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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   25231 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023

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The rhetorical dynamic is the following:

  1. economists have thought really hard about how to measure inflation and have sophisticated data and tools to do it. They do their thing and say that year over year inflation is 4% or whatever.

  2. weird zerohedge people notice that mayonnaise prices at target are higher by 75% and from this conclude that the federal reserve is lying about inflation.

I think people in #2 get confused because food is so important to live while flat screen tvs are not. So when food prices go up they think a lot of people must be about to starve. It’s useful to point out to these confused people that food, while necessary to live, is so cheap relative to Americans’ income that food prices can increase a lot and it doesn’t really matter. Hence headline inflation can be low even though mayonnaise at target seems expensive, and nevertheless headline inflation is the thing we should care about.

Not only do people not spend a very large portion of their incomes on food, but they spend an even tinier amount on mayonaise, and it isn't even necessary to live. My point being that people fixate on a few specific things whose prices have risen by a lot and ignore the many things whose prices have not risen by as much or at all.

How is any of that a rebuttal to you being point of fact wrong about how much people spend on food, and how impactful food inflation is to them?

I mean sure, if 3% vs 12% is what changes your mind then fine, but this seems like totally missing the point. I can find some other small sliver of consumption where prices are down or flat. Most people are out there acting concerned as if food is 50% of people’s spending.

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