Originally published at: April saw the biggest inflation since 2008, but no need to panic | Boing Boing
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Maybe if these analysts would put their calculators down and get up from their desks to buy groceries on a fixed income or minimum wage maybe they would think differently.
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Just back from HomeDepot, a 2x4x8 is now $10.00 US, that’s not a miss print, bag of portland cement is $7.00, and a sheet of 4x8x1/2 inch plywood is $70.00.
Nothing to worry about… I needed a break from home improvement projects…
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That’s because the lumber industry thought demand would totally tank and so they ordered and produced a lot less.
But with people staying home all the time, they took their vacation money and eat out money and used it to update/upgrade/fix their houses. And thus demand actually did not tank. And it out stripped supply rather quickly.
Now they are playing catch up.
I believe some tariffs on Canadian lumber is also affecting prices.
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One of my first jobs was a clean up person at a lumber yard in New Jersey. In 1968 you got 4 2x4’s for a $1.00 US, I liked the job for the added perk of getting the scraps of wood for free’ola, not the $1.00 an hour it paid.
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According to the inflation calculator, $1 in 1969 is $7.67 in today’s dollars. So the price of $10 isn’t that far off. Normal price might actually be lower than it was in 1968,
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Well gas was .29 cents a gallon and a gallon of milk was .49 cents too. But wages were absolute shit for hourly workers.
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got it in one. plus if you want to talk disincentives for “going back to work” gas prices definitely figure in to what jobs you can afford to take. particularly in places where there are no good public transport options
i pretty much assume by the time the minimum wage goes up to 15, everyone will need 20 or 25 to get by.
the larger point of the analysts though also is: inflation isn’t expected to keep going up. it’s not going to tank the overall economy. and people shouldn’t listen to arguments about national debt or runaway inflation when figuring out whether to raise taxes on wealthy folks and spend money on social programs
lowering the need for money ( by offering high quality public options for transportation, education, child care, healthcare … ) will help even more than raising wages to catch up to inflation
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I hadn’t heard this explanation, but it’s interesting. Any thoughts on steel?
Down here in South America anything with steel in it has also skyrocketed along with lumber. Some projects I’d started building in June 2020 are now going much slower due to materials costs.
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I herd that back then you could get a dime bag for 10 cents.
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A serious all day smoker fatty joint that would send you to Mars and back was $1.00 buck. Those were the days…
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1960s weed couldn’t get a modern user high no matter how much they smoked.
I doubt it’d even be worthy of the pot shop’s discount trim bags.
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I grew it and it was decent sensi purple bud, I wouldn’t kick it out’a bed for getting me high. No, it won’t hold up to say Romulan Grapefruit or Bubba Cush or Blaster Bud, that shit will send your brain into hiding.
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Yeah, that guy, he’s high AF.
Oh what’ya know, it’s cocktail & smokey hour. Time for some R&R Papasan style.
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FWIW from $0.25 to $10 in 53 years is an average of 7.2% annual inflation
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looks good on paper, but I need 500 of them, that’s $5000k, last year it was $2300 for the same. It sucks, but like I said on top of the thread, I need a break.
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I don’t know specifically - but fluxes in the prices of goods usually are due to supply and demand issues. The pandemic has disrupted supply all over the place for all kinds of things.
Governments can help or hurt the prices by tariffs, taxes, or some other law that effects distribution. Though in generally, the government gets way more blame for the prices of some thing - usually it is good ol’ capitalism for the reason prices are higher.
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fwiw, I also assumed that when they said it wouldn’t even be rolled out for several more years. Hell, when it was announced that it would (hah) happen, I believe I read that it was calculated that the realistic minimum hourly amount we need now to live on is $20/hr and that was a couple years ago. Then watching our government tank passing it now, at a time when it would have really helped so many people… Yeah. Not an uplifting moment in history.
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