It's helpful to have a look at the graph in the article and to remind yourself that the numbers are reported year-on-year. Inflation spiked up in the first half of 2021 and the comparison is between the current month and the same month last year so prices could stay the same and you would still report high inflation for a while (until the back end of the comparison window catches up to the moment in time when inflation went up).
I think it's important to clear this up because people say things like "high inflation of over 5-6% for months now" which is kind of misleading. Prices can go up 6% just once and then stay the same and you'll still report 6% inflation every month throughout the following year.
This isn't to say that things are great and high inflation isn't happening. The month-to-month increase is 0.9% which is very high (see the graph).
USSR disintegrating after 91 and the opening up of markets around the world from the wave of neoliberalism helped a fucking lot, movements such as Latin America slowly dropping its market-protection practices, former Soviet states adopting free market ideologies and so on created quite a high demand, it was the start of globalisation as we are used to nowadays.
Most of the most prosperous periods in American history are following large shifts in the world order, WW1 and 2, collapse of the USSR, starting the Age of Information, etc.
Inflation does not affect (relatively speaking) the poorest more. On the contrary, it's a tax on people that have a lot of cash or cash-equivalent assets. That's not the poor. The poor have either very little cash or even negative (via debt), so inflation benefits them.
You can literally see how the wealth gap inequality nose dives in the high-inflation environment of the 70s and then continually increases after low-inflation rates become the norm for decades after around 1982.
Inflation is a tax, should be seen as such but is a tax on the rich in cash (I keep insisting on the term cash because that's what inflation taxes, if you are rich in other assets inflation may or may not result in an effective taxation of your wealth). Monetary and fiscal policy should be designed with this in mind.
If there was a scale of value in terms of being between the borrower (people in debt) and people lending (people with cash). It swings heavily in favour of people in debt.
Taxation is deliberate and easily measured. Inflation is much more difficult to measure and it results from many parts of a complex system interacting with each other. The only thing in common is that people end up with less money.
[+] [-] merricksb|4 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29175110
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29174804
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29182768
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] jstx1|4 years ago|reply
I think it's important to clear this up because people say things like "high inflation of over 5-6% for months now" which is kind of misleading. Prices can go up 6% just once and then stay the same and you'll still report 6% inflation every month throughout the following year.
This isn't to say that things are great and high inflation isn't happening. The month-to-month increase is 0.9% which is very high (see the graph).
[+] [-] pfortuny|4 years ago|reply
But notice that, following your indication, monthly increase is a steady >0.2% and mostly >0.4% since May 2020, way above average.
So, yes: high inflation has been going on for at least a year.
[+] [-] jacquesm|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] foota|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fauigerzigerk|4 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990_oil_price_shock
[+] [-] piva00|4 years ago|reply
Most of the most prosperous periods in American history are following large shifts in the world order, WW1 and 2, collapse of the USSR, starting the Age of Information, etc.
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] m4rtink|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] yeslibertarian|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] vbg|4 years ago|reply
Meaningless crap, designed to support government narrative that everything is great, nothing to see here.
To have any credibility at all, inflation MUST include rent/mortgage payments and house prices.
[+] [-] edmcnulty101|4 years ago|reply
(food and beverages, housing, apparel, transportation, medical care, recreation, education and communication, and other goods and services)
Question 10. https://www.bls.gov/cpi/questions-and-answers.htm
[+] [-] skohan|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] planb|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ur-whale|4 years ago|reply
Unfortunately, it's taxation that makes the weakest suffer the most.
Oh, and the govt would like you to believe they have a way to control it.
Yeah sure, I'm going to turn that knob that is one input of a perfectly chaotic system, and I know what is going to happen.
Let's see how that empty promise actually turns out.
[+] [-] pa7x1|4 years ago|reply
And you can see this historically, too:
Historical inflation rate chart: http://www.aboutinflation.com/_/rsrc/1369736825466/inflation...
Wealth gap inequality: https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F...
You can literally see how the wealth gap inequality nose dives in the high-inflation environment of the 70s and then continually increases after low-inflation rates become the norm for decades after around 1982.
Inflation is a tax, should be seen as such but is a tax on the rich in cash (I keep insisting on the term cash because that's what inflation taxes, if you are rich in other assets inflation may or may not result in an effective taxation of your wealth). Monetary and fiscal policy should be designed with this in mind.
[+] [-] neximo64|4 years ago|reply
If there was a scale of value in terms of being between the borrower (people in debt) and people lending (people with cash). It swings heavily in favour of people in debt.
[+] [-] jstx1|4 years ago|reply