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Let me explain:
The concept is beyond supply and demand, at some point the price gets to a point where there is not enough buyers at any price that makes sense to produce or serve, and for the world this has now become a structural problem, and will turn deflation into a depression. Capital owners are resisting lowering their rate of return at a slower rate than consumers ability to purchase their goods and services.
Background (more…)
We have noted anecdotally that there is a creeping inflation in the system. It does not show up in commodities, which are in a post-bubble (ah, the good old ‘China story’ that was so vigorously promoted to a degree that would make a gold bug promoter blush) melt down. Crashing costs like that are providing the Goldilocks-like balance to rising costs within the economy.
This morning, the highly recommended Daily Shot had among its macro graphs a look at the “sticky” consumer price index. That got me to go over to the St. Louis Fed website and pull a couple different views of it. First, here is SLF’s description of the sticky index…
“The Sticky Price Consumer Price Index (CPI) is calculated from a subset of goods and services included in the CPI that change price relatively infrequently. Because these goods and services change price relatively infrequently, they are thought to incorporate expectations about future inflation to a greater degree than prices that change on a more frequent basis. One possible explanation for sticky prices could be the costs firms incur when changing price.”
These could be considered the embedded costs within the economy, like the steady upward march in healthcare or my trash collector’s price increases due to administrative and regulatory issues built into this particular service (despite dropping fuel costs).
By Biiwii
So now the dust settles on global markets that were given quite a stir yesterday by the ECB’s proclamation “We are ready to act if needed. We are open to a whole menu of monetary policy instruments.”
These things come on a nice, neat menu now? As if they are codified, tried and true and simply ready for implementation?
Well, if the US – where they showed ’em how it’s done – is a good example then yes, it is as simple as that. I used to write about Ben Bernanke’s big brain as he took policy innovation (interference?) to previously unheard of levels. It was ‘Check out the big brain on Brad Ben’…
What it actually is is a global deflationary whirlpool sucking things toward the drain. But the valiant fight is kept up by our policy heroes in a sometimes competitive, sometimes alternating fashion. Right now they are alternating.
By Biiwii
See: Oil collapse couldn’t come at a worse time for industry
See: 2007, when everyone was convinced of ‘Peak Oil’ and there were websites named ‘Peak Oil’, ‘Oil Drum’, etc. constantly reinforcing the mania.
I remember being away on business one day in 2007, with nothing better to do in my hotel room than watch the congressional debates about ‘peak oil’ and what to do about the evil speculators that were driving prices up. I enjoy watching a good mania as much as the next guy. I realized that what we were seeing was ‘Peak Hysteria’ with respect to this phenomenon. I thought, ‘Yup, Prechter’s right’.
You may have caught the title’s little inside joke.
Sometimes you (well, I anyway) can look at a graph representing data that is a culmination of history (i.e. reality) and just let it settle in for some perspective and even some conclusions.
Whether these conclusions are right or wrong is subjective and open to debate. But what I see here when viewing the Prime Rate historical is summed up after the graph (graphs courtesy of Economagic, mark ups mine).
