Talk:2021–2023 inflation surge/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Deloitte reference

The Deloitte source, currently #11, is not RS. It's a self-published puff marketing/PR piece to project non-existent economics savvy to the accountants' clientele. The content so sourced should be removed and background framing should be taken from RS economic commentaries.See here...Kalish, Ira; Wolf, Michael (February 18, 2022). "Global surge in inflation". Deloitte. Archived from the original on June 20, 2022. @Soibangla: who appears to have added this content and who may now, 2 years later, know of better sources or content regarding background. SPECIFICO talk 11:51, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

alternative narrative?

SiennaVue is it your understanding there has been little to no measurable improvement in the inflation rate and price levels in recent quarters? I ask because some of your edits in recent days seem to suggest a downplaying of the improvements in ways that seem to me dismissive of facts and may appear to be POV. soibangla (talk) 00:53, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Not necessarily. The worldwide inflation rate has decreased, as have prices in some sectors, but overall prices across large sectors such as energy compared to five years ago remain elevated, in large part due to the aggressive spike in late 2021 and mid-2022. Even if inflation dips to 1%, prices are still rising, but at a much slower pace. As we know, 3% remains above the Federal Reserve's annual target, but it is much lower than the 2022 spike. I think it is important to recognize the general economic improvement since 2 years ago, but one editor seemed to exaggerate this by suggesting that elevated prices were irrelevant. From a lay reader's perspective, this appeared to be a POV as well and required editing. SiennaVue (talk) 01:57, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

again, the article is about the inflation rate, not price levels, though the latter can be discussed, but it is not the central focus. prices are almost always increasing, even when the inflation rate is 1%[1]. and while most prices continue to be at elevated levels and rising (as they almost always do), many prices are actually declining, rather than merely seeing a slower inflation rate. some of your edits seem to downplay that. the Fed's preferred measure, PCEPI[2], is right at the upper bound of its target range and they are now contemplating rate cuts. I am aware that many laypersons confuse the inflation rate with price levels, but nevertheless the article is about the inflation rate, and we can offer asides to make sure readers understand the distinction, but the solution is not to upplay price levels here because that would not be an accurate portrayal of the article subject. as this is first and foremost a technical article, we need to be purists in our approach and not cater to peoples' feelings about prices. there's another reason why we should not downplay the improvements since 2022, which I may discuss later. soibangla (talk) 02:30, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

I take your point. And again, as I have indicated before, inflation is a synonym for consumer prices measured across different points in time, so there should be at least a brief discussion about consumer prices. It would be fallacious to assume that one cannot discuss inflation without discussing consumer prices, as they are complementary and without measuring the latter, inflation has quite literally no meaning or definition. I suppose the same logic would apply to the notion that one cannot write an article about gravitational collapse (i.e., the event at the end of a star's life) without discussing gravity.

In any case, I do agree that there needs to be a clear distinction between inflation (avg. consumer prices over time / CPI) and some price sectors which remain elevated despite the decrease in inflation. After all, readers coming to this page expect to see this information. I do, however, think that the current introduction is appropriate.

I appreciate your feedback. Any further thoughts? SiennaVue (talk) 03:19, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

It still does not sound as if you understand that Soibangla's point. SPECIFICO talk 04:44, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

I've removed the lead bit about price levels. It's irrelevant and uninteresting for many reasons too complex, irrelevant and uninteresting to discuss here on talk. SPECIFICO talk 19:28, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Uninteresting is NOT a policy reason for removal, and prices are a key element for PRICE inflation; after all we aren't talking about inflation in waistlines (obesity epidemic). The inflation rate is called the Consumer PRICE Index. ---Avatar317^(talk) 00:18, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

the inflation rate is derived from raw CPI and this remains a common source of confusion among laypersons, as well as a common source of deception among some pushing a political agenda. I have observed this over and over for many years, including neat tricks like this[3] to claim we now have 19.2% inflation under Biden. soibangla (talk) 00:37, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Avatar, I said irrelevant - that's the NPOV policy reason. Please self-revert. BRD is best. SPECIFICO talk 18:29, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree that price levels shouldn't be the central focus of this article, (and they are not) but a short statement summarizing what has been said in multiple sources: "consumers seem to want prices to return to pre-pandemic levels, and are unhappy about prices" but that economists say that this will probably not happen, and generally is not the preferred outcome (wages to rise more over time rather than prices fall), definitely deserves MENTION in the article.

It is worth mentioning that the behavior of the economy at large is dependent on the psychology of all the market participants, and this is essentially everyone, so the psychology of the market actors deserves to be mentioned, as it is in Reliable Sources. (the economist who talked about this died just recently, and had a Nobel.) ---Avatar317^(talk) 00:28, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

as I've said, I don't object to discussing price levels, just not as the primary thrust of the article, but recent edits seem to have played-up price levels in a disproportionate way, and to suggest that the prices for everything remained elevated and continue to increase albeit at a slower rate, though last October prices for 27% of CPI items declined, and declines have continued in subsequent months. it's not as if we need to have a recession to see any price declines. soibangla (talk) 00:52, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

You are completely right: "it's not as if we need to have a recession to see *any* price declines" and I did not intend to word it that way, or imply that. And the reason I put that in the article is because (as Jonathan f1 stated below) no one expects the price of anything to return to 1950's levels, and similarly, with continuous small price increases from "normal" inflation, in totality, prices also won't return to five year old prices, even if we never had this burst of inflation. ---Avatar317^(talk) 22:33, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

If nobody believes it, we do not need to discuss it, do we? Let alone reinstate it without consensus when discussion is underway. SPECIFICO talk 22:52, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Your earlier comment and subsequent comments seem to show that you have no interest in discussing it and want to simply remove it and be done with it. I reverted because I believe that can generate more discussion about this topic, and hopefully improve our coverage/explanation. I think that the previous series of removals/re-additions/edits showed that this content should be discussed. ---Avatar317^(talk) 03:20, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

I still think the lead is appropriate in distinguishing the inflation rate from consumer prices, but perhaps this could be made clearer. However, the notion that the lead should not at all discuss consumer prices when this metric is unequivocally a component of calculating inflation is erroneous and suggests a POV. Whether it may espouse feelings relating to any administration is not a reason for nominating its removal. In fact, research shows it was likely the loose fiscal policy of the previous administration (not the current) that caused the much of the recent inflationary spiral in the United States.[4]

As of writing this reply, the lead has 275 words and only refers to consumer prices in relation to pre-pandemic levels twice. If some editors are nominating this deletion, then they should do the same for any discussion of prices throughout the rest of the article, including the last paragraph in the lead referring to oil prices, natural gas, fertilizer, and food prices, "exacerbating the situation." Although I suppose that would be difficult given that the two topics are corollaries of each other. SiennaVue (talk) 04:00, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Our inflation article can address the definition of the term and its relation to prices. There seems to be some misunderstanding here as to the meaning of "price". At any rate, with no consenus for the delation bit, ONUS says it should stay out and certainly should not be in the lead. SPECIFICO talk 03:01, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

It's very simple -price inflation over time is calculated in the same way as the future value of money earning compound interest, where the interest earned in one period creates a new balance that earns that rate of interest the next period (assuming the rate is constant), and so on. The inflation 'rate' is the rate of change at which prices increased over a specific time interval, the ratio of the difference between the interval's final CPI reading and initial CPI, divided by initial CPI (and of course, CPI is only one way to measure inflation, and not a perfect one). The distinction is illustrated nicely in the chart soibangla linked: a loaf of bread probably cost around $0.25 in 1950 vs. ~$2.00 in 2024. The growth of the base over that period will obviously be much larger than the rate at which the price of bread changed over a shorter interval of one year. The value of bread also hasn't changed, as wages rose dramatically over the last 74 years, and so the demand for bread and the average person's ability to buy it hasn't changed.

I agree that this talk of "prices" returning to "pre-pandemic levels" is confused and should probably not appear in the article without clarification from RSes. Economists are aiming for a normalized *annual* rate of inflation and wage growth, not an unreasonable expectation that price levels are going back to where they were "5 years ago". At some point it's like believing the price of bread will go down to its 1950 level (or even prices 20 years ago). The issue is also politically sensitive considering many Republicans are using "pre-pandemic prices" as a benchmark to criticize the Biden/Harris administration. Jonathan f1 (talk) 21:05, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

I think there are plenty of RS's which discuss this; what do you think would be a better way to word this statement to mention people's expectations of "pre-pandemic prices" being an unreasonable consumer expectation?

"Despite a worldwide decline, some economists have speculated that higher consumer prices are unlikely to return pre-pandemic levels and may remain elevated. Economists state that for prices to return to pre-pandemic levels would require a deflationary period, which is usually associated with recession, though prices for many consumer goods and services were declining by October 2023 as the economy continued growing." ---Avatar317^(talk) 03:13, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

If that statement is backed by RSes, I think it sounds perfect. Or is this a direct quote from an RS and you want to paraphrase it? I think another issue here is that an economy may be growing but not necessarily growing evenly across every sector. In the grand scheme of things, if an economy is growing so are prices, and ~2% inflation growth is usually the annual target. Jonathan f1 (talk) 23:19, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

The sentence is a paraphrase of multiple sources:

...inflation is coming down. The actual problem here is prices. ... “Inflation in the US is falling relatively quickly compared to all of our other peer countries, and we have the strongest growth out of the recession,” said Felicia Wong, president and CEO of the Roosevelt Institute, a progressive think tank. “But people don’t just want falling inflation numbers, they actually want deflation.” Deflation probably isn’t in the cards (and the rub is we don’t want it to be).

...“That surge of inflation really reflected a very high growth of prices,” said Rob Rich, director of the Center for Inflation Research at the Cleveland Fed. “Since the pandemic, and since we started raising interest rates, we’ve actually seen the inflation rate slow. Now ... it doesn’t mean that prices have fallen.

... “There’s a couple prices people might track that might decline, and some things might normalize here and there. But, in general, the level of spending in the economy is not going to decrease, and the level of spending supports a level of goods and prices,” said Mike Konczal, director of macroeconomic analysis at the Roosevelt Institute. “That is unlikely to have a huge shift unless people start spending a lot less, at which point, there would be a recession.” “Episodes where prices actually fall can be really, really damaging to an economy” Prices tend to be “downwardly rigid,” Konczal added, meaning they tend not to go down (the same goes for wages).

Even with the steady slowdown in inflation, prices are still nearly 17 percent higher than they were three years ago, a source of discontent for many Americans. Though some individual goods are becoming less expensive, overall prices will likely remain well above their pre-pandemic levels. ... Many Americans might still favor having the government take steps not only to slow inflation but also to try to reduce overall prices to where they were before the pandemic. ... Economists, though, uniformly caution that any attempt to do so would require a significant weakening of the economy, resulting from either sharp interest rate hikes by the Fed or tax increases. The likely consequence could be a recession that would cost millions of jobs. David Andolfatto, an economist at the University of Miami and a former Fed economist, said it is better for wages to rise over time to allow people to adjust to higher prices.

Most Americans,” Cook said, “are not just looking for disinflation” — a slowdown in price increases. “They’re looking for deflation. They want these prices to be back where they were before the pandemic. ... I hear that from my family.” ... Deflation — a widespread drop in prices — typically makes people and companies reluctant to spend and therefore isn’t desirable. Instead, economists say, the goal is for wages to rise faster than prices so that consumers still come out ahead.

However, consumers shouldn't expect a broad and sustained fall in prices across the U.S. economy. That generally doesn't happen unless there's a recession, economists said. ---Avatar317^(talk) 00:40, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

all of that is ancillary interpretation, indeed speculation, tangentially related to the article subject: the observed inflation rate.

it's interesting, but it's about future expectations, and as we've recently learned from nearly unanimous recession expectations, such expectations can be wildly wrong[5]. I favor focusing on what we actually know. I trust historical data, but projections? not so much. that's why economics is the "dismal science." many make lucrative livings predicting the future of the economy and markets, but it doesn't seem to put a dent in their careers when they are repeatedly proven wrong.soibangla (talk) 01:02, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Would you apply this rationale to other areas of science or just the 'dismal science'? A lot of science makes future projections based on existing theory and probability, and whether they are right or wrong is irrelevant to the fact that their methodology is widely accepted as scientific. While I haven't kept count, there've been so many times when my weather forecast has been wildly off (claiming bad storms all day and it's actually sunny), but it never dawned on me to think meteorology is a joke and to just ignore it. Most of what Avatar quoted is so trivial as to be uninteresting. What's going to cause a future "broad and sustained fall in prices across the entire US economy" other than a recession? Jonathan f1 (talk) 02:52, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

evidence has been presented in this article of oligopolies — Big Oil, Big Auto, Big Food, from wholesale to retail — exploiting this inflation episode to pad their margins to lock-in permanently higher prices, and those higher prices drop straight to their bottom lines as pure profit. this is nirvana for firms, and they can get away with it knowing the current presidency will take the fall for it, because everything is always the government's fault, and suckers buy it. this was a rare episode that enabled firms to do this and they pounced on it, and it remains to be seen if consumer pushback will cause firms to lower prices on a large scale in lieu of a recession forcing it. but by last October, 27% of prices declined despite continued economic expansion. we cannot yet conclude that price levels are now permanent, as economists notably "speculate," and this should not be upplayed in an article about the inflation rate that is down sharply from its peak two years ago. soibangla (talk) 04:29, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

So that is the NARRATIVE or POV you are here to push? A decline in prices of 27% does NOT mean they declined to PRE-PANDEMIC levels, as RS's talk about. How about we concentrate on what RS's say rather than what you WANT to say? Wikipedia isn't here for you to tell things as you want. ---Avatar317^(talk) 04:35, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

this article is about the inflation rate. some seek to make it about other stuff that is related, though not on-topic, using heavily emphasized and cherrypicked sources that admittably include speculation, which to me suggests POV pushing soibangla (talk) 05:49, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

oh, and just parenthetically, lest anyone suspect I'm some sort of commie for criticizing corporate behavior, I am a lifelong hardcore capitalist who went to business school and financed M&A for many years. I just dislike oligopolies that tend to be anti-competitive. so there's that. carry on. soibangla (talk) 05:36, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

All this is hogwash, irrelevant, UNDUE, and not very well sourced. Our article on the National Zoo does not present speculation as to a future visit by the Easter Bunny. SPECIFICO talk 02:59, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

The National Zoo isn't an academic discipline that involves reasonable speculation about what's going to happen in the future. Why do so many people who edit the economic space on here either hate the discipline or completely fail to grasp how analogy works? Jonathan f1 (talk) 03:43, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

That's a red harangue. Please review NPOV. SPECIFICO talk 11:24, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

I'll also add this -I'm not convinced Avatar's content is due myself. While there are many articles where future speculation is necessary (many economic topics, and topics pertaining to climate change), the title of this article is "2021 -2023 inflation surge", which implies that it is over with, even though it seems to be an ongoing topic of discussion, at least in politics. Jonathan f1 (talk) 03:54, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

The title is currently flagged as inaccurate, and can be changed, and has been repeatedly discussed as to what is should be (see above). Whatever EVENT this article is about, it is clearly still happening, so that just means our title is problematic, not the content. ---Avatar317^(talk) 04:36, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Okay, I see it now. Well, it looks like that discussion fizzled out, so what do you think is a more appropriate title? Jonathan f1 (talk) 05:36, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

at what point will you conclude this event is no longer happening?

when the CPI inflation rate is ~2%, or when all prices revert to some arbitrary level? soibangla (talk) 06:10, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

I have no idea why you'd think I expect prices to 'revert to some arbitrary level', but I've explained in some detail that this isn't reasonable, achievable, or desirable. 2% annual rate growth obviously means prices will never revert to some 5 year old level.

As to when it's over -I don't know, it just may be a thing of the past. I'm willing to accept that the continued discussion over 'inflation' is mainly political and probably wouldn't even be a topic in politics if there weren't an election coming up. Jonathan f1 (talk) 09:14, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, if that was directed to Avartar, disregard my last message. Jonathan f1 (talk) 09:15, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

@Jonathan f1: My name suggestion is a large-tent phrase like "post-COVID high inflation(ary) period."

@Soibangla: It is not for ME to conclude that this is not longer happening; it is when RS's no longer talk about this. I agree with Jonathon that the current inflation might not be in the news so much if there wasn't a presidential election (though the recession threat probably would be); on the other hand, if the US falls into recession, I would bet the news would continue to connect the post-covid-inflation-reduction-measures with causing the recession, and that this would all be reported on as connected.

To try to be more clear, it is the continuing coverage that makes this event ongoing; if the news was "Trump talks about inflation" that would be one thing, but when news stories exist (on the liberal media side, not just conservative media) talking about inflation connected with price shock, this event is still ongoing. ---Avatar317^(talk) 20:36, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Outside of political media, what are economists saying? Jonathan f1 (talk) 22:36, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Soibangla and I have tried to convey and somewhat to explain the views of mainstream economists. SPECIFICO talk 09:10, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

So, when you went to business school, did they tell you that markup growth is automatically the result of "oligopolies" wielding monopolistic power, or that there are numerous ways in which markups could change? One of these ways is indeed by either an increase in monopoly power, or firms using preexisting market power to take advantage of higher demand - which is the argument being made by many politicians, and anti-corporate advocacy groups. But another way that markups could change is when companies anticipate further future increases in their marginal cost of production, which has nothing to do with monopoly power.

And it is here where this economic review by the Kansas City Federal Reserve is insightful:

“Although our estimate suggests that markup growth was a major contributor to annual inflation in 2021, it does not tell us why markups grew so rapidly. We present evidence that the timing and cross-industry patterns of markup growth are more consistent with firms raising prices in anticipation of future cost increases, rather than an increase in monopoly power or higher demand. First, the timing of markup growth in 2021, as well as earlier in the pandemic, does not line up neatly with the spike in inflation during the second half of 2021. Instead, the largest growth in markups occurred in 2020 and the first quarter of 2021; in the second half of 2021, markups actually declined. Therefore, inflation cannot be explained by a persistent increase in market power after the pandemic. Second, if monopolists raising prices in the face of higher demand were driving markup growth, we would expect firms with larger increases in current demand to have accordingly larger markups. Instead, markup growth was similar across industries that experienced very different levels of demand (and inflation) in 2021. This finding suggests that an increase in markups may provide policymakers with a signal of future inflationary pressures, especially if it occurs during periods where expectations of near-term future inflation are heightened.”[6]

I raised this issue in a previous talk section, but it seems like it's now a factor in determining this particular edit request. There is cause for concern here that some narrative-pushing is going on, specifically to bolster the "greedflation" meme. High-quality RSes dispute this narrative, while others do not even accept that markup growth was a significant contributor to inflation during the surge (see[7]). This information deserves some space in the article and may be useful in determining if the article is appropriately titled. Jonathan f1 (talk) 20:36, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

It is irrelevant to speculate why markups were raised. In competitive markets with many sellers, such increases would result in a massive sales drop for any seller who tried that. SPECIFICO talk 03:47, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

It isn't 'irrelevant' - there are multiple reasons why markups are raised, and if you're going to post speculation about 'greedflation', you need to post sources that test that hypothesis. If you don't, then we need to involve editors here to sort this out. Don't question RSes -either give me a satisfactory reason why a Fed report can't be included in the article, or let's discuss how to word this content. Jonathan f1 (talk) 09:11, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

I reread the section again and see the KC Fed source is already cited there -ignore last comment. Jonathan f1 (talk) 17:52, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Very well written @Jonathan f1, and the clearly non-primary, but respectable Federal Reserve source is very interesting, thank you. Fephisto (talk) 14:59, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

There are many reasons to pasteurized milk. Many things have many reasons. Please address relevance. Not clear a Fed paper is a secondary source, BTW. SPECIFICO talk 20:54, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

It may not be secondary, but it's undoubtedly reliable. Far more reliable than "NY Times" stories and "progressive think tanks" which also aren't secondary. There's a vast difference between linking markup growth to inflation and assuming 'corporate greed', and actually testing that hypothesis. Citing all these sources alongside each other as if they carry equal weight is a problem. Doing this in order to bolster a political narrative is an even bigger problem. Jonathan f1 (talk) 01:07, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Jonathan, this is incomprehensible. What content and sourcing do you propose? SPECIFICO talk 04:06, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

For starters, I think that the price gouging section could be trimmed. The content sourced to Groundwork Collaborative for example, can and should be removed. Jonathan f1 (talk) 16:58, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

References

evidently I failed to save my edit

saying "the biggest impact, dragging the overall inflation number downward, was the 10.9% decline in used car prices" is inaccurate, or unsourced at least.

it had the largest percent decline (in the Yahoo chart, anyway) but used cars have only a 1.9% weight in CPI. Men's suits, sport coats, and outerwear had a larger decline at 12.0%, but it has only a 0.07% weight

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.t02.htm soibangla (talk) 01:27, 16 August 2024 (UTC)