I just think they're neat!
People need to learn that when they hear 'inflation is down', it doesn't mean things are getting cheaper, it just means that the increase in cost is slowing down.
Is it a psychological tactic that news media is using to make consumers more complacent? Who knows. But, whenever I hear someone mention that phrase like things are improving, I die a little more each time.
The inflation figure is an annual figure though. It means things are 2.7% more expensive than they were last year. OP is showing an example nearer 60%.
It's actually showing 47%. The price is based on pounds which increased from $10.99 to $15.99.
Since it's from April to August, it's actually showing 31% annual.
And since a sample size of one, and the location is redacted (could be comparing Texas with NYC or Hawaii) it's showing nothing.
if inflation made my paycheck go up, that'd be great. As it stands I have a LOT less buying power and my industry is waffling so I'm only seeing 2% increases for years.
It exists. In Belgium and I think also Luxembourg inflation in prices of common consumer things automatically triggers wages, unemployment money, pensions to rise too. For most jobs it triggers when it hits 2%. Life got 2 % more expensive, wages rise 2 % a few months / a year later. Using a basket of consumer prices, excluding things like fuel, alcohol, tobacco prices
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUSR0000SAF112
Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: Meats, Poultry, Fish, and Eggs in U.S. City Average (Seasonally Adjusted)
Entire Time Series (1967+) Normalized to '82-'84 =100:
Last 5 Years (2020+), Renormalized to 100 = Jan 2020:
So, yeah, thats about 35% increase in 5 years, if you specifically look at the Meat Poultry Fish Eggs component of the CPI.
The CPI numbers, the, '2.5%' inflation number... thats ~~month to month~~ the last 12 months, annualized, like an APR, ... and they are a weighted basket of many, many different subcomponents such as this.
Sort of analagous to how a say, 10% APR... well, thats annualized, so to get the monthly interest rate, you roughly divide by 12... but technically it is more complicated, because that monthly interest rate is actually compounding every month over month.
So the acutal monthly rate is:
MPR = [ ( 1 + APR ) ^ ( 1 / 12 ) ] - 1
If you treat an ~35% increase over almost 5 years with this kind of math, then you end up with an average, effective monthly inflation rate for meat and eggs of:
~~6.642%, since Jan 2020.~~
EDIT: I fucked up the math, goddamned javascript based web calculator on shitty mobile phone,.here's something more accurate:
4.984%, since July 2020.
(I'm basically just doing napkin math here, picking specifically July 2020 just because its the 5Y window, normally you'd use a longer period of stability to base this off of, but hopefully ya'll get the idea)
Also worth noting, the latest August numbers are of course backward looking, in time. So, if these price pics in the OP image are literally from today... they may not be reflected in the numbers untill next month.
... Assuming Trump has not destroyed the BLS/FRED by then, who fucking knows.
.........
Why doesn't this line up with broader inflation?
Well, lots of reasons, I'm going to pick probably the biggest one, as opposed to writing an entire PhD level dissertation...
The CPI, the big headline number... is based on an average basket of goods and services that, ie, a weighted index, and uh... that basket, those weights, represent the average, the mean... not the median.
Here's 2022.
Yep thats a household that makes $94k before taxes, $83k after taxes.
In 2022, the US Median after tax household income was... $64k.
So, the entire basket, and thus CPI, is thus weighted toward the spending patterns of people about 1 standard deviation higher than the median household income.
Rich people do not have the same spending basket as poorer people, poorer people disproportionally spend a lot more of their income on food, rent/mortgage, gas / car expenses...
... And as wealth disparity, and wealth transfer to the elites gets worse and worse, the reported CPI thus underreports actual inflation for more and more people.
........
Hope all these fun numbers help explain some things.
.........
EDIT 2:
Without having to doing a bunch of math yourself...
Probably look at the CPI-U series and components instead of the broader CPI... as the U refers to Urban, and something like 80% of Americans live in what is considered an Urban area.
So looking at the CPI-U is probably a relatively easy way to get a somewhay more realistic look at price levels that actual people pay... but the flipside is that the wealthy disparity is even more lopsided in Urban areas... uh, good luck, lol.
.........
The financial news and media still focus on the broader CPI... basically because of outdated tradition.
Much like how they almost never pay attention the BLS employment number revisions... unless they are very very bad.
You don't need to be very smart to have money, basically just lucky. Or ruthless.
.......
EDIT 3
Ok, using the actual numbers from OP Image... maybe this can demonsrate the power of compound interest.
Thats a 1y difference of +45.496%, in $/lb of beef.
All it takes to get that, in one year...
Is an average, compounding, 3.1742% price increase every month, for 12 months.
Exponential equations run away fast, and human brains tend to default to thinking of linear relationships... not exponential... and thats why credit card companies make so much money, lol.
Anyway, yeah, check this CPI U meat/eggs subcomponent next month to see august price levels, and if they do a massive jump, or if data is now considered a woke diversity hire and now banned shrug
Wow this is a great write up
I am an unemployed econometrician, and laughing about it.
I'm sorry to hear that, because your amazing talents and dedication could be purposed to save our country and world.
Thank you for drafting all this and for taking the time to teach us. You're awesome.
Unfortunately that world runs on nepotism and schmoozing and 'prestigious accolades' (aka you have to start off rich) and I am too autistic and too lowborn.
I could go into an entire schpiel, with cited data and sources, showing that meritocracy is near nonexistant in the US, but uh... this is one of those uh, bell curve memes with the caveman and wizard on both ends, and neurotic normie in the middle.
You do enough data analysis and one day it hits you that 90% of people cannot or do not read data, and then you realize you have to craft a narrative device if you want any hope of anyone actually absorbing what you're saying lol.
If its any consolation to you... I have ideas for someday making a very comprehensive immersive sim type game... but at the scale of Kenshi, not your traditional imsim that is basically a series of small levels with choices.
Maybe someday I will get some of this working before the actual real world apocalypse/mass economic collapse, rofl.
They use a "basket of goods" that conveniently has nothing to do with how real people actually live.
According to our studies: accordion straps, horse shoes, goat bladder, those antenna from old TVs, and musket shot prices have all remained stable! Inflation solved!
braidon save the big piece of tv antenna for your father he had a long day
They use chained CPI too, which accounts for "the consumer adjusting their purchasing". It literally bakes in the concept of enshittification.
You see, inflation is not in fact up, because if you replace your steak dinners with ground beef, you will be spending just as much as before!
Brazil is the largest exporter of meat and Trump is tariffing them 50%
so, more than 2.7% in that category. almost like that claimed 2.7% is an intentionally misleading choice of "measure" of central tendency.
Lab grow all meats. Problem solved. Too bad Trump and his stupid MAGA base are against it. Timeline blows.
Lab grown meat isn't currently scalable at that level. Wish it were but unfortunately not. Consider not eating meat 👍 it's cheaper
I mix my meat with veggies and carbs to make it go longer
I think thats just called a balanced diet man /s
Nah, that's not balanced yet. You gotta take the combined weight of all that other stuff, and eat twice that in bread and carbs.
this post brought to you by the old food pyramid
Then why are states banning it on behalf of Big Ag lobbyists? If it’s not a threat, why would they?
Why would a capitalist company making fake beef be any less inclined to upcharge on fake beef compared to real beef?
They both have lines that must go up.
Beef, in particular, has experienced an intense price shock following a national shortage of cattle, with the national herd at a 73-year low.
This stems from severe drought conditions that have been plaguing the cattle-heavy mountain west for the better part of the last decade. Higher feed prices have also contributed to rising prices. But even beyond that, demand for beef continues to outpace the supply, driving prices upward as the raw supply of cattle falls.
I guess vegans can kinda-sorta rejoice. We're killing fewer cows and wasting less animal product, as the conditions of our country making herding both environmentally and ecologically unsustainable. This has spurred more investment into alt-meats, while also forcing states to grapple with how they're expending diminished water reserves.
But since we live in a plutocracy, I'm not sure we'll get better policy out of these material changes to the ecology. Mark Zuckerberg can keep force-feeding his Austin steers buckets of macadamia nuts while his AI factors belch CO^2^ and guzzle potable water long after the rest of us are living in Gaza-like conditions.
We've been importing beef primarily from Brazil to make up the shortfall. Guess what country got a 50% tariff that has stuck?
Because they're "not nice to us". Lmao. Fucking peach pedophile there.
I guess vegans can kinda-sorta rejoice. We’re killing fewer cows and wasting less animal product, as the conditions of our country making herding both environmentally and ecologically unsustainable. This has spurred more investment into alt-meats, while also forcing states to grapple with how they’re expending diminished water reserves.
I switched to being a vegetarian proper about a year ago, and its been a little validating that my grocery bills went down even when meat was more affordable, but now is dramatically cheaper since Quorn and Impossible meat haven't inflated in price at all (and are even more affordable when picked up in bulk on sale for the freezer).
Those two alternatives are astonishingly good, even enabling me to convert my lifelong meat eating family to vegetarianism which was unreal to see. I can't even tell I'm not eating meat in all the meat-based dishes I use them in, they're so damn good. Also nice to avoid the increased cancer risk from red meat.
For anyone else reading this, I massively recommend giving those two meat alternatives a shot. Impossible is 1-to-1, and the Quorn only needs a good vegan bullion cube of whatever meat you're trying to replicate (or Marmite for Beef flavor) and it's perfect for anything.
I'm gonna drop this here. No reason. Probably the same no reason they chose this topic last week.
Planet Money (podcast)
What happens when governments cook the books
August 8, 202510:48 PM ET
By Mary Childs, Sally Helm, Jess Jiang, Sam Yellowhorse Kesler
https://www.npr.org/2025/08/08/1256971798/bls-bureau-labor-statistics-greece-argentina
The American economy is three pyramid schemes in a trench coat
Not the most fair comparison. Cattle herd is smallest it's been in 60+ years and prices haven't gone high enough to reduce demand enough that the herd can rebound yet. You'll see higher beef prices for another 2 years before things calm down again.
Cattle numbers are definitely down, but monopolization of ranching has been carrying on at a pretty good clip as well. I think it's a safe bet that the new point of equilibrium they find will still be more expensive, even inflation adjusted. There's a similar trend across most agribusiness that I've seen, especially with farms going out of business in droves because of the pandemic.
Cattle numbers are also down because of Trump btw. Long term effect from his 1st presidency + his current policies helped the screw worm flies get through Panama.
