The problem is where things are getting the most expensive, that being food and housing, the markets are captured. You can’t just say no to having food and housing.
Corporate ownership of housing is a major problem that no legislator seems to be handling. The Feds should start building and selling houses to individuals themselves. I believe that is one way to lower housing costs and increasing private ownership.
That’s a fine bit of bit circular logic there. The price of food is used in the BLS’s basket of goods for calculating the Consumer Price Index (CPI). So yes, the goods used to track inflation do, in fact, track with inflation.
That said, the US economy (at a macro level) is doing rather well considering that we weathered a global pandemic, we have a war on in Europe involving one of the world’s major oil and gas suppliers and inflation has been stubbornly high. Yet somehow, wages are up and unemployment is at historic lows. Seriously, if the administration could actually do something about the housing situation and prices rising, this election would look a lot more like 2008 than 2016. But unfortunately, people vote based on how they feel, not on an analysis of macro-economics. So long as people fell like the gains they have made are being squeezed back out of them via rising prices, the incumbent president is in trouble. When you get down to it, it’s still the economy, stupid.
The problem is where things are getting the most expensive, that being food and housing, the markets are captured. You can’t just say no to having food and housing.
This is where regulation is supposed to step in.
Corporate ownership of housing is a major problem that no legislator seems to be handling. The Feds should start building and selling houses to individuals themselves. I believe that is one way to lower housing costs and increasing private ownership.
Food tracks the general inflation closely, it hasn’t actually gone up faster than the inflation in any meaningful way
That’s a fine bit of bit circular logic there. The price of food is used in the BLS’s basket of goods for calculating the Consumer Price Index (CPI). So yes, the goods used to track inflation do, in fact, track with inflation.
That said, the US economy (at a macro level) is doing rather well considering that we weathered a global pandemic, we have a war on in Europe involving one of the world’s major oil and gas suppliers and inflation has been stubbornly high. Yet somehow, wages are up and unemployment is at historic lows. Seriously, if the administration could actually do something about the housing situation and prices rising, this election would look a lot more like 2008 than 2016. But unfortunately, people vote based on how they feel, not on an analysis of macro-economics. So long as people fell like the gains they have made are being squeezed back out of them via rising prices, the incumbent president is in trouble. When you get down to it, it’s still the economy, stupid.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm
It’s not like we don’t have inflation excluding food
All items excluding food and energy: 3.8%
Food: 2.2%