Faber: Cost of living increasing 5-8%

How is it possible we have inflation (5%) when wages aren't increasing?

Somebody?
:)

I've made this point before, this is a government induced inflation that we've never seen before. The money floating around is massive, just look at the performance of Risk Assets. Just look at junk bonds for Christ sake!

Copper at all time highs!!!!

wohooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.finviz.com/futures_charts.ashx?t=HG&p=w1

Palladium at all time highs.

hooooo!!!

http://www.finviz.com/futures_charts.ashx?t=PA&p=w1

Cotton, Sugar, Coffee, corn, soybean, etc. etc.
Everything is at 52 week highs with some of these commodities at all time highs.

Tell me how it's possible without Wage Inflation?
So who's wrong now?

Thxs for the sugar tip.

Don't tell gourmet garage on 66th, but I bought a cup of coffee and took 20 brown sugars. I'm gonna go back this afternoon and get 20 more. I may go to strbks and see if I can score more sugar.

Later I'll go to gap and buy the $3 sweaters reverse engineer cotton. My god! I'm gonna be able to afford LIC PH condo!

You are an embicile. Raw materials are a tiny, tiny fraction of PPI. Let alone CPI. We don't live in 1889, its 2010. How much does copper affect your rent, the price of a haircut, the fees you pay your bank, or the cost of internet service? How about a movie ticket, the price of a flat-screen TV, or an airline ticket?

And for the record, when commidity prices were plunging in 2008, you ALSO said we had massive inflation.

If you live in New York, you know that union wages have not gone down.

Raw material prices will increase the costs of food. Increases in energy prices will impact consumers directly in their homes and their cars, but also by additionally by being another input to increase the costs of food production and delivery. Wages for labor and services will increase because of increasing healthcare costs and reduction of other benefits including. Housing may be the only decliner outside of increases in maintenance expenses.

Food prices overall have not gone upmthe way your cherry picked items have

No, food prices have not gone up the past couple years. My belief is that 2011 we'll start to see it very clearly.

I'm not sure what cherry picked items you are referring to.

Grains, Produce, Fish
All up substantially

Just follow the prices of JEANS

Headline inflation in 2011 will rise a bit. It will push through 2%.
Those numbers are meaningless.
The price of a pair of jeans will be 50% higher.
Food will cost us 15% more.
Gas will be at $4.
Bernanke’s QE will be blamed for the inflation

Huntersburg - depends on what you're buying. If you're just buying staples and not fancy stuff, groceries have increased at least 50% over the last 5 years.

Look at the prices of:
1) 20lb bag of rice
2) 20lb bag of potatoes
3) Apples
4) Basic vegetables
5) Non-fancy white fish & chicken

according to this, chicken is up 8% or so since 2004

http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=chicken&months=120

Chicken is the surely the sign of the new prosperity.

Love it.
All you knucklehead said it's not possible to have inflation without wage inflation.
Then what the hell is happening with all these raw materials?

You must be a complete moron to not see inflation in your local supermarket.

where are they relative to 5 yrs ago?

I've noticed that if you buy "fancy" stuff, that the inflation is less pronounced.

nyc10023, thanks again. I've been focused at the food available at the lower end of the spectrum, food eaten by those whose budgets are stretched and are not prospering in this economy (i.e. food makes up a larger percentage of their personal budget). In the past couple years, there have been abundant opportunities for those needing to do so to decrease their food budgets, but for those at that end of the spectrum, I believe that their food costs will be increasing as the inputs are getting more expensive.

please be aware that huntersburg is hfscomm1.

The glaring inflation in food is in Organic food. What our parents ate growing up are ALL organic. Now, we have to pay a premium (double the cost in most cases for 'regular') food. No inflation my a$$.

You're not seeing it, but we're paying MORE for FAR less.

It's that simple.

ericho, your point is that food makes up greater percentages of American household budgets than 30-40 years ago (how old are your parents?)?
I don't think so- we've had such advances in industrial farming and distribution networks.

"we've had such advances in industrial farming and distribution networks."

All those engineered seeds from Monsanto are killing us. Cancer seems to be creeping up on younger and younger folks.

Ok, but that's a different topic.

Good point. As much as food inflation is a serious problem in the U.S.
It is important to recognize it is a smaller component of our cost of living than in years past or for countries like India.

The glaring inflation in food is in Organic food. What our parents ate growing up are ALL organic
--
I go back and forth on this. Is Organic worth paying more for? I don't buy the argument that organic farming is more cost effective and efficient. If it were it would cost less. Furthermore I've never seen conclusive proof that organic food has more nutrition. We are always supposed to take this on faith.

Again, cherry picking.