Tag Archives: inflation

I’m back and rambling into 2024 (i.e. the January 2024 edition of my not-a-newsletter newsletter)

Posted on January 31, 2024 | Comments Off on I’m back and rambling into 2024 (i.e. the January 2024 edition of my not-a-newsletter newsletter)

After missing last month’s newsletter due to being in the hospital with life threatening injuries, I thought I might just skip on writing my weird newsletter this year. But then I found some good things to share so I thought: let’s celebrate the end of January 2024 with at least one more.

As far as January’s go, it’s been a relatively mild one, other than one week of polar vortex weather. Indeed, there’s been much mildness all around.

Pandemic-ally speaking, it’s also been a bit of a mildness in January in terms of COVID, as you can see from the Ontario wastewater signal:

Before Christmas 2023 there was a lot of talk of the new covid variant JN1 and how it could overwhelm hospitals like those in Ontario, but if it did, I suspect that is subsiding now. If anything, we are now seeing states like California and Oregon break with CDC guidelines and tell people you don’t have to isolate so much any more. As I said last year, 2023 should be a transition year for COVID. It will always be with us, like colds and flu, but we will make less and less of an issue of it by and large.

As for inflation, it’s also looking pretty mild, as you can see from this graph from Reuters:

A remarkable change from the peak of the pandemic. We have been living through some wild years. We could use some more mildness like this and a return to the way it was before the pandemic.

This is not to say everything is going back to pre-pandemic days. Take work. While there has been some people returning to the offices, I am not certain staff will ever fully return. For one thing, workers are more productive working for home. For another, cities and landlords are starting to accept it. New York is in the lead here I believe, with their Office Conversion Accelerator Team. There’s already a pack of offices with conversions underway. I expect more cities to follow NYC’s lead.

A new trend at work is the annual January layoffs. Tech companies like Google and Microsoft went through another round of year beginning job cuts, though it wasn’t limited to those two companies. And layoffs weren’t limited to tech, as anyone in the media can tell you. It was a brutal January for that industry. And then you had inexplicable moves like Conde Nast folding Pitchfork into GQ. Weird.

Relatedly, this piece on the history of the website Jezebel is the story of media from 2008 as told through this one property, imho.

As for that other form of media, social media, there’s really only two platforms that seem to matter anymore: TikTok and Substack. (Sorry, not sorry, Elon.) Here’s two Tiktok stories: one on the sleepy girl mocktail and one on cleantok and performative hygiene. Ugh. As for Substack,  this and that report on Substack’s Nazi problem. Good lord. An overall sad state of affairs when it comes to social platforms.

I would like to say anything to do with web3, bitcoin, crypto, NFTs, etc is dead as a doorknob…but no. Like zombies, it’s coming back in the form of bitcoin ETFs from major asset managers like BlackRock and Fidelity. Caveat emptor, people.

I had some links to share regarding Taylor Swift and Barbie, but honestly you can easily search for that with your favorite search engine. Heck, you don’t have to search for it: go to any major website and they will have a story on them. Three or four stories, even.

I greatly enjoyed watching the Netflix series The Crown during the last few years. Here’s something ranking  every episode of the series. A nice way for fans like myself to relive it.

One of my favorite films of all time is Moonstruck. The director of that film was Norman Jewison, who just recently died. The writer of the film, John Patrick Shanley, has a good remembrance of making that film with him, here. Highly recommended.

Last, here is an image of one of my favorite restaurants of all time, Prune, closed during the pandemic. I love the image of it below, and if you love it too you can buy it, here.

As always, thanks for reading this. See you in a month, I hope.

Comments Off on I’m back and rambling into 2024 (i.e. the January 2024 edition of my not-a-newsletter newsletter)

Posted in blog, blogging

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Some very good thoughts (especially at the end) and the usual ramblings on a new year (i.e. the January 2023 edition of my not-a-newsletter newsletter)

Posted on January 31, 2023 | Comments Off on Some very good thoughts (especially at the end) and the usual ramblings on a new year (i.e. the January 2023 edition of my not-a-newsletter newsletter)

We finally closed the book on another pandemic year (2022), and have moved through the first month of 2023. Yay for us!  Is 2023 going to be a pandemic year as well? An endemic year perhaps? We don’t know. One thing for sure: compared to last January, this one has been much gentler.

I think in some ways 2023 may be a transition year. We continue to have transitions when it comes to COVID. We still have new variants like the Kraken (XBB.1.5) that has surged to 40.5% of all infections and rises in hospitalizations. But we take that as a matter of course now. Indeed, there is talk of having annual COVID and flu vaccines. COVID may be more serious than the flu in terms of illness and death, but we may end up approaching them in the same way. No one talks much of flu deaths, and perhaps other than places like Nova Scotia, no one will talk about COVID deaths either. For example, in my province of Ontario it is relatively easy to track hospitalizations related to COVID: it’s relatively hard to report on deaths.

I know because I still have been reporting on COVID hospitalizations every week on twitter for months. My last update was this one:

As I tweeted, the numbers have been dropping recently. Even the ICU numbers, which shot up due to the tripledemic, have declined as the tripledemic declined. Thank god: the pediatric ICUs in November were over 100% full for a time.

So we are transitioning in a positive direction. Good. And not just with COVID.  Everywhere you see spike graphs, like this one for unemployment:

To this one for inflation:

My expectation is that the annual inflation rate will continue to transition and decline in 2023, and interest rates will follow them. That is not to diminish the impact that inflation has had so far. Things have reached the point where people are stealing food and law firms are promising to defend them for free. That said, many, including the New York Times, expect inflation to cool this year. Perhaps it will drop back to where it used to be (i.e. below 3%). If you are skeptical, I recommend this piece in VOX.

Unlike COVID or inflation, not everything has the prospect of improving in 2023. Guns in the US  continue to be a major problem. There is no end in sight for the war in the Ukraine.  NATO is still supportive and continues to send weapons, although it seems like Zelenskyy had to clear the decks before that occurred. As for cryptocurrencies, it may not be a year of recovery for them as the trial of SBF and FTX unfolds. But who knows: maybe this rally will be a difference.

I suspect crypto will stay dormant for many reasons. One big reason is that tech is going to change its focus from Web3 to AI. Sorry Web3. (Sorry metaverse for that matter!) Microsoft alone is spending billions on it. AI will be all anyone will talk about this year. (No one knew what to do with crypto, save techies and rich people flogging NFTs. Everyone I know seems to be using ChatGPT and the like. That’s a key difference). I’ll be writing more about AI in standalone posts in 2023, there will be so much going on.

In 2023 I expect a continuation of the trend of people flooding back into cities after having left them, based on data like this: Annual demographic estimates census metropolitan areas and census. While residences have become scarce (and rents have become high) as a result, people have not been flooding back into offices. So much so that places like NYC are looking to convert office spaces to residential spaces. The problem with the pandemic is that the changes it has forced on society are more rapid than social systems can respond. But respond they will.

Then again, a new surge could reoccur in China. If that occurs, all bets are off. For now my bets are staying on the table.

Finally, thanks for reading this and anything else you read on this blog recently. I appreciate it. I am optimistic for 2023 in many ways. I hope you are too.

Keep wearing your masks when advisable. Get vaxxed to the max.  Try not to pay attention to Elon Musk or the fate of Twitter: that will all play out in due course. Don’t get too hung up about what AI is going to do: that will all play out as well. Continue to read newsletters. Watch streaming. Listen to podcasts. Most importantly: get out and about whenever you can.

There will always be bad people in the world, and bad acts occurring. Do what you can to prevent that from happening, but don’t rob yourself of your capacity for joy as a result. Be a happy warrior on the side of good. Joy is your armour.

Never forget: you have lived and possibly thrived through some of the most dramatically difficult times in history.  You deserve better times ahead.

Enjoy yourself. Live your life robustly. Whenever you feel lethargic, think back to those times of being locked down and unable to even go to a park and sit down.  Let’s go and get it. Here’s to a better year ahead. We are counting on you, 2023.

Comments Off on Some very good thoughts (especially at the end) and the usual ramblings on a new year (i.e. the January 2023 edition of my not-a-newsletter newsletter)

Posted in blog, blogging

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

If something cost $1 in the 1980s, what does it cost now?

Posted on January 6, 2023 | Comments Off on If something cost $1 in the 1980s, what does it cost now?


If something cost $1 in the 1980s — or the 1990s, or 2000, etc — what does it cost now?

I used to use a calculate this by using a rough 1:3 ratio in terms of 1980s dollars:today’s dollars, but there is a better way. You can go to the site in2013dollars.com and enter your information and it will spit out an answer. For example, what cost $1 in 1980 would cost $3.62 today, according to this: $1 in 1980 → 2023 | Inflation Calculator

I used that site because I was reading that in the early 80s Jim Jarmusch had an apartment in Manhattan that cost $170 a month. I wondered: what would that cost now? Well according to the site above, in 2023 that same place should cost $615. Of course the idea that ANYPLACE in Manhattan cost $615/month is hilarious. But you get the idea. 🙂

Comments Off on If something cost $1 in the 1980s, what does it cost now?

Posted in money

Tagged , , , , , ,

What’s the best way to deal with inflation? Are we in a recession? Here’s some pieces that address these good questions.

Posted on October 21, 2022 | Comments Off on What’s the best way to deal with inflation? Are we in a recession? Here’s some pieces that address these good questions.


First up, inflation. As inflation heats up….

Central bankers around the world are lifting interest rates at an aggressive clip as rapid inflation persists and seeps into a broad array of goods and services, setting the global economy up for a lurch toward more expensive credit, lower stock and bond values and — potentially — a sharp pullback in economic activity.

…according to the New York Times. Not all economist and thinkers agree with this. Here’s Hadas Their providing a socialist’s view on why price controls are a better idea. More on her argument in Jacobin. For a counter to that, here’s someone from the Fed arguing that price controls should stay in the history book. I tend to side with the Fed’s view over Their’s, but she raises valid criticisms of the central bank’s approach.

Perhaps I am too used to economics only coming from a male perspective. Perhaps you are too. If so, we might all benefit from reading this: We all play by economic rules set by men. What could a feminist economics look like?

But back to the Fed. If they want to bring down inflation, how does they go about doing that? You can learn about their methods to control the economy here: The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Operations.

Besides dealing with inflation, many economists are looking to see if and when we will be in a recession. One surprising way to do that is look at the price of copper. If you are asking yourself, what does the price of copper tell us about the economy, then read this. For more on this, see:  historical Copper price data. Here’s more on the Global price of Copper (PCOPPUSDM) from FRED.

One last thing. On the topics of inflation and the economy, the economist Larry Summers has been popping up more and more because he seems to me he’s been predicting bad inflation early on. Given that, here’s something to keep in mind: Summers Watch from The American Prospect. Let’s just say that I think there are better people to get your advice from.

Comments Off on What’s the best way to deal with inflation? Are we in a recession? Here’s some pieces that address these good questions.

Posted in economics

Tagged , ,

Quote

How economic hardship traumatizes people individually and as a culture

This piece, Opinion | Still Haunted by Grocery Shopping in the 1980s – The New York Times, by a Brazilian economist highlights the emotional scars that economic hardship has on a person. Key quote for me was this:

Research has found that children living in poverty are at increased risk of difficulties with self-regulation and executive function, such as inattention, impulsivity, defiance and poor peer relationships. It takes generations until society fully heals from periods of deep instability. A study in the early 2010s showed that Germans were more worried about inflation than about developing a life-threatening disease such as cancer; hyperinflation in the country ended almost 100 years ago.

Not only does it touch people individually, but you could make the case that it gets embedded into the culture. Germans are still worrying about inflation! Indeed, I remember my mom telling me how the Great Depression affected her mother to the point that she adopted behaviors she could never shake, not matter how much she had in the future.

Economics can seem dry, especially when people focus on numbers. But those numbers paper over how people are really affected. What is the emotional impact of high (or low) unemployment? What do we see happening in the culture when housing becomes unaffordable or work impossible to get. The numbers are an essential part of the story but they are also just the start of the story.

 

Comments Off on How economic hardship traumatizes people individually and as a culture

Posted on September 30, 2018 in economics

Tagged , , , , , ,

Is the FED broken? Some random thoughts.

Posted on March 15, 2017 | Comments Off on Is the FED broken? Some random thoughts.

Is the FED  (Federal Reserve System) broken? If not broken then certainly being strongly tested, as this piece shows to me: The Fed Is Searching for a New Framework. New Minutes Show It Doesn’t Have One Yet. – The New York Times.

Since the start of the Great Recession, the target interest rate has gone from just over 5% to just over 0% and has more or less stayed that way for over half a decade. (See the chart). After a very long pause, the chairwoman of the Federal Reserve has begun the process of raising interest rates,  a process that her predecessors have engaged in over recent decades as they put their own distinctive stamp on the economy. (See A History of Fed Leaders and Interest Rates – The New York Times). Some of them, like Paul Volcker, have been hugely successful in shaping the economy. Others, like Alan Greenspan, also have shaped the economy hugely, but I would add, unsuccessfully. So what should the FED do?

Paul Krugman has his take, here. Perhaps an extreme inflation target is the answer, just like Volcker’s extreme interest rates were the answer for their time. However, I don’t think they are symmetrical, and the goals of a higher inflation target would be dampened down by other forces. Furthermore, the FED and most other central banks seem only capable dealing with tamping down inflation and not so capable when dealing with unemployment.

The Chairwoman is signalling she will be raising rates soon. We should see what the effect is, and how the economy and President Trump and Congress responds. If the economy goes into a recession, that would say to me the FED is broken.  If the economy does not go into a recession, I would say this means the FED still has a limited role in managing the economy. Let’s see.

Comments Off on Is the FED broken? Some random thoughts.

Posted in economics

Tagged , , , , , , , ,