Analysis of current economic conditions and policy
Grocery Prices Continue to Rise
And are rising faster than in the last year under Biden.
Figure 1: CPI – food at home (black), 2024 stochastic trend (gray), February ERS forecast (light blue square), all on log scale. Source: BLS, ERS, and author’s calculations.
5 thoughts on “Grocery Prices Continue to Rise”
James Harold McClure
Of course Bruce Hall is happy that his 4 pound bag of coffee is the same price that his 8 pound bag of coffee was 15 months ago!
Macroduck
For context, food at home, up 2.4% y/y in February, is 8.3% of the CPI basket.
Food away from home, up 3.9% y/y, is 5.4% of the basket.
The cost of agricultural production faces upward pressure from higher energy and fertilizer prices, but that less than half the cost of food at the point of purchase. Transportation, refrigeration, labor and various other business costs account for the larger portion of food costs, and some of those costs go up immediately with higher oil prices.
CPI represents households at the 70th percentile of incomes. For households with incomes below the 70th percentile, food is generally an even greater share of expenditires.
Mactoduck
U.S. CENCOM warns that civilian ports in Iran are legitimate target:
This suggests a couple of things to me. One is that the war with Iran isn’t wrapping up yet. The other is that Iran may respond by attacking ports in the region. Bombing ports would slow recovery of shipping.
WTI up 8.9% so far today, Brent up 6.2%.
Macroduck
Ian Bremmer, who thinks about this stuff for a living, says that the U.S./Israel attack in Iran has increased the odds that Iran will make a dash to build nuclear weapons. His logic is that Iran will decide that possession of nukes would have prevented the U.S. and Israel from attacking Iran, as it has prevented the U.S. from attacking North Korea.
Bremmer says this logic further explains why Israel and the Gulf States are arguing that the war must continue – the war can’t end until Iran’s capacity to build nukes is gone. That was, after all, among the several excuses trotted out to justify the war. From their point of view, defining victory down to whatever will let us declare victory and go back home unacceptable.
The problem is that to end Iran’s capacity to build a nuke is likely to require sending troops into Iran – maybe lots of troops.
So, in Bremmer’s thinking, a small war to end Iran’s ability to produce a nuke has led to a situation in which we either fight a big war, or we let Iran to go ahead and build nukes.
Let’s remember, world leaders including Obama had made a deal to prevent Iran from building nukes and that deal was working. The felon-in-chief broke that deal. The argument for war that Iran might build a nuke only exists because of the felon’s own actions.
Ever read “The Cat in the Hat Comes Back”? While Mom is away, the Cat comes to visit and makes a mess in the bath tub. Each effort to clean up the mess makes it worse until the mess is spread as far as the eye can see. The felon made a mess in his first term. He’s back now, trying to clean up that mess, but he keeps making it worse. Problem is, this ain’t a kids book.
Baffling
People like trump are not accustomed to cleaning up their own mess. Typical trait of the republican party.
Of course Bruce Hall is happy that his 4 pound bag of coffee is the same price that his 8 pound bag of coffee was 15 months ago!
For context, food at home, up 2.4% y/y in February, is 8.3% of the CPI basket.
Food away from home, up 3.9% y/y, is 5.4% of the basket.
The cost of agricultural production faces upward pressure from higher energy and fertilizer prices, but that less than half the cost of food at the point of purchase. Transportation, refrigeration, labor and various other business costs account for the larger portion of food costs, and some of those costs go up immediately with higher oil prices.
CPI represents households at the 70th percentile of incomes. For households with incomes below the 70th percentile, food is generally an even greater share of expenditires.
U.S. CENCOM warns that civilian ports in Iran are legitimate target:
https://www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/PRESS-RELEASES/Press-Release-View/Article/4430855/civilians-warned-to-avoid-ports-used-by-iranian-forces/
This suggests a couple of things to me. One is that the war with Iran isn’t wrapping up yet. The other is that Iran may respond by attacking ports in the region. Bombing ports would slow recovery of shipping.
WTI up 8.9% so far today, Brent up 6.2%.
Ian Bremmer, who thinks about this stuff for a living, says that the U.S./Israel attack in Iran has increased the odds that Iran will make a dash to build nuclear weapons. His logic is that Iran will decide that possession of nukes would have prevented the U.S. and Israel from attacking Iran, as it has prevented the U.S. from attacking North Korea.
Bremmer says this logic further explains why Israel and the Gulf States are arguing that the war must continue – the war can’t end until Iran’s capacity to build nukes is gone. That was, after all, among the several excuses trotted out to justify the war. From their point of view, defining victory down to whatever will let us declare victory and go back home unacceptable.
The problem is that to end Iran’s capacity to build a nuke is likely to require sending troops into Iran – maybe lots of troops.
So, in Bremmer’s thinking, a small war to end Iran’s ability to produce a nuke has led to a situation in which we either fight a big war, or we let Iran to go ahead and build nukes.
Let’s remember, world leaders including Obama had made a deal to prevent Iran from building nukes and that deal was working. The felon-in-chief broke that deal. The argument for war that Iran might build a nuke only exists because of the felon’s own actions.
Ever read “The Cat in the Hat Comes Back”? While Mom is away, the Cat comes to visit and makes a mess in the bath tub. Each effort to clean up the mess makes it worse until the mess is spread as far as the eye can see. The felon made a mess in his first term. He’s back now, trying to clean up that mess, but he keeps making it worse. Problem is, this ain’t a kids book.
People like trump are not accustomed to cleaning up their own mess. Typical trait of the republican party.