this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2023
76 points (100.0% liked)

the_dunk_tank

15881 readers
614 users here now

It's the dunk tank.

This is where you come to post big-brained hot takes by chuds, libs, or even fellow leftists, and tear them to itty-bitty pieces with precision dunkstrikes.

Rule 1: All posts must include links to the subject matter, and no identifying information should be redacted.

Rule 2: If your source is a reactionary website, please use archive.is instead of linking directly.

Rule 3: No sectarianism.

Rule 4: TERF/SWERFs Not Welcome

Rule 5: No ableism of any kind (that includes stuff like libt*rd)

Rule 6: Do not post fellow hexbears.

Rule 7: Do not individually target other instances' admins or moderators.

Rule 8: The subject of a post cannot be low hanging fruit, that is comments/posts made by a private person that have low amount of upvotes/likes/views. Comments/Posts made on other instances that are accessible from hexbear are an exception to this. Posts that do not meet this requirement can be posted to [email protected]

Rule 9: if you post ironic rage bait im going to make a personal visit to your house to make sure you never make this mistake again

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
all 35 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is basic statistics. When certain data points skew things too much you just remove them! very-intelligent

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago

bourgeois economics is Big Boy Science

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago

Who needs energy or shelter anyways.

Also what is this even supposed to tell you about? That candles and fighter jets didn't get more expensive?

If you exclude the things that makes living expensive, living isn't more expensive is a great point, good job Paul.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago

Inflation can be defeated on shelter and food completely by simply sleeping in a Walmart parking lot and foraging for food out of dumpsters. I am very smart.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago

This reminds me of that sports copypasta/meme; “If you take [star athlete] and ignore the top twenty percent of their performances as outliers and then do a regression analysis, you’ll see they’re actually an average athlete for their position.”

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago

Yeah I like to exclude the biggest contributor to things too smuglord

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago

Core price inflation. CORE PRICE INFLATION. CPI. CORE. PRICE. INFLATION. (excluding such outliers as fucking food)

I hate these people I hate them so much how can you be such a huge dork and wrong literally all of the god damn time and be so evil I hate them I hate them I am going insane where does he live what is his address and favorite restaurant and preferred route to and from work I am going to fedposting so hard I am going to make a-guy look like a fucking liberal

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Tell that to my local grocery store then. Prices have definitely not fallen there and that's where it hurts many people the most

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

iirc this is the rate of change of price not a change in price graph so as long as that little line is above zero prices rise and that's by intent. That number going below 0 by too much for too long is generally an indication that something is very wrong.

I haven't taken an economics course in 2 years though so I could be wrong here

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

5 dollars a loaf

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

well yeah the turbolib excluded food prices from his graphsturbation

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago

“If you only look at things that don’t matter, inflation has slowed. Prices have not dropped back to previous levels, the rate of rise has just slowed.”

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

CPI hasn't been in the negatives, so everything is still more expensive than before. Thus, inflation remains undefeated. Common capitalist L.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Compare this to a graph of 'increase/decrease in wages' over the same period of time. If wages did not increase, then this inflation affects people remarkable. The price increases are cumulative over time. If someone's wages have not increased then it doesn't matter if inflation slows down or even stops completely, their relative level of income and direct material well-being has gone down.

We can even make this more nuanced. Rather than look at average wages that can be affected by extreme outliers or just an economy where high earners get a lot more relative to the rest of the population, we could instead look at median wages or quintiles for more granularity. This inflation might not be seen or even affect the bug eating Karen PMC. However, it may be massively painful for a subsection of the population who's wages have stagnated. Even if this segment was a minority, it would be incredibly tone deaf and ignorant to ignore their plight and just focus on the whole population. The issue at hand would then be distribution of wealth - but liberals of course like to ignore that at every opportunity. Enjoy your worsening material consulting, serf. Middle management and shareholders gotta get paid.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

I don't think I get inflation.

When econ dorks say inflation has "been defeated" it doesn't mean prices go back down, right? Inflation is a rate of change, so when inflation goes down prices just get more expensive at a slower rate.

Once inflation happens it's basically locked in forever. Prices are sticky. So unless wages catch back up, buying power is permanently decreased right?

So, once inflation is defeated, nothing actually gets more affordable. It just stops getting less affordable. Am I right?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

Capitalist economics is a religious belief system that is not meaningfully related to actually existing economies. That's the most succinct explanation of capitalist economics i can write down.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Yes, but don't let the proles hear that or they might demand compensation.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago

thinking about how measures from the very first dictatorship of the bourgeoisie [well okay maybe second if we're going to count a*glos] are heresy in the modern bourgeois ideology.

a fucking single price control on bread would immediately reduce the cost of living, and be massively popular. leveraging the subsidized food markets (the government is already interfering!) you could shave off hefty proportions of folks' food bills, and get fucking swept into office next year.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

high priest of capitalism showing his ass again

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

It never occurred to me that "largely" could be a liberal/neoliberal weasel word.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What's left then? Luxury goods?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

treats are back on the menu!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Things that put you in debt in order to possess. You know, basic needs. Gotta stimulate this strong economy!

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

economists are clergy

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Is this a joke?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

thank you Mr. Krugman, very cool

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

If I had pulled shot like this in a Bachelor’s lab course, I would have not just failed the experiment but the entire course.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Learn how to integrate nerd. Is math foreign to this dude?

Even if this included the biggest contributors, it'd still be a massive increase in prices. Fucking jackasses are so bad at graphing, if they were actually trying to show shit they'd be showing the change in the cost/wage ratio. The concept of normalization and useful statistics is so foreign to these jackoffs.

Motherfucker should be banned from touching excel or a real graphing software ever again.

Holy shit I just found out this asshole's a professor. AN EX STANFORD/MIT PROF. If I tried to pull this shit my PI would have my summarily executed. ECONOMICS DOESN'T GET TO BE A SCIENCE IF YOU MAKE EVERYTHING UP. READ MARX AND KILL YOURSELF KRUGMAN

[–] ristoril_zip 2 points 1 year ago

It's silly to present only this graph, then. Surely it's possible to put a dashed line next to this one that includes the "lagging" measures and just stops where the data stops or becomes unreliable, but would still show the trend(s).

Or hell show each component as a different line, maybe faded some, and end each line where the data become questionable, and put the composite line darker/bolder. Lots of good options.

If we're back at/near the target 2%, that does count as "defeated" from the point of view of the monetary policy makers. But I'd need to see complete inflation data to be certain. If we're missing inflation data because it "lags," then we'll know one way or another later.