Monday, July 6, 2015

Inflation and You

When someone talks to me about inflation the conversations varies based on that person's experience. For example, my grandmother is likely to comment on high food prices and the rising costs. My father notices the rise in gasoline prices. Most college students notice the rising tuition costs of the price increases in the coffee shops. For most, our inflationary measures are very narrow. My grandmother is older and lives on a fixed income, my father drives his RV, and most college students have a second home in the nearby coffee shop. When I mention that inflation is actually really low and not so far in the recent past we were worried about deflation I get the very puzzled looks.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta has now created a calculator that shows inflation according to household income. Instead of measuring a common household basket they have created a market basket that varies by income. Try it here.

4 comments:

  1. When talking about inflation with my parents, they always talk about how low the price of gasoline or even a single piece of bubble gum was when they were a kid. My grandparents, whom are in their 70s, think that inflation is a horrible thing, whereas, my brother whom is fresh out of graduate school with a full time high paying job thinks it's a great thing as long as it follows an "index." I did the myCPI test but I do not think it accurately represents myself, cause it is all going to change in just a couple of years. I might be making more than 30,000 dollars a year, hopefully be able to own my own place, and have a college degree or higher. My CPI is way below the national average. National average: 1.24% MyCPI: .722%

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  2. My CPI is largely over the national CPI, but I'm not sure if I calculated it correctly, since I neither own or rent a home, and am a descendant of my parents (rather than having descendants of my own). As a 20 year old halfway through college with a summer job as her main source of income, I don't think my CPI is very accurate.

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  3. I think after trying to calculate my CPI, I don't believe that it was very accurate based on the questions I was asked. Most things asked more relate to my parents and not myself, so I feel like it was inaccurate for me to answer a lot of them. With that being said I was generally at the same level as the national average. I think that generally the main comments I hear people talk about, that deal with inflation, is the increase in certain staple items most people use every day especially about milk prices and gasoline prices. Those are things that do affect me, but I don't think I feel it as much as per say people who are constantly buying them and using them.

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  4. Inflation can horrible as it just takes away all the effort one makes. I always prefer to do trading with proper planning and method, but because of inflation which often happens, it kills all the method. I am extremely lucky that I work with OctaFX broker where they have got solid rebate program, so that enables me to earn 15 dollars profits per lot size trade including the losing ones, so working due to that I can make serious profits.

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