't required to buy imported stuff and Chinese (or other higher tariff) imports can almost always be avoided.
Of course, I don't like paying ANY taxes but very few of my expenses are affected by tariffs. Most of my expenses are rent, fuel & utilities, insurance, and food (some imported). My Honda was made in the U.S. (probably with some imported parts that would now be hit with a tariff). My Dodge van was made in Canada but I don't have to buy another imported car. I don't buy electronics every month and I rarely buy anything that costs as much as my monthly rent.
Not related to tariffs but I read in an economics history book that the main reason the U.S. went off the gold standard in the 1930s was so they could expand (inflate) the money supply. We were still "officially" on the gold standard until the 1970s but it was illegal for individuals to own gold (except for jewelry, etc.) and the official price (or value of the dollar) of $35 an ounce was meaningless.
A lot of economists are against the gold standard but IMO the good outweighs the bad.
The U.S. government was funded by tariffs for more than 100 years... But they didn't spend as much.
I agree, US economic management in the 2020/1-2024/5 period was very competent under difficult circumstances. To be honest, the same applies to most European countries under even more difficult circumstances. All these countries can be proud that they did the more or less right thing under conditions of extreme uncertainty. Budget deficits increased as they should under the circumstances, but by now they should come down. There is little disagreement among economists. If we want to borrow more at all, it should not be for tax reductions but for investment in e.g. infrastucture, the energy transition, or research and education, to create the foundation for future prosperity.
solderdude
Grand Contributor
But those are just ripples. The larger picture (50 year cycle) is not impacted much by those events other than for a relative brief moment in that total time period.
There are no predictions being made about stocks in general or specific ones.
It just shows the larger picture and some estimation based on the past.
It seems like humans don't really learn from past events, most certainly not when those happened (different reasons) half or a full century before.
Anyway ... it isn't really important just an observation + extrapolation that cannot predict how and when to make money, prices of stock or some disaster/war/health thing or other events.
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Pareto Pragmatic
Addicted to Fun and Learning
The last producer price index numbers jumped, so that will filter to CPI short term. IIRC, the annual rate of the PPI was about 1% higher than the CPI. But I did not do a deep dive on the numbers or really commit them to memory beyond that.
Predicting the future is indeed problematic. You can do that under the assumption that the future will be like the past, but with a particular trend such as x% economic growth. You can also create a conditional model such as what if energy prices suddenly double, for whatever reason. Some things are predictable, of course. We know the current population structure, so we know that everything else being equal in future we will have a major labour shortage, and with an ageing population and an increasing life expectancy it will be harder to fund some pension schemes. Predicting the stock exchange? Forget about it.
'Everything else being equal.' - that's the real kicker.
In the 19th century it was predicted that by the mid 20th London's streets would become impassable due to the volume of horse manure.
No-one then predicted the internal combustion engine would come along, nor could they.
Same is true of population demographics/labour shortage. UK population rose by 728 thousand last year on immigration alone - that's almost two cities the size of the one I live in. There's no shortage of people on a global level. Plus we have 11 million people of working age who are currently 'economically inactive'. I don't think population demographic is the problem it's made out to be.
I agree with a lot of your other observations though.
The automobile came out in 1973?
I've been watching single CD player prices while thinking about replacing my old Adcom GCD-700 5 CD changer (needs larger shelf space, slow and clunky loading and ejecting single discs). Recently prices have jumped around $100US or more across brands. Perhaps some combination of tariffs and the increasingly narrow customer base. So I guess I'll stick with my Adcom but I'm concerned about what products might be available if that unit conks out.
What's frustrating about this is all the ultra-cheap CD players with built-in speakers, and often radios and USB input, etc that have no output jacks. It should be possible to make a simple, reliable player at a low price with digital out and IR remote control. Blu-Ray or DVD players these days have weak track selection capability and no displays.
This is like what happened to my buggy whip collection all over again. ;-)
What's frustrating about this is all the ultra-cheap CD players with built-in speakers, and often radios and USB input, etc that have no output jacks. It should be possible to make a simple, reliable player at a low price with digital out and IR remote control. Blu-Ray or DVD players these days have weak track selection capability and no displays.
This is like what happened to my buggy whip collection all over again. ;-)
As I said, you can only predict the future in a very conditional way such as everything else being equal. With demography there is a lot we already know, because today's children are the future adults. Immigration is one of the ways in which we can deal with future labour shortage, and therefore some countries are already actively promoting immigration. I Know for the Netherlands that unemployment is very low, and that the inactive population of working age consists largely of people who are not qualified. The only potential group of people who could work more is that of women. Dutch women traditionally did not work much, and still usually only work part time. Beyond that, the choice is between more immigration, later retirement, or fewer people in care. And probably all three of them, But maybe AI will make everybody unemployed, which creates a fascinating challenge.
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I remember some years back (close to a decade, probably
) Duluth Trading Company* was selling two versions of their "Ballroom Jeans"**. The imported jeans were ca. $50, and the identical product, advertised as US-made, were $90 (rounding off, here). The latter didn't stay in their catalog for very long.I think cost trumps philosophy when (US) folks are actually reaching for the wallet.
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* https://www.duluthtrading.com/ No affiliation.
** Advertised as the solution to pants manifesting Cheap Hotel Syndrome... "No Ballroom"
DTC is kind of the Schiit of the quasi-work grade clothing industry. Full confession, I am wearing DTC pants and shirt even as I type this. 
If the theory fits the data then definitely not worthless.
Because I wouldn’t know how to verify the theory myself I have to go on credentials.
He sounds a colourful character
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