Inflation/Gas Prices/Rising Prices in General

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

One quarter is just a data point. Deflation means a general downward movement of prices (ongoing)

Hasn't happened since the 20s, and isn't likely to happen now

Nothing that is happening now has much of a precedent. If supply issues resolve as demand dries up, prices should come down pretty hard from the levels they are at now.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

Nothing that is happening now has much of a precedent. If supply issues resolve as demand dries up, prices should come down pretty hard from the levels they are at now.

Inflation has happened a bunch before - just not in the recent past:

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

Inflation has happened a bunch before - just not in the recent past:

I was referring to the conditions that led to it being unlike anything before.

[djsFlames]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

I always find this hilarious. Everyone seems to think we need to take major drastic steps to combat climate change. And fair enough. But if even a 50 cent hike in gas prices is UNACCEPTABLE, then what the #### are you even talking about? Gas needs to be 4 bucks a litre and literally everything else outside of locally produced products needs to go up a similar amount.

Just figure out what you actually want already. Hunt: it can't be "solve the world's problems without inconvenience me personally or affecting my life in any way".

This solution only applies to people who can afford such a change, where its merely an "inconvenience" that they refuse to make. That's only a portion of the population.

Low income families aren't out buying hybrid or electric cars. They're driving older gas vehicles. But yeah let's make it 4 bucks a litre just to show those darn hypocrites. Also consider a rather sizeable group doesn't believe we're having an effect on the climate at all.

Kind of a high horse comment that sees this from a very specific angle without considering that there are many.

[stone hands]

Originally Posted by djsFlames

This solution only applies to people who can afford such a change, where its merely an "inconvenience" that they refuse to make. That's only a portion of the population.

Low income families aren't out buying hybrid or electric cars. They're driving older gas vehicles. But yeah let's make it 4 bucks a litre just to show those darn hypocrites. Also consider a rather sizeable group doesn't believe we're having an effect on the climate at all.

Kind of a high horse comment that sees this from a very specific angle without considering that there are many.

We really need more walkable neighborhoods, better transit, better cycling infrastructure to actually enable people to stop being dependent on vehicles for everything. Gas prices are irrelevant if you dont need to drive every day

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by stone hands

We really need more walkable neighborhoods, better transit, better cycling infrastructure to actually enable people to stop being dependent on vehicles for everything. Gas prices are irrelevant if you dont need to drive every day

Yeah, and it's a change in behaviour that is needed as well. There are plenty of people of all income levels who choose to drive an inefficient car everywhere when there are options to take transit, car pool, walk or bike.

There are going to be plenty of worse problems for lower income people from climate change as well.

The price of gas seems to be the big thing that can drive change of behavior.

[Leondros]

Originally Posted by stone hands

We really need more walkable neighborhoods, better transit, better cycling infrastructure to actually enable people to stop being dependent on vehicles for everything. Gas prices are irrelevant if you dont need to drive every day

And how do you think those goods make it to grocery store? Fuel costs are driving what's called push-cost inflation. Stagflation from the 1970's is the closest comparable that comes to mind in what we are seeing. This really was an inevitable outcome when you look at the decrease in capital spent in the industry as a whole.

There are many places to point fingers: climate change activism forcing restrictions on capital spending, shareholder's push for shareholder returns through dividends and share buy-backs rather than spending on projects, and general regulatory resistance for a number of reasons. The world just seemed to think we could get off fossil fuels over night. It was asinine.

[stone hands]

Originally Posted by Leondros

And how do you think those goods make it to grocery store? Fuel costs are driving what's called push-cost inflation. Stagflation from the 1970's is the closest comparable that comes to mind in what we are seeing. This really was an inevitable outcome when you look at the decrease in capital spent in the industry as a whole.

There are many places to point fingers: climate change activism forcing restrictions on capital spending, shareholder's push for shareholder returns through dividends and share buy-backs rather than spending on projects, and general regulatory resistance for a number of reasons. The world just seemed to think we could get off fossil fuels over night. It was asinine.

I was specifically addressing the claim about having to drive everywhere. I'm well aware that gas prices effect transportation costs of goods, but if you didnt have to spend $100 every few days because you drive everywhere, then that should be more than enough to offset the cost, nevermind reducing the demand for gas in general(if everyone did it, which is not currently possible eith how cities are designed around everyone driving around everywhere)

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Leondros

And how do you think those goods make it to grocery store? Fuel costs are driving what's called push-cost inflation. Stagflation from the 1970's is the closest comparable that comes to mind in what we are seeing. This really was an inevitable outcome when you look at the decrease in capital spent in the industry as a whole.

Odd that profits in the grocery industry have managed to continue growing from the already ballooning amount they achieved during the pandemic. If it were only a matter of inflation as a result of logistical costs being passed off to the consumer one would think the profits would be somewhat stagnant or would have actually decreased due to more people eating out with restrictions lifted.

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

Odd that profits in the grocery industry have managed to continue growing from the already ballooning amount they achieved during the pandemic. If it were only a matter of inflation as a result of logistical costs being passed off to the consumer one would think the profits would be somewhat stagnant or would have actually decreased due to more people eating out with restrictions lifted.

Source?

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by Weitz

Source?

https://www.newswire.ca/news-release...877384453.html

https://corporate.sobeys.com/wp-cont...inal-SEDAR.pdf

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

https://www.newswire.ca/news-release...877384453.html

https://corporate.sobeys.com/wp-cont...inal-SEDAR.pdf

Interestingly in the second link margin only increased by 41 basis points year over year. Not huge.

[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

I always find this hilarious. Everyone seems to think we need to take major drastic steps to combat climate change. And fair enough. But if even a 50 cent hike in gas prices is UNACCEPTABLE, then what the #### are you even talking about? Gas needs to be 4 bucks a litre and literally everything else outside of locally produced products needs to go up a similar amount.

Just figure out what you actually want already. Hunt: it can't be "solve the world's problems without inconvenience me personally or affecting my life in any way".

Originally Posted by Table 5

• Get used to good life, but forget why and how we got there.
• Spend decades vilifying fossil fuel as evil.
• Ignore basic laws of economics and think that if you kill supply, it will reduce demand, ignoring global growth.
• Fail to realize fossil fuels are critical to everything we do…from food production to basic materials, and that if the price of energy goes up, so does production of literally everything.
• Fight/protest all new development and exploration at every step to score political points. Turn communities against each other.
• Starve own highly regulated industry, rely on shady countries/cartels instead… act outraged when they don’t share your beliefs and do what you want.
• Watch large institutions and funds make big ESG show about no longer investing in fossil fuels. Prioritize putting money into apps instead.
• Think renewables will solve everything, failing to realize they are built on a backbone of fossil fuels. Ignore lessons from countries like Germany that actively went in on renewables, and now have sky high energy prices…and still rely on coal power.
• Only focus on environmental cost, fail to consider humanitarian/monetary/political ones. Forget how revolutions start.
• Ignore decade long bear market in energy… then accuse everyone of being greedy after relatively small uptick. Ignore two decades of record profits of tech boom.
• Talk of profit taxes and nationalization, ignoring lessons of past and further stunting new supply.

Huh? It seems you've missed the point. Nowhere did I complain about the higher gas prices. I was merely confronting the BS talking point that many people (on social media and in the public in general) keep bringing up, which is that Trudeau and Biden have some sort of magical lever that lets them determine the price of gas.

The recent rise in the price of gas has been due to 2 main factors, a slump in world production, and Putin's war/resulting sanctions. When the overall world supply goes down, price will inevitably increase.

When the price of fuel goes up, the price of everything goes up, because everything needs to be transported multiple times through the supply chain before it ends up as a final product that you buy in stores or online.

However, supply chain disruptions are clearly the largest reason for rising prices in general. Again, basic economics, supply goes down, prices go up.

The other absurd talking point going around is that the relief stimulus to ordinary citizens (CERB, stimulus checks in the US) is somehow the main cause of the inflation. There's virtually no evidence to support the idea that it was the main cause; other factors happening in the same time period are much more likely to have had a bigger impact. Factors such as:

- supply chains being disrupted
- covid causing mass shutdowns of industries for a period of time
- bad pay/working conditions for truckers/warehouse workers/delivery workers, leading to high turnover and staffing shortages
- pent-up demand from the pandemic, leading to a sudden surge of spending once covid restrictions were lifted and people could resume normal-ish life

So we can sit here and blame the inflation on ordinary people expecting the government to come to their aid during a deadly pandemic that disrupted their income source, or we can be sensible and understand that there are many factors that contributed to the inflation situation we're dealing with now. A recent study actually found that the US stimulus spending only had a modest inflationary effect on the US economy:

https://en.as.com/en/2022/01/19/late...40_994917.html

The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco looked at the effect of the American Rescue Plan specifically on inflation. It found that Biden’s stimulus is temporarily ratcheting up inflation, but not causing “overheating” as has been suggested. Their analysis found that “the ARP, is expected to cause inflation to increase by about 0.3 percentage point in 2021 and by a bit more than 0.2 percentage point in 2022. The impact in 2023 is negligible.”

Beyond this, there are other considerations that some conveniently ignore, such as inflationary impact of the corporate bailout component of the covid stimulus spending, and inflationary impact of market speculators in general. No one seems to complain when cost of living is artificially high due to speculators hording huge swaths of resource supplies, but when stimulus checks cause a tiny bit of inflation, everyone suddenly gets up in arms. Honestly, it baffles me.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

The other absurd talking point going around is that the relief stimulus to ordinary citizens (CERB, stimulus checks in the US) is somehow the main cause of the inflation. There's virtually no evidence to support the idea that it was the main cause; other factors happening in the same time period are much more likely to have had a bigger impact. Factors such as:

I don't know if there's a single "main" cause. However, the government printing cash was certainly a major contributing factor. There's simply more money in circulation now. Therefore, each individual dollar is worth less.

[CaptainYooh]

Originally Posted by Table 5

• Get used to good life, but forget why and how we got there.
• Spend decades vilifying fossil fuel as evil.
• Ignore basic laws of economics and think that if you kill supply, it will reduce demand, ignoring global growth.
• Fail to realize fossil fuels are critical to everything we do…from food production to basic materials, and that if the price of energy goes up, so does production of literally everything.
• Fight/protest all new development and exploration at every step to score political points. Turn communities against each other.
• Starve own highly regulated industry, rely on shady countries/cartels instead… act outraged when they don’t share your beliefs and do what you want.
• Watch large institutions and funds make big ESG show about no longer investing in fossil fuels. Prioritize putting money into apps instead.
• Think renewables will solve everything, failing to realize they are built on a backbone of fossil fuels. Ignore lessons from countries like Germany that actively went in on renewables, and now have sky high energy prices…and still rely on coal power.
• Only focus on environmental cost, fail to consider humanitarian/monetary/political ones. Forget how revolutions start.
• Ignore decade long bear market in energy… then accuse everyone of being greedy after relatively small uptick. Ignore two decades of record profits of tech boom.
• Talk of profit taxes and nationalization, ignoring lessons of past and further stunting new supply.

Why oil/inflation so high?!?? Damn greedy corporations.

This post deserves to be quoted several times, just to be re-read. So many form their world views today based entirely on YouTube and Instagram videos.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by CaptainYooh

This post deserves to be quoted several times, just to be re-read. So many form their world views today based entirely on YouTube and Instagram videos.

The post should be on billboards and mainstream advertising in Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto. People in these cities have lost sight of what matters to most people.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by blankall

I don't know if there's a single "main" cause. However, the government printing cash was certainly a major contributing factor. There's simply more money in circulation now. Therefore, each individual dollar is worth less.

Only a portion of that ended up in the hands of individuals though. Most of the money (particularly in the US) was spent on supporting businesses, many of which used the money for things like stock buybacks and dividend increases.

And even then, the relationship between money supply and inflation isn't as direct as people like to suggest. Some countries with modest inflation (Israel is a good example) had huge increases in their money supply. On the other hand, places like New Zealand, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, etc. had far more modest increases in money supply over the last couple of years than the US or Canada did, yet they're seeing high inflation.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by opendoor

Only a portion of that ended up in the hands of individuals though. Most of the money (particularly in the US) was spent on supporting businesses, many of which used the money for things like stock buybacks and dividend increases.

And even then, the relationship between money supply and inflation isn't as direct as people like to suggest. Some countries with modest inflation (Israel is a good example) had huge increases in their money supply. On the other hand, places like New Zealand, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, etc. had far more modest increases in money supply over the last couple of years than the US or Canada did, yet they're seeing high inflation.

Firstly, many of the countries you listed as having moderate increases in money supply were some of the covid top spenders:

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52450958

Secondly, Canada spent over $74 billion on CERB payments:

https://www.canada.ca/en/services/be...ms-report.html

CERB payments, other bailouts, and low interest rates most certainly had a major effect on inflation. There's just no debating that.

[Jason14h]

Don’t forget creating a new asset class - cryptocurrency - which “created” trillions of $$ of money supply and purchasing power

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by blankall

Firstly, many of the countries you listed as having moderate increases in money supply were some of the covid top spenders:
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52450958

And yet #2 Japan has the lowest inflation in the OECD.

Secondly, Canada spent over $74 billion on CERB payments:

https://www.canada.ca/en/services/be...ms-report.html

CERB payments, other bailouts, and low interest rates most certainly had a major effect on inflation. There's just no debating that.

Of course they had an effect. But it's way, way more complicated than "increase money supply = inflation". If other monetary policies are done correctly, it's totally possible to increase money supply without inducing significant inflation.

As for CERB, the OP's point was that payments supporting individuals aren't what's driving inflation and that's largely correct. Even in Canada, which had some of the most generous individual benefits, the money still mostly ended up in the hands of businesses (CEWS alone was over $100B plus whatever forgiveness there is in the tens of billions in dollars of CEBA loans).