Donald L. Kohn, who is a governor with the Federal Reserve (and probably one of those economists who, if taken collectively and stacked end to end would be able to reach the moon but not a decision) said he'd be in favor of raising short-term interest rates if energy prices were to suddenly shoot up.
This would be a precautionary move by the Fed to control inflation. But, Kohn said (and this is the *!good news!*), inflation has remained very low--at a modest annual rate of just 2 percent so far--when you exclude what you pay for food and energy!
Let me just reread that for Dada, who's data challenged. Inflation is insignificant when economists take away what we pay for food and energy! Just further proof I suppose, economists consider Americans a bunch of goddamned, economically ignorant fools.
So there you go. Just stop cooling and fueling, heating and eating to keep inflation from taking a bite out of your....whatever.
***
On a less encouraging note, I read earlier in the week a government report saying we should all expect prices at the gas pump to continue to rise with the coming of summer. Prices are expected to go as high as "$2.68/gallon" the report said. Yesterday some local convenience stores were charging $2.72/gallon. Well, it must be fuckin' summer already!
This just overtook me sooo unexpectedly. I thought I had two more months to get down to my "swimsuit weight".
4 comments:
Oh god, shades of reaganomics! Yes by all means, stack those economists end-to-end like his quarters, to the moon! 'Course the air gets pretty thin a few thousand feet up, at least that's what scientists say (but pat robertson might argue armegeddon & that whole rapture thing will save their oxygen-starved asses).
But dada, did you not notice they left in that other essential, "shelter", in their inflationary calculations? Does that mean they know the housing bubble has burst (info they are keeping to themselves) & so is exerting a de-flationary effect on their already skewed numbers? Why else would they leave it in, unless it helped their case? If it hurt, like food & energy, they would just leave it out!
hahaha, you intentionally truncated your title word to "econmic" to reflect their chopping off valid economic elements? Now THAT's truly rare wit!
And your "swimsuit" comment reminded me of Carter's "belt-tightening" ... pretty soon we will all be down to skeletons, bleached bones like our fuel-guzzling autos & that will leave a perfect world for these endtimers. D.K.
D.K.: Thanks for finding humor in my original title wherein I spelled it "econmic"....
well, as fate would have it, I was moving blogs around and it repositioning this one, I deleted the econmic one after it's successful relocation. But...I also lost your comment (fortunately, I had a carbon copy)...
So, here it is, back to the way it should be spelled I suppose.
Maybe there should be a swimsuit edition of the blog featuring all those caught by surprise by summer's premature, 2 mo.s early, arrival?
Oh, and thanks for making the excellent point that "shelter" is still being included (too hold down price index due to crashing home prices in parts of the country?). Or, have they just been reinserted in the cost index, now that their prices are deflating? To counteract us have to commute and eat and stay warm and keep our cool.
A "swimsuit edition of the blog" eh? Featuring what ... gasoline nozzles leaking out a micron-size blip for $10 into a giant Hummer which might allow it to roll to the next gas pump in the same station? But oh yeah, you'd need one of those scantily-clad auto-show GM-girls to be holding the nozzle. OK, throw in a few men-in-kilts shining the chrome bumpers & you may have a winner! Americans love a distraction to keep the "velveeta" in their heads from seeping out. D.K.
First of all, just buy a bike. That's what I'm going to do. Who needs a car when you can hop on your self-propelled, non-pollutant transportation device? Besides, you'll have really great legs.
Secondly, the stock market is going to crash anyway. Don't sweat the big stuff, because in the long run, gas prices don't really matter. Either, when we run out of petroleum, everyone will collaborate and find some other way of moving their lazy selves from point A to point B, or utter chaos will engulf the country and life as we know it will dissapear forever.
Humans are very adaptable creatures, even the lazy ones.
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