Do you feel like the price of everything just keeps going up while your income doesn't? Does it feel like your budget just doesn't seem to meet in the middle anymore despite your income not going down? Do you wonder why your grocery cart seems lighter and smaller with each trip to the store despite the fact that you're paying more for your groceries than before? Well, I have good news and bad news, and they're both the same news. Yes, you are sane, you're not imagining it, but no, you're not wrong, you're not imagining it.
The Federal Government and the CBO rate our national inflation for 2021 at over 4%. Yes you read that right, 4%. When is the last time we saw 4% inflation? Well, that would be 2007 when the bank crisis hit just prior to the 2008 financial collapse. Before that? 1990 after the Savings & Loan crisis. (Annual Inflation Statistics Here)
Yet, even that doesn't quite tell the story. You see, in the 1970s, economists removed the price of food and energy (such as gasoline and heating fuel) from the CPI statistics, and in 2014 they went to an even more deluded model. They claim that these prices make overall inflation skewed, which has some truth, but then it also then doesn't give a real reflection of what you're actually paying out of pocket year over year since such a high percentage of our incomes go to these two sectors.
So, and try to stay with me, this is important, core inflation is over 4%, but what is the REAL inflation rate? Well, if you haven't met the website Shadow Stats before, you should take a look. It's a website dedicated to cutting through the governments "lipstick on a pig" statistics and giving you the real numbers, not the pretty ones.
They state that true consumer inflation is up 12.1% in April 2021 over April 2020, and that's after 10% jumps in both January and February 2021. How does that 1% (if you're REALLY lucky) Cost of Living Adjustment to your paycheck look now, eh?
But that's all a bunch of fancy talk, what does it mean for you? Well, let me attempt to break it down for you.
You're paying, on average 12.1% more for everything you buy then you did last year. Now that's not completely true, because you're paying 30-50% more for some things, and 0% more for others, but it's an average.
So, imagine being on a family budget (I know that no one uses them anymore), and your expense side goes up by 12.1%, but your income side goes up by 1% (if you're lucky). That gives you a total negative purchasing power of 11.1%. Where are the majority of those costs? Yep, you guessed it, gasoline and food.
Sill happy about Biden's energy policy, his "green" energy, and his cancelling of the keystone pipeline?
How about his agriculture regulations?
Not so fun when it hits YOU directly in the pocket book, eh?
Oh yeah, and let's not forget that many of those industries are looking for workers because people are getting more money to sit on unemployment in many states and so they aren't getting back to producing which is causing a PARTIAL supply issue, which is also a part of the rising prices. It's all connected, and it's all bad.
When you keep printing money out of thin air to give to people, your money loses value. The more of something there is, the less valuable it becomes. Hence the inflation. Companies don't see the dollar as worth as much because so many people have even more of it than before. In order to keep their percentage of wealth (read keep up with inflation), they will raise their prices accordingly, yet you won't get any more money from your job, you'll just have to absorb the higher cost of everything you buy.
Folks, these inflation numbers are straight out of the Jimmy Carter era, which is interesting from a historical perspective as much of what Biden is trying to do is a carbon copy of Jimmy Carter's policy.
Hey, but it'll work this time, right?
Nope, it won't, it never does. You can regulate business to pay more, but you can't regulate them to actually give up their percentage of the pie. They just adjust their business model to meet the needs of the business.
Oh yeah, and this doesn't even include any of the HIDDEN inflations such as package shrinkage (air in a bag of chips, cereal boxes getting smaller, deodorant sticks softening so they get used faster), fees (not included in the CPI), or taxes (which are going up and trickling down as new expenses for renters and new loan applicants).
You're not imagining it. This is Democrat policy doing what Democrat policy does. It's an attempt to get you to buy less, use less, and reduce your lifestyle. Yet they can't get elected on that platform, so they use all these other fancy terms to get you to elect them, but the end result of their policy is always the same. Less and less for the American people, all in the name of the "little guy," while their big donors, pet projects, and "foundations" scoop up money left and right.
You're getting robbed.
And I bet you didn't even know it.