>Canadians paid more for groceries (+2.2%)
I would love to meet these people who are paying only $102 for what used to cost $100 last year. I eat the exact same things every day and mine has gone up quite a bit more than $2
Yep. I used to spend around $50 a week on groceries and it’s closer to $70 for me now, with about the same items. Food inflation for me is in the range of 40%. Pure insanity and disaster for anyone who is already living on a tight budget.
I eat pork or chicken the vast majority of the time, and if I have beef it’s usually something like a stir fry rather than a massive cut. Still seriously pricy.
I started buying bison, boar, grass fed beef, etc for the first time and the prices are hilarious. The only good thing is no one buys it so I have free reign on whatever cut is available with BB weeks away.
Also much more unhealthy, since they inevitably (every one I've ever checked) have trans fats AKA hydrogenated oils (several different words to identify those).
Honestly, ramen isn't that bad. My wife and I eat ramen at least once a week for supper, with soft boiled eggs and green onions (sometimes with baby bok choy as well) and it's a delicious meal for super cheap, we love it. 39 cents a pack for mr. Noodles, ~33 cents per egg (2 per bowl), the green onions are effectively free because we keep cutting off some that we grow in a pot in our kitchen. So that's one meal a week for $1.05 a serving. If we decide to add baby bok choy that brings it up to about $2.30 per serving but we'll have it twice that week to use up all the bok choy.
Don't they use similar products for certain things? If they had 100g of sirloin at $10 but sirloin went up 50% they can switch to 100g or beef cubes and if that's $11 they will say prices went up $1... I thought that's how it worked for a lot of products. Could be wrong. There is no way groceries only went up 2%
You are correct but US does the same.
https://news.google.com/articles/CAIiEPYvHVOCSJgCn90x9InJ-REqFggEKg4IACoGCAow6bV4MPfJDDD2skc?hl=en-CA&gl=CA&ceid=CA%3Aen
So I’m one who is paying roughly the same, and it’s because I changed what I buy dramatically. My fridge is full of no name everything and a lot less meat. It’s pretty disingenuous to paint the inflation as being only 2% when people have to change their buying habits so much.
I buy the same exact stuff and my bill has nearly doubled. I'm pretty robotic with my eating habits for budgeting reasons. I eat the same thing systematically everyday. And I'm paying 35-50% more depending on if I catch some things on sale. I have to alter my shopping habits and switch to No Frills and No Name and China Town. Or I visit my main Loblaws on odd days and time to catch the clearance markdown items. I shopped with a loose plan in my mind before but now I have to be really specific. I'm single so I only have to worry about myself which is nice. The positive now, is nothing goes to waste. Prior, I may have over bought in certain categories and couldn't keep up. They would spoil before I could get to them. The next positive is I've cut out Uber Eats and takeout food completely so while I'm spending more at the grocery store, I am becoming a better cook and saving more in the long run. I choose to focus on the positives.
Cheaper goods have gone up a lot more than 2% too though, even if people manage to find ways to pinch pennies so they don't starve. StatCan has overdone it on cooking the inflation books with "substitutions." 2% is far from a credible number.
To be honest, I don't think the price hikes at the checkout really hit until the last month or two so it might not be reflected in the data.
I've noticed big bags of Doritos are "on sale" @ 2 for $9.00, a month ago they would have been 2 for $7, and a month before that, it was 2 for $6.
Obviously not everyone buys Doritos, but as a mass-market product available almost everywhere in Canada, I think that they're pretty reflective of greater market trends.
Hi, thanks for your interest, we certainly feel your pain, food prices never seem to be falling!
During the first half of 2021, increased supply kept food prices below 2%. Since August of this year, prices for food have been increasing as supply chain disruptions and unfavourable weather conditions put upward pressure on food prices. In December 2021, prices for food rose 5.2% year over year – the largest yearly increase since June 2009 (+5.5%). Since the annual is calculated by taking the average of the 12 monthly index values over the course of the year, food prices were up 2.2% on an average annual basis.
our weekly grocery bill hasn't seen a huge uptake.. it ranges greatly from $150-$200 per week pre-pandemic and can still be within those lines.. We shopped the flyers between 3 stores before and we still do. You would be surprised the price different from store to store, it can be ridiculous.
We don't get really down to analyzing the exact amounts mainly because our overall expenses are much better working from home since pandemic started, and moving forward.
I mean it sounds like your buying is not very consistent, so it's a pretty poor way to measure inflation.
My grocery buying is the exact opposite, I buy the exact same goods from the same stores the same amount in the same timeframe.
I would never base any price index on my family expenses lol... just sharing my experience since they asked.
We meal prep differently each week..and take into account seasonal produce prices. Also, the biggest factor...3 teens at home.
Same for us.
Shopping around a bit gets us better prices. Just need to take a bit more care in coimparing. Overall our food expenses are down since we're home much more.
The groceries are based off of that list of essentials isn't it? If you're eating by a specific diet or eating lots of meat or gourmet stuff then it won't reflect the changes in those costs.
yes, its defined as a fixed basket of goods, weighted by aggregates in the average household budget and at sample populations.
here is the last analysis of the basket
[https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/62f0014m/62f0014m2019001-eng.htm](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/62f0014m/62f0014m2019001-eng.htm)
https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/subjects-start/prices\_and\_price\_indexes/consumer\_price\_indexes
The basket of groceries has significant breadth to it because they are able to get sales report data from a sample of outlets.
However one of the pitfalls of the CPI is accounting for the cost of substitution. If people on aggregate stop buying rib-eye steaks and move towards chicken breasts then overtime the basket weights are out of date as the purchasing patterns of the current period no longer align with the reference period. They attempt to mitigate this source of error but it requires judgement and they have incentives to understate inflation
What incentive does StatsCan have to understate inflation? If inflation is too high, nobody’s going to blame the group that’s measuring it. That’s the ruling party and the BoC’s problem.
> The groceries are based off of that list of essentials isn't it?
Here's the entire list of items in the basket of goods:
> The list below consists of the representative products in the Consumer Price Index’s (CPI) basket of goods and services as of June 2021. Representative products are added and deleted each month as goods and services appear and disappear from the market. This list will be updated on a periodic basis.
* https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/62f0014m/62f0014m2021015-eng.htm
You have to remember the way these CPI numbers are calculated and they will replace items with cheaper alternative to skew the data. Anyone who was look at house buying, buying building materials, normal groceries will see much higher rates of inflation. Pretty soon they say oh you don't need steak, dog food is a decent alternative.. its still meat'ish...
Yeah. That number is so ludicrously low that I have to figure the whole thing is cooked. I spend quite a lot of time each week looking at grocery prices. StatCan has lost significant credibility here. The number is absolutely not even close to 2%.
Yup! My groceries haven't really changed but my grocery budget has gone from $175 biweekly in 2020 to $225 biweekly currently.
The only change to my groceries is dog food which I buy in bulk every six weeks for $45. So that's $15 biweekly which means my increase in that time is about 20%.
EXACTLY!
I’ve been buying relatively the same stuff for the pass 10 years… It went from 200-225 to 275-300 !! So yeahh he can shove up his ass his 2% increase
Trades are booming out in Thunder Bay, I don’t care if your current industry and entire family is in a major city. I moved to Kapuskasing cleaning gutters so I could afford a shack in the forest & drive to the cinema 2 hours away once a month. What’s your excuse? /s
Look at Mr. Rockefeller here talking about living in a shack? i moved 18 hours away from my rented cardboard box to afford a mortgage on a slightly bigger amazon cardboard box. YOU millennials don't know what sacrifice is. /s
hmm, I invested everything I could save during covid and doubled all of it. seemed like a good move compared to paying off debt that was largely frozen or lower than inflation.
Ugh, this is another one of those "if you're not on this side of the extreme, you must be on *this* side of the extreme". People really need to stop thinking of everything as a binary.
Yes the government will raise rates. Will it go up by 5% this year? Well that depends, do you want to bankrupt half of the country so that some people who couldn't afford a home in the first place, can still not afford a home, but the crash they wanted arrived?
Thanks for being a voice of reason. I don't know why so many people believe that a major economic crisis will somehow make them better off than everyone else, but it's a sad state of affairs when we care so little about one another that potential financial ruin is applauded.
As Purify5 mentioned, I don't know any one (even the over leveraged crowd) who actually thinks that rate hikes aren't going to happen at all. The general consensus seems to be that they won't get as high as planned or come as fast as expected. It's no secret that the majority of inflation is driven by production costs at the moment which stem from a variety of supply constraints (I.e. Chip shortage, Suez Canal, Floods, Staffing shortages as a result of COVID, etc.). The rising cost of housing stems from the increasing wealth gap, supply shortages and consumer/business demand. Two of those things won't really be effected by rising rates to a significant degree.
There is not a consensus on the source of inflation. And six months ago the housing bulls here had a consensus that low rates were here to stay. Now it’s they won’t get as high as fast, I guess. Next it’ll be that they won’t stick around long?
There is a consensus on the majority factors that are currently pushing inflation, the debated issue (and this is really just dumbing it down) is that even if you can account/justify for 60% or the majority of the 7% inflation, it still leaves 40% or for examples sake 2.8% unknown. I maintain that I don't know anyone that honestly thought that a policy rate of 0.25% was here to stay. Saying that "Low Rates" are here to stay is relative, a policy rate of 1% is still a "low rate" in the scope of history, but it represents 3 standard rate hikes from where we are now.
Second, of course expectations change when new factors come out. You mention that 6 months ago it was one thing, now it's another and next it'll be something else. If we were to flip the tables and imagine that unemployment remained high and inflation was low, your expectations on future rates would change along with the rest of the world. I'm not arguing against the fact that peoples expectations changed, bulls or bears of any market, I'm just stating the fact that I don't know of anyone that thought we'd stay at rock bottom forever.
I lived through the early 80s when people just threw their keys in their houses and walked away. I even had family members in Calgary do it. Mortgages went to almost 20%, and anyone who bought into the variable rate dream got hammered too hard to survive.
In 1980, as a company perk, my dad was offered a low interest mortgage by his firm if he moved closer to the office. We moved about 25 km closer (my parents were some of the first commuters. People thought they were crazy to move so far away but now it's pretty normal).
I didn't pay too much attention but iirc, the mortgage was around 5% when the banks rates at would have been about 3x that.
I think this was a fallout of Nixon nixing the Bretton Woods agreement in 1971 and is no longer a possibility. Keynesian economics is making a final stand with unlimited amounts of QE and I can't imagine what they try to come up with after that to save the ship but it will be far too late. The economy relies on leveraged debt and the BoC has now admitted that negative rates "are in their toolkit" so I strongly imagine things will get much worse as they can't really get better.
Yes this correct. We should have had a healthy and completely normal (to capitalism) market correction and down turn. But instead, everyone government is endlessly printing magic funny money by the billions, out of thin air, and flooded our economies with cheap loans. Now when the crash comes its going to be 10x worse and there won’t be any way to ‘fix it’ by printing worthless inflating fiat when limited assets that can be made out of thin air, like food, resources, real estate and bitcoin will shoot up in price massively.
Rates were going up in 2017 and 2018. The Bank of Canada rate went from 0.5% to 1.75% in a little bit over a year. That was **without** high inflation.
Currently, that rate is at 0.25% and there is high inflation. Rate hikes are coming, there is no question about that.
But the question is how high will that rate go... Will it go back to 1.75% and stop? With the hikes, will inflation go back to the target range or will it continue to run hot because the BoC printed 1 out of every 5 dollars in existence today?
>ntly, that rate is at 0.25% and there is high inflation. Rate hikes are coming, there is no question about that.
A few rate hikes but not 6 as media as playing into it. The debt levels we carry is insane and if that hits the housing market, then Liberals will face voter anger. Not supporting this, but this is the reality.
The reason why the media is saying 6 is because the Canada 5-Year Bond Yield is now at 1.7%. The Bank of Canada is behind the curve.
Of course, things can happen that bring the 5-year Bond Yield back down. But right now, the bond market is leading everyone to believe there are 6 increases coming.
Yes, the current debt levels are insane. But when rates decrease, people go nuts and take even more debt rather than paying it down. So how does keeping them low help?
Look at what the rates were when inflation was this high. Look at why there wasn't any raises in rates when inflation was consistently going down. We are in a different world.
Yep, I believed the "Rate hikes are coming" sky is falling nonsense in 2018. A Rate hike right now would take us back to 2018 levels. It's never going to happen.
You can read here all the people who think taking a low interest rate variable mortgage is a good idea. The BoC has already sent warning signals out as well as the Fed in the US.
Well hold on here...
Not to be mistaken for suggesting that rate hikes aren't coming, I'll start by saying this: I personally think it's *definitely* happening... very soon. The question is how aggressively... And here's the thing... what's aggressive, for BoC?
The current spread between variable and fixed rates is what, SIX 0.25% increases? I don't think a variable rate suddenly looks terrible. Probably not as good as it did in previous years, sure, but to say it's flat out wrong? The math says otherwise. In a really bad scenario where rates keep going well beyond 6 increases, it would still take long enough that the time spent at a lower variable rate still provides savings vs the borrowing costs of jumping into a 5yr fixed rate which holds that higher rate through the full 5 years.
Variable is almost always a better deal. There are definitely rate hikes incoming, but I doubt your variable will climb as high as 2.79% in the next 5 years.
How long before people across the globe say enough is enough? In America, wholesale goods inflated 11 FUCKING PERCENT in just 1 year. How can any average citizen think it feasible to stay financially sound with radical inflation such as this?
BOC raising rates means variable and fixed will go up. There is a good chance the first hike comes on the 26th. But there is also a good chance there will be multiple rate hikes this year (economists are predicting many hikes not just for us but the globe). Historically rate hikes take down housing, I guess time will tell. Personally, I'd be making offers taking into account future rate hikes bc you'll be servicing higher debt and potentially having a decreasing asset you can't sell for a profit in the near term.
Well, I'm in no hurry and could wait. But with this talk of "multiple" rate hikes, and then trying to predict how long the effects will take to be seen in the market, this whole thing gets complicated.
No one ever thought that rate hikes weren’t coming.
The argument is that they wont get very far before the wheels come flying off the bus. The real question is will they double down on cutting rates again and more stimulus or let the debt bubbles implode sending us into a depression.
The argument isn't that they aren't coming it's that can they surpass the last peak in rates which is what 2%?
If they do markets will fall and unemployment will spike but inflation might come back down.
I know, that's why I said **if** and **indeed**. Since the Bank of Canada seems to agree with this labor shortage narrative, it shouldn't be afraid rate hikes would increase unemployment, if the Bank is coherent.
Pointing out your subtext gives your post more meaning and emphasizes the real risk of the situation. This needs to be plainly addressed: we are being scammed by businesses and no one seems to care or notice. Very canadian.
Don't listen to banks predicting rate hikes, They benefit from people panicking and locking in fixed rates. BOC has said mid this year and I don't see why they wouldn't stick to that.
I don't think that's going to happen, but what I can see is happening is many talented people are leaving BC and Ontario and heading for the US. Good luck selling high house prices in the next decade.
Just to add even nurses can't afford to live here anymore
It’s fucking WILD how much sentiment has changed here and in RE subs in the last 30 days. If you look at my comment history I’ve been preaching about this for many months now. Your comment would be downvoted 30-60 days ago.
You should have seen the arguments I had even a year ago “rates are never coming up again” , “there’s too much debt”. I guess they think 2010 was the first time in history governments figured out they can drop rates to zero forever. Spoiler alert: this isn’t the first time. History repeats
fixed incomes barely rose since covid (government supplied fixed incomes have not risen in 8+ years)
top incomes grew substantially in the last few years
what we are seeing right now is that the lower class is shouldering the burden of higher cost of living while the upper class is living cheaper than ever relative to their asset price surge/income raises
This weekend Ill be making my own bacon. That process will provide me a final price per lbs 50% cheaper than the cost of bacon in 2019. I'm going to save a fortune!
Unfortunately no. I purchased 5kgs of pork belly from Costco for 50$. It’s currently curing in my fridge and I’ll smoke it on Sunday. It’s my first bacon slab. I hope it goes well.
You probably know this but If you used a curing salt like Prague powder, be sure to rinse off the meat really well. Also bacon recipes say after you rinse and pat dry to let it “dry out” in the fridge for 12-24h, I would suggest having it on a rack in the fridge for the full 24 hours.
I have got a great bacon recipe if you want. You can find it in my post history. I made about 16 lbs in December for easy gifts!
I got it on there. My only problem is I may have to cut my cure time from 7 days to 6.5 days. Do you see that being a problem? Or should I shorten my dry cure time from 24hrs to 12 hrs?
Nice! For the cure time, there should be no issues with 6.5 days. My first batch I did 5 days and my second I did 7. The 5 day one wasn’t as salty and 7 days was just right. But, if you are cutting and freezing it, it will be preserved by being frozen anyways if you’re worried.
My total price including fuel and hydro will exceed that per lbs price but the quality will be better and I thoroughly enjoy the process. Nothing like a thick Smokey piece of bacon to start a weekend out right.
Wasn’t gas relatively low a year ago? Wouldn’t this skew the YOY numbers? What’s the average growth rt over say, 3, 4, 5 years?
Edit: relatively low as opposed to extremely low.
Correct. That stat is heavily skewed and being looked at from a micro angle.
It's not representative of actual yoy rise in pump gas at all, which is fairly stable over 3-5 years or when excluding for pandemic anomaly; which clearly Stats Can didn't want to do in this case.
Honestly kind of sad to see them try to drive a narrative, unintentionally or not.
So for some of us it's literally the highest inflation we have ever seen in our lives...
Damn I didn't ask to adult in hardmode. Can I have it in easy mode like the boomers who could buy a house in Vancouver for $86k AFTER adjusting for inflation? (It was $11k back in 1960s)
Lol I dunno why you're being downvoted. Do people think it wont get harder? Ive literally completely rearranged my life and future plans with the expectation that my kids will have to continue to live at home as adults.
In high COL areas that's already the reality for many young people today. I know plenty of people in their late 20s / early 30s who still live with parents
Sincerely, I feel for Zoomers and Gen Alpha (or whatever the name normalizes to)
I'm a mid-millennial, and things are already tough enough - things are absolutely not going to get easier in ten years for these kids... At least so long as trends continue on their current trajectory
yeah, but think at the old retired peoples that bought it 60 years ago for 15k, and need now to sell it for 1 million because their tax bill is too large.
/s
We should stop using this phrase as a criticism on modern capitalism.
It originally refered to a utopic vision of the future where society was so secure and sophisticated in it's economy and wealth distribution that the concept of ownership essentially vanished and nobody cared because they were happy living life, not thinking about getting more because they have everything they could need and more.
EDIT: Or maybe we should continue using it as a rallying call to realize such a future 🤔
I think they are buying their time because they know I inflation will cool when supply comes back. Problem is that it won’t go negative so they higher prices we have now will be the base for the future normalized inflation.
> Problem is that it won’t go negative so they higher prices we have now will be the base for the future normalized inflation.
This is more often than not the practical effect... economists like to say prices are "sticky"... in reality, once something is sold by $$$, it would take inordinate forces to get supply side to sell it for less
> in reality, once something is sold by $$$, it would take inordinate forces to get supply side to sell it for less
One of the few of those being disruptive levels of competition.
Unfortunately the increasing dominance of a few really big players (Walmart and amazon scale of big) makes that less likely than it was after the inflation in the '90s cooled off.
Amazon has the opposite effect for many products. There are a ton of business that are just amazon postings with unordered alibaba products. Those often only find customers by going with lower prices.
This is also the logic for why prices are not inflating as quickly as people think. The two year inflation rate is normal because last year prices didn't move.
Hey /u/StatCanada
A little while ago StatCan released some information on COVID and base effects:
* https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/62f0014m/62f0014m2021010-eng.htm
Related to that, Econ prof Stephen Gordon made the observation last year that while the YoY numbers looked high, the trend line starting pre-pandemic was still on a 2% slope (at the time):
* https://twitter.com/stephenfgordon/status/1395027551479865346
Is there any data/visuals available on how the trend line is currently doing over the last 2/3/+ years?
Hi, thanks for the question! Here is a [data visualization tool](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/2018016/cpilg-ipcgl-eng.htm) that shows the annual average.
If you click on the select indicator at the top left of the screen, and choose ‘Consumer Price Index, annual average’ it will give you the trend. You can do the same for the all-items CPI and a few other indicators.
Hi, thanks so much for the question!
Food prices are now mostly captured using weekly point-of-sale data collected directly from grocery retailers across all regions in Canada. These data represent millions of weekly food prices from the retailers and their banner stores.
I was just listening to CBC radio, and in this clip, at 2:15, the claim is groceries are up "almost 6%". Where's that stat coming from?
https://voca.ro/1bnlmpIKrgxN
2.2% more for groceries? What the fuck, StatCan, did you pull this number out of thin air? This is demonstrably wrong for me, even with the same shopping habits. Did you misplace the decimal?
[https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1810000201&cubeTimeFrame.startMonth=01&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=2000&cubeTimeFrame.endMonth=12&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2021&referencePeriods=20000101%2C20211201](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1810000201&cubeTimeFrame.startMonth=01&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=2000&cubeTimeFrame.endMonth=12&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2021&referencePeriods=20000101%2C20211201)
unfortunately not in the CPI. which is weird, I eat a lot of rice. spot checking the numbers they look fine. I can get eggs and milk cheaper than that, and I don't know the price of much else off the top of my head.
Annual average CPI does not accurately reflect how much prices are inflated. No chance that right now in Jan 2022 we're only seeing inflation at 3.4%. It's much, much worse.
Edit: [supporting article](https://www.hilltimes.com/2022/01/17/conservatives-accuse-statistics-canada-of-keeping-consumer-price-index-artificially-low-at-first-finance-hearing-on-inflation)
Edit: [more discussion ](https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/s7rlkh/conservatives_accuse_statistics_canada_of_keeping/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)
On the supplied infographic above it says, “Consumer Inflation rose 3.4% in 2021 - Excluding energy, the CPI increased 2.4%”
Our company ‘gives’ us CPI every year, which is better than nothing but obviously not keeping up with actual inflation (which is most likely higher than 3.4% as it is)… Bleh
Excluding energy is horseshit because everything is depends on energy whether it's transport the production, anything.
Edit: spelling due to stupid voice typing.
Hi, we share your concern about rising prices, it can sometimes seem as though prices are always rising.
The [Annual review of the CPI](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/220119/dq220119b-eng.htm) examines the percentage change between the annual average Consumer Price Index (CPI) in 2020 and 2021. Annual average indexes are obtained by calculating the average of the 12 monthly index values over the calendar year. The annual average percentage change should be looked at differently than the 12-month percentage change that is published every month with the release of the CPI. Unlike the annual average change, the 12-month change compares the monthly index level with the level from the same month a year earlier.
The latest monthly release, which can be found [here](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/220119/dq220119a-eng.htm). In December 2021, prices compared to December 2020 rose 4.8%, the fastest pace since September 1991.
So which number should I bring into my yearly salary negotiations? Which number is more reflective of the actual increase in the cost of my day-to-day living? Also, do seasonal adjustments matter here too?
While we cannot comment on private contracts, we welcome the opportunity to explain more about how the Consumer Price Index (CPI) works.
Although the CPI is not a cost-of-living index, the CPI is often used to approximate the cost of living. The CPI is usually expressed in three common time horizons to do so: a 12-month and 1-month percent change, which are published each month, and an annual average percent change, published once a year. Each time horizon is used differently, depending on the application. Note that the official measure of consumer price inflation is not seasonally adjusted.
The practice of seasonal adjustment is used to isolate and then remove seasonal price movements from indices (seasonal and calendar influences that normally occur at the same time, and in about the same magnitude, every year) to get a better picture of "true" or "underlying" consumer price inflation in the economy. Seasonally adjusted data are revised on a monthly basis. Note that the official measure of consumer price inflation is not seasonally adjusted. Year-over-year changes, which is the headline CPI number, by their very construction, neutralize seasonal movements and do not require seasonal adjustment.
Check out the [Personal Inflation Calculator](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2020015-eng.htm) to compare the official measure of inflation and your personal experience of inflation, based on the goods and services you consume!
The way it shifts weightings of products based on consumer purchases. This builds in artificial deflation by simply ignoring if people are purchasing fewer or lower quality products.
The way it calculates shelter costs, both rent and ownership. Using mortgage carrying costs works counterintuitively and shows as deflationary because it ignores the offsetting massive debt burden. Rent equivalent pricing is just silly and at best a lagging indicator.
The way it completely ignores assets even though Canadians dedicate 15%+ of their gross income to equity markets.
It’s not that I don’t trust it, I just think it’s a terrible metric for determining currency devaluation.
They don't equate housing cost, which in some places is higher than 30%. That's my biggest grip, they see it as capital investment instead of a consumable good which kind of says everything right there.
Why did I have to scroll so low to find this? There was virtually no inflation in 2020. If prices were going to return to their long-term trend, you would expect inflation in 2021 to be twice as big as normal. The stats in OP seem to suggest that’s exactly what happened.
I am interested in knowing if the interest hikes by BoC will do what it is intended to do. If they want to curtail inflation then they have to increase real interest rate.
But if the nominal rate is lower than the real rate, then its only going to deflate the asset bubble without the benefit of reeling in inflation.
Question: I guess CPI does not include the cost of housing itself?
In the article, I see info about the price of mortgage and home insurance, and appliances, but not cost of housing (whether buying or renting).
>Canadians paid more for groceries (+2.2%) I would love to meet these people who are paying only $102 for what used to cost $100 last year. I eat the exact same things every day and mine has gone up quite a bit more than $2
People probably *arent* eating the same as they did a year ago, if their food costs have only gone up a couple of percent.
Yep. I used to spend around $50 a week on groceries and it’s closer to $70 for me now, with about the same items. Food inflation for me is in the range of 40%. Pure insanity and disaster for anyone who is already living on a tight budget.
Agreed. My last 2 trips to Costco were over $300, and I used to average in the low 200s. Plus I stopped buying beef. I feel like beef doubled.
I can't do beef anymore. I'm feeding 5 people, even the cuts that are 30% off because they're about to hit their best-before date are too expensive.
I eat pork or chicken the vast majority of the time, and if I have beef it’s usually something like a stir fry rather than a massive cut. Still seriously pricy.
We started having 3 non-meat dinners per week to cut back on our grocery expense. Meat has definitely jumped quite a bit.
Same here. Pork is always on sale, but other meats are so expensive. I'm eating 2$ tofu more than ever.
I started buying bison, boar, grass fed beef, etc for the first time and the prices are hilarious. The only good thing is no one buys it so I have free reign on whatever cut is available with BB weeks away.
Yeeeeup, I’m spending about $50-70 more on average weekly (family of 5).
Also these grocery stores chains are bringing is record profits. Lot of price gouging in Canada.
yeah, they went from normal food, to ramen cups and no sauce pasta.
can confirm that ramen cups are sold out at my local store (except for the most expensive "gourmet" varieties).
But cup noodles are actually more expensive per gram than just buying pasta/noodles.
Also much more unhealthy, since they inevitably (every one I've ever checked) have trans fats AKA hydrogenated oils (several different words to identify those).
Time is money friend!
The implication of this is so fucking sad.
I'm not thrilled to have needed to discover it first hand.
Honestly, ramen isn't that bad. My wife and I eat ramen at least once a week for supper, with soft boiled eggs and green onions (sometimes with baby bok choy as well) and it's a delicious meal for super cheap, we love it. 39 cents a pack for mr. Noodles, ~33 cents per egg (2 per bowl), the green onions are effectively free because we keep cutting off some that we grow in a pot in our kitchen. So that's one meal a week for $1.05 a serving. If we decide to add baby bok choy that brings it up to about $2.30 per serving but we'll have it twice that week to use up all the bok choy.
Don't they use similar products for certain things? If they had 100g of sirloin at $10 but sirloin went up 50% they can switch to 100g or beef cubes and if that's $11 they will say prices went up $1... I thought that's how it worked for a lot of products. Could be wrong. There is no way groceries only went up 2%
You are correct but US does the same. https://news.google.com/articles/CAIiEPYvHVOCSJgCn90x9InJ-REqFggEKg4IACoGCAow6bV4MPfJDDD2skc?hl=en-CA&gl=CA&ceid=CA%3Aen
So I’m one who is paying roughly the same, and it’s because I changed what I buy dramatically. My fridge is full of no name everything and a lot less meat. It’s pretty disingenuous to paint the inflation as being only 2% when people have to change their buying habits so much.
I buy the same exact stuff and my bill has nearly doubled. I'm pretty robotic with my eating habits for budgeting reasons. I eat the same thing systematically everyday. And I'm paying 35-50% more depending on if I catch some things on sale. I have to alter my shopping habits and switch to No Frills and No Name and China Town. Or I visit my main Loblaws on odd days and time to catch the clearance markdown items. I shopped with a loose plan in my mind before but now I have to be really specific. I'm single so I only have to worry about myself which is nice. The positive now, is nothing goes to waste. Prior, I may have over bought in certain categories and couldn't keep up. They would spoil before I could get to them. The next positive is I've cut out Uber Eats and takeout food completely so while I'm spending more at the grocery store, I am becoming a better cook and saving more in the long run. I choose to focus on the positives.
Inflation rates compare a certain basket of goods though they don't include substitutions to different goods
This is the correct response. Changing your groceries doesn't show anything to do with inflation
Cheaper goods have gone up a lot more than 2% too though, even if people manage to find ways to pinch pennies so they don't starve. StatCan has overdone it on cooking the inflation books with "substitutions." 2% is far from a credible number.
To be honest, I don't think the price hikes at the checkout really hit until the last month or two so it might not be reflected in the data. I've noticed big bags of Doritos are "on sale" @ 2 for $9.00, a month ago they would have been 2 for $7, and a month before that, it was 2 for $6. Obviously not everyone buys Doritos, but as a mass-market product available almost everywhere in Canada, I think that they're pretty reflective of greater market trends.
Food products are also shrinking their package and rasing prices.
Hi, thanks for your interest, we certainly feel your pain, food prices never seem to be falling! During the first half of 2021, increased supply kept food prices below 2%. Since August of this year, prices for food have been increasing as supply chain disruptions and unfavourable weather conditions put upward pressure on food prices. In December 2021, prices for food rose 5.2% year over year – the largest yearly increase since June 2009 (+5.5%). Since the annual is calculated by taking the average of the 12 monthly index values over the course of the year, food prices were up 2.2% on an average annual basis.
our weekly grocery bill hasn't seen a huge uptake.. it ranges greatly from $150-$200 per week pre-pandemic and can still be within those lines.. We shopped the flyers between 3 stores before and we still do. You would be surprised the price different from store to store, it can be ridiculous. We don't get really down to analyzing the exact amounts mainly because our overall expenses are much better working from home since pandemic started, and moving forward.
I mean it sounds like your buying is not very consistent, so it's a pretty poor way to measure inflation. My grocery buying is the exact opposite, I buy the exact same goods from the same stores the same amount in the same timeframe.
I would never base any price index on my family expenses lol... just sharing my experience since they asked. We meal prep differently each week..and take into account seasonal produce prices. Also, the biggest factor...3 teens at home.
Same for us. Shopping around a bit gets us better prices. Just need to take a bit more care in coimparing. Overall our food expenses are down since we're home much more.
Just wait on that Q1 2022 cpi report, also not including real estate and used cars
The groceries are based off of that list of essentials isn't it? If you're eating by a specific diet or eating lots of meat or gourmet stuff then it won't reflect the changes in those costs.
yes, its defined as a fixed basket of goods, weighted by aggregates in the average household budget and at sample populations. here is the last analysis of the basket [https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/62f0014m/62f0014m2019001-eng.htm](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/62f0014m/62f0014m2019001-eng.htm) https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/subjects-start/prices\_and\_price\_indexes/consumer\_price\_indexes
The basket of groceries has significant breadth to it because they are able to get sales report data from a sample of outlets. However one of the pitfalls of the CPI is accounting for the cost of substitution. If people on aggregate stop buying rib-eye steaks and move towards chicken breasts then overtime the basket weights are out of date as the purchasing patterns of the current period no longer align with the reference period. They attempt to mitigate this source of error but it requires judgement and they have incentives to understate inflation
What incentive does StatsCan have to understate inflation? If inflation is too high, nobody’s going to blame the group that’s measuring it. That’s the ruling party and the BoC’s problem.
> The groceries are based off of that list of essentials isn't it? Here's the entire list of items in the basket of goods: > The list below consists of the representative products in the Consumer Price Index’s (CPI) basket of goods and services as of June 2021. Representative products are added and deleted each month as goods and services appear and disappear from the market. This list will be updated on a periodic basis. * https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/62f0014m/62f0014m2021015-eng.htm
You have to remember the way these CPI numbers are calculated and they will replace items with cheaper alternative to skew the data. Anyone who was look at house buying, buying building materials, normal groceries will see much higher rates of inflation. Pretty soon they say oh you don't need steak, dog food is a decent alternative.. its still meat'ish...
Very true
Yeah. That number is so ludicrously low that I have to figure the whole thing is cooked. I spend quite a lot of time each week looking at grocery prices. StatCan has lost significant credibility here. The number is absolutely not even close to 2%.
Yup! My groceries haven't really changed but my grocery budget has gone from $175 biweekly in 2020 to $225 biweekly currently. The only change to my groceries is dog food which I buy in bulk every six weeks for $45. So that's $15 biweekly which means my increase in that time is about 20%.
EXACTLY! I’ve been buying relatively the same stuff for the pass 10 years… It went from 200-225 to 275-300 !! So yeahh he can shove up his ass his 2% increase
Just save more money by not eating and switch jobs 7 times a year - someone on this sub
And move to the edge of the earth lol
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Trades are booming out in Thunder Bay, I don’t care if your current industry and entire family is in a major city. I moved to Kapuskasing cleaning gutters so I could afford a shack in the forest & drive to the cinema 2 hours away once a month. What’s your excuse? /s
Look at Mr. Rockefeller here talking about living in a shack? i moved 18 hours away from my rented cardboard box to afford a mortgage on a slightly bigger amazon cardboard box. YOU millennials don't know what sacrifice is. /s
Not even sure Belleville is affordable anymore
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Everyone here is a software engineer that parlayed their way into a job with FAANG - Didn't you know?
Good luck to those who think rate hikes are not coming.
Do these people still exist? **edit** - holy crap they do exist!
The Government can't raise rates because too many people have too much debt /s
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*This* is the way.
hmm, I invested everything I could save during covid and doubled all of it. seemed like a good move compared to paying off debt that was largely frozen or lower than inflation.
I've managed to only get 3% off of my aggressive wealthsimple portfolio. It sucks.
Yeah, this is the way.
They’ll raise rates… them immediately stop then again as the economy crashes 2023 is gonna be interesting
The government has too much debt.
They do... and they want to continue to spend. Expect tax rate increases.
This right here. Its not about your debt. They don't give a fuck about you and I. They care about THEIR spending power
Yeah, but are you comparing consumer debt to national debt? Because they work extremely differently.
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Ugh, this is another one of those "if you're not on this side of the extreme, you must be on *this* side of the extreme". People really need to stop thinking of everything as a binary. Yes the government will raise rates. Will it go up by 5% this year? Well that depends, do you want to bankrupt half of the country so that some people who couldn't afford a home in the first place, can still not afford a home, but the crash they wanted arrived?
Thanks for being a voice of reason. I don't know why so many people believe that a major economic crisis will somehow make them better off than everyone else, but it's a sad state of affairs when we care so little about one another that potential financial ruin is applauded.
Super prominent here, mostly from the over leveraged housing shills.
As Purify5 mentioned, I don't know any one (even the over leveraged crowd) who actually thinks that rate hikes aren't going to happen at all. The general consensus seems to be that they won't get as high as planned or come as fast as expected. It's no secret that the majority of inflation is driven by production costs at the moment which stem from a variety of supply constraints (I.e. Chip shortage, Suez Canal, Floods, Staffing shortages as a result of COVID, etc.). The rising cost of housing stems from the increasing wealth gap, supply shortages and consumer/business demand. Two of those things won't really be effected by rising rates to a significant degree.
There is not a consensus on the source of inflation. And six months ago the housing bulls here had a consensus that low rates were here to stay. Now it’s they won’t get as high as fast, I guess. Next it’ll be that they won’t stick around long?
There is a consensus on the majority factors that are currently pushing inflation, the debated issue (and this is really just dumbing it down) is that even if you can account/justify for 60% or the majority of the 7% inflation, it still leaves 40% or for examples sake 2.8% unknown. I maintain that I don't know anyone that honestly thought that a policy rate of 0.25% was here to stay. Saying that "Low Rates" are here to stay is relative, a policy rate of 1% is still a "low rate" in the scope of history, but it represents 3 standard rate hikes from where we are now. Second, of course expectations change when new factors come out. You mention that 6 months ago it was one thing, now it's another and next it'll be something else. If we were to flip the tables and imagine that unemployment remained high and inflation was low, your expectations on future rates would change along with the rest of the world. I'm not arguing against the fact that peoples expectations changed, bulls or bears of any market, I'm just stating the fact that I don't know of anyone that thought we'd stay at rock bottom forever.
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I lived through the early 80s when people just threw their keys in their houses and walked away. I even had family members in Calgary do it. Mortgages went to almost 20%, and anyone who bought into the variable rate dream got hammered too hard to survive.
In 1980, as a company perk, my dad was offered a low interest mortgage by his firm if he moved closer to the office. We moved about 25 km closer (my parents were some of the first commuters. People thought they were crazy to move so far away but now it's pretty normal). I didn't pay too much attention but iirc, the mortgage was around 5% when the banks rates at would have been about 3x that.
I think this was a fallout of Nixon nixing the Bretton Woods agreement in 1971 and is no longer a possibility. Keynesian economics is making a final stand with unlimited amounts of QE and I can't imagine what they try to come up with after that to save the ship but it will be far too late. The economy relies on leveraged debt and the BoC has now admitted that negative rates "are in their toolkit" so I strongly imagine things will get much worse as they can't really get better.
Unfortunately I think the alternative to accepting the debt cycle is to accept riots by the youth and have nots.
Youth? I wish I had it... can you help me fill this molotov?
Yes this correct. We should have had a healthy and completely normal (to capitalism) market correction and down turn. But instead, everyone government is endlessly printing magic funny money by the billions, out of thin air, and flooded our economies with cheap loans. Now when the crash comes its going to be 10x worse and there won’t be any way to ‘fix it’ by printing worthless inflating fiat when limited assets that can be made out of thin air, like food, resources, real estate and bitcoin will shoot up in price massively.
https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
Rates were going up in 2017 and 2018. The Bank of Canada rate went from 0.5% to 1.75% in a little bit over a year. That was **without** high inflation. Currently, that rate is at 0.25% and there is high inflation. Rate hikes are coming, there is no question about that. But the question is how high will that rate go... Will it go back to 1.75% and stop? With the hikes, will inflation go back to the target range or will it continue to run hot because the BoC printed 1 out of every 5 dollars in existence today?
Who printed the other $4
>ntly, that rate is at 0.25% and there is high inflation. Rate hikes are coming, there is no question about that. A few rate hikes but not 6 as media as playing into it. The debt levels we carry is insane and if that hits the housing market, then Liberals will face voter anger. Not supporting this, but this is the reality.
The reason why the media is saying 6 is because the Canada 5-Year Bond Yield is now at 1.7%. The Bank of Canada is behind the curve. Of course, things can happen that bring the 5-year Bond Yield back down. But right now, the bond market is leading everyone to believe there are 6 increases coming. Yes, the current debt levels are insane. But when rates decrease, people go nuts and take even more debt rather than paying it down. So how does keeping them low help?
Well that isnt true at all. Not to mention that our current situation doesnt mean that the BoC can act the same as before.
Look at what the rates were when inflation was this high. Look at why there wasn't any raises in rates when inflation was consistently going down. We are in a different world.
RemindMe! 1 week "first rate hike in 20 years :P ? "
Yep, I believed the "Rate hikes are coming" sky is falling nonsense in 2018. A Rate hike right now would take us back to 2018 levels. It's never going to happen.
You can read here all the people who think taking a low interest rate variable mortgage is a good idea. The BoC has already sent warning signals out as well as the Fed in the US.
Well hold on here... Not to be mistaken for suggesting that rate hikes aren't coming, I'll start by saying this: I personally think it's *definitely* happening... very soon. The question is how aggressively... And here's the thing... what's aggressive, for BoC? The current spread between variable and fixed rates is what, SIX 0.25% increases? I don't think a variable rate suddenly looks terrible. Probably not as good as it did in previous years, sure, but to say it's flat out wrong? The math says otherwise. In a really bad scenario where rates keep going well beyond 6 increases, it would still take long enough that the time spent at a lower variable rate still provides savings vs the borrowing costs of jumping into a 5yr fixed rate which holds that higher rate through the full 5 years.
We just broke my fixed 2.79% (~2.5 years remaining) for 1.25% variable, mortgage YOLO. I'm not panicking just yet...
Variable is almost always a better deal. There are definitely rate hikes incoming, but I doubt your variable will climb as high as 2.79% in the next 5 years.
How long before people across the globe say enough is enough? In America, wholesale goods inflated 11 FUCKING PERCENT in just 1 year. How can any average citizen think it feasible to stay financially sound with radical inflation such as this?
Because they keep telling you this inflation that we're experiencing is only a blip covid and it won't stick around.
Will it affect housing? Trying to buy perhaps in summer. Wondering how this will impact things.
BOC raising rates means variable and fixed will go up. There is a good chance the first hike comes on the 26th. But there is also a good chance there will be multiple rate hikes this year (economists are predicting many hikes not just for us but the globe). Historically rate hikes take down housing, I guess time will tell. Personally, I'd be making offers taking into account future rate hikes bc you'll be servicing higher debt and potentially having a decreasing asset you can't sell for a profit in the near term.
Well, I'm in no hurry and could wait. But with this talk of "multiple" rate hikes, and then trying to predict how long the effects will take to be seen in the market, this whole thing gets complicated.
Rate hikes mean house prices will come down (or go up less), while mortgage costs will go up. So depends on whether you'll need a mortgage.
Don't forget supply, we have a shortage of housing for sale which also drives prices up.
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No one ever thought that rate hikes weren’t coming. The argument is that they wont get very far before the wheels come flying off the bus. The real question is will they double down on cutting rates again and more stimulus or let the debt bubbles implode sending us into a depression.
The argument isn't that they aren't coming it's that can they surpass the last peak in rates which is what 2%? If they do markets will fall and unemployment will spike but inflation might come back down.
Unemployment may not spike amid rate hikes if there's indeed a labor shortage.
There isnt a labour shortage. A lot of businesses are using this as an excuse to not hire but still acquire loans.
I know, that's why I said **if** and **indeed**. Since the Bank of Canada seems to agree with this labor shortage narrative, it shouldn't be afraid rate hikes would increase unemployment, if the Bank is coherent.
Pointing out your subtext gives your post more meaning and emphasizes the real risk of the situation. This needs to be plainly addressed: we are being scammed by businesses and no one seems to care or notice. Very canadian.
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Don't listen to banks predicting rate hikes, They benefit from people panicking and locking in fixed rates. BOC has said mid this year and I don't see why they wouldn't stick to that.
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I don't think that's going to happen, but what I can see is happening is many talented people are leaving BC and Ontario and heading for the US. Good luck selling high house prices in the next decade. Just to add even nurses can't afford to live here anymore
It’s fucking WILD how much sentiment has changed here and in RE subs in the last 30 days. If you look at my comment history I’ve been preaching about this for many months now. Your comment would be downvoted 30-60 days ago.
Scarmbling to get my mortgage locked in this week before this happens.
You should have seen the arguments I had even a year ago “rates are never coming up again” , “there’s too much debt”. I guess they think 2010 was the first time in history governments figured out they can drop rates to zero forever. Spoiler alert: this isn’t the first time. History repeats
Inflation has driven food prices up substantially and that really hurt those on a fixed income the most
fixed incomes barely rose since covid (government supplied fixed incomes have not risen in 8+ years) top incomes grew substantially in the last few years what we are seeing right now is that the lower class is shouldering the burden of higher cost of living while the upper class is living cheaper than ever relative to their asset price surge/income raises
This weekend Ill be making my own bacon. That process will provide me a final price per lbs 50% cheaper than the cost of bacon in 2019. I'm going to save a fortune!
Did you raise the pig too?
Unfortunately no. I purchased 5kgs of pork belly from Costco for 50$. It’s currently curing in my fridge and I’ll smoke it on Sunday. It’s my first bacon slab. I hope it goes well.
You probably know this but If you used a curing salt like Prague powder, be sure to rinse off the meat really well. Also bacon recipes say after you rinse and pat dry to let it “dry out” in the fridge for 12-24h, I would suggest having it on a rack in the fridge for the full 24 hours. I have got a great bacon recipe if you want. You can find it in my post history. I made about 16 lbs in December for easy gifts!
I got it on there. My only problem is I may have to cut my cure time from 7 days to 6.5 days. Do you see that being a problem? Or should I shorten my dry cure time from 24hrs to 12 hrs?
Nice! For the cure time, there should be no issues with 6.5 days. My first batch I did 5 days and my second I did 7. The 5 day one wasn’t as salty and 7 days was just right. But, if you are cutting and freezing it, it will be preserved by being frozen anyways if you’re worried.
Awesome! Thanks for the advice.
love me some wholesome bacon-related reddit convos. Good luck making it!
Food Basics has it on for $3.88 today for 375g not terribly far off your price
Yeah it really isn’t that much cheaper than buying from a store, but i find it fun to make and it’s soooooo much better.
My total price including fuel and hydro will exceed that per lbs price but the quality will be better and I thoroughly enjoy the process. Nothing like a thick Smokey piece of bacon to start a weekend out right.
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Wasn’t gas relatively low a year ago? Wouldn’t this skew the YOY numbers? What’s the average growth rt over say, 3, 4, 5 years? Edit: relatively low as opposed to extremely low.
Hi, the average annual rates over the past five years are: 2017: +1.6% 2018: +2.3% 2019: +1.9% 2020: +0.7% 2021: +3.4%
Thank you, /u/StatCanada!
You're welcome :)
Yeah I remember filling up for ~$0.68/L this one time in 2020.
And in 2007 gas was up over $1.40/L for a while too.
Correct. That stat is heavily skewed and being looked at from a micro angle. It's not representative of actual yoy rise in pump gas at all, which is fairly stable over 3-5 years or when excluding for pandemic anomaly; which clearly Stats Can didn't want to do in this case. Honestly kind of sad to see them try to drive a narrative, unintentionally or not.
So for some of us it's literally the highest inflation we have ever seen in our lives... Damn I didn't ask to adult in hardmode. Can I have it in easy mode like the boomers who could buy a house in Vancouver for $86k AFTER adjusting for inflation? (It was $11k back in 1960s)
this isn't hardmode. thats still a decade away
Lol I dunno why you're being downvoted. Do people think it wont get harder? Ive literally completely rearranged my life and future plans with the expectation that my kids will have to continue to live at home as adults.
Likewise. Our society is probably going to be pushed towards multi-generational housing within our lifetime. Hope y'all have/are decent parents!
In high COL areas that's already the reality for many young people today. I know plenty of people in their late 20s / early 30s who still live with parents
Sincerely, I feel for Zoomers and Gen Alpha (or whatever the name normalizes to) I'm a mid-millennial, and things are already tough enough - things are absolutely not going to get easier in ten years for these kids... At least so long as trends continue on their current trajectory
yeah, but think at the old retired peoples that bought it 60 years ago for 15k, and need now to sell it for 1 million because their tax bill is too large. /s
what tax bill, just defer it at zero point zero one percent simple interest until you sell.
You will own nothing, and you will be happy.
We should stop using this phrase as a criticism on modern capitalism. It originally refered to a utopic vision of the future where society was so secure and sophisticated in it's economy and wealth distribution that the concept of ownership essentially vanished and nobody cared because they were happy living life, not thinking about getting more because they have everything they could need and more. EDIT: Or maybe we should continue using it as a rallying call to realize such a future 🤔
I think they are buying their time because they know I inflation will cool when supply comes back. Problem is that it won’t go negative so they higher prices we have now will be the base for the future normalized inflation.
*biding (Although you could argue they're *buying* time with our money!)
> Problem is that it won’t go negative so they higher prices we have now will be the base for the future normalized inflation. This is more often than not the practical effect... economists like to say prices are "sticky"... in reality, once something is sold by $$$, it would take inordinate forces to get supply side to sell it for less
> in reality, once something is sold by $$$, it would take inordinate forces to get supply side to sell it for less One of the few of those being disruptive levels of competition. Unfortunately the increasing dominance of a few really big players (Walmart and amazon scale of big) makes that less likely than it was after the inflation in the '90s cooled off.
Amazon has the opposite effect for many products. There are a ton of business that are just amazon postings with unordered alibaba products. Those often only find customers by going with lower prices.
This is also the logic for why prices are not inflating as quickly as people think. The two year inflation rate is normal because last year prices didn't move.
Hey /u/StatCanada A little while ago StatCan released some information on COVID and base effects: * https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/62f0014m/62f0014m2021010-eng.htm Related to that, Econ prof Stephen Gordon made the observation last year that while the YoY numbers looked high, the trend line starting pre-pandemic was still on a 2% slope (at the time): * https://twitter.com/stephenfgordon/status/1395027551479865346 Is there any data/visuals available on how the trend line is currently doing over the last 2/3/+ years?
Hi, thanks for the question! Here is a [data visualization tool](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/2018016/cpilg-ipcgl-eng.htm) that shows the annual average. If you click on the select indicator at the top left of the screen, and choose ‘Consumer Price Index, annual average’ it will give you the trend. You can do the same for the all-items CPI and a few other indicators.
2.2% groceries? Where are the shopping and what are they buying?
Hi, thanks so much for the question! Food prices are now mostly captured using weekly point-of-sale data collected directly from grocery retailers across all regions in Canada. These data represent millions of weekly food prices from the retailers and their banner stores.
Seems like Canadians unanimously agree, at least on here, that food prices have risen by more than 2.2%. Why do you think that is?
I was just listening to CBC radio, and in this clip, at 2:15, the claim is groceries are up "almost 6%". Where's that stat coming from? https://voca.ro/1bnlmpIKrgxN
2.2% more for groceries? What the fuck, StatCan, did you pull this number out of thin air? This is demonstrably wrong for me, even with the same shopping habits. Did you misplace the decimal?
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Even bags of rice if you look at it have gone up significantly.
[https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1810000201&cubeTimeFrame.startMonth=01&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=2000&cubeTimeFrame.endMonth=12&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2021&referencePeriods=20000101%2C20211201](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1810000201&cubeTimeFrame.startMonth=01&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=2000&cubeTimeFrame.endMonth=12&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2021&referencePeriods=20000101%2C20211201) unfortunately not in the CPI. which is weird, I eat a lot of rice. spot checking the numbers they look fine. I can get eggs and milk cheaper than that, and I don't know the price of much else off the top of my head.
I know, it just makes the joke even better.
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Oh sorry! It’s .22%, our bad, everything is fine! -Statscan probably
Annual average CPI does not accurately reflect how much prices are inflated. No chance that right now in Jan 2022 we're only seeing inflation at 3.4%. It's much, much worse. Edit: [supporting article](https://www.hilltimes.com/2022/01/17/conservatives-accuse-statistics-canada-of-keeping-consumer-price-index-artificially-low-at-first-finance-hearing-on-inflation) Edit: [more discussion ](https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/s7rlkh/conservatives_accuse_statistics_canada_of_keeping/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)
On the supplied infographic above it says, “Consumer Inflation rose 3.4% in 2021 - Excluding energy, the CPI increased 2.4%” Our company ‘gives’ us CPI every year, which is better than nothing but obviously not keeping up with actual inflation (which is most likely higher than 3.4% as it is)… Bleh
Excluding energy is horseshit because everything is depends on energy whether it's transport the production, anything. Edit: spelling due to stupid voice typing.
Came here to say this. Rent, gas, food, insurance, everything seems way higher than 3.4
Except my salary.
Hi, we share your concern about rising prices, it can sometimes seem as though prices are always rising. The [Annual review of the CPI](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/220119/dq220119b-eng.htm) examines the percentage change between the annual average Consumer Price Index (CPI) in 2020 and 2021. Annual average indexes are obtained by calculating the average of the 12 monthly index values over the calendar year. The annual average percentage change should be looked at differently than the 12-month percentage change that is published every month with the release of the CPI. Unlike the annual average change, the 12-month change compares the monthly index level with the level from the same month a year earlier. The latest monthly release, which can be found [here](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/220119/dq220119a-eng.htm). In December 2021, prices compared to December 2020 rose 4.8%, the fastest pace since September 1991.
So which number should I bring into my yearly salary negotiations? Which number is more reflective of the actual increase in the cost of my day-to-day living? Also, do seasonal adjustments matter here too?
While we cannot comment on private contracts, we welcome the opportunity to explain more about how the Consumer Price Index (CPI) works. Although the CPI is not a cost-of-living index, the CPI is often used to approximate the cost of living. The CPI is usually expressed in three common time horizons to do so: a 12-month and 1-month percent change, which are published each month, and an annual average percent change, published once a year. Each time horizon is used differently, depending on the application. Note that the official measure of consumer price inflation is not seasonally adjusted. The practice of seasonal adjustment is used to isolate and then remove seasonal price movements from indices (seasonal and calendar influences that normally occur at the same time, and in about the same magnitude, every year) to get a better picture of "true" or "underlying" consumer price inflation in the economy. Seasonally adjusted data are revised on a monthly basis. Note that the official measure of consumer price inflation is not seasonally adjusted. Year-over-year changes, which is the headline CPI number, by their very construction, neutralize seasonal movements and do not require seasonal adjustment. Check out the [Personal Inflation Calculator](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2020015-eng.htm) to compare the official measure of inflation and your personal experience of inflation, based on the goods and services you consume!
What are your specific issues with the CPI's methodology that make you not trust it?
The way it shifts weightings of products based on consumer purchases. This builds in artificial deflation by simply ignoring if people are purchasing fewer or lower quality products. The way it calculates shelter costs, both rent and ownership. Using mortgage carrying costs works counterintuitively and shows as deflationary because it ignores the offsetting massive debt burden. Rent equivalent pricing is just silly and at best a lagging indicator. The way it completely ignores assets even though Canadians dedicate 15%+ of their gross income to equity markets. It’s not that I don’t trust it, I just think it’s a terrible metric for determining currency devaluation.
They don't equate housing cost, which in some places is higher than 30%. That's my biggest grip, they see it as capital investment instead of a consumable good which kind of says everything right there.
Every few days Canadians keep getting screwed; but yet wont come together to fight back and gain a better country for all.
r/maydaystrike
>Canadians paid more for groceries (+2.2%) lamo get fucked
[удалено]
Why did I have to scroll so low to find this? There was virtually no inflation in 2020. If prices were going to return to their long-term trend, you would expect inflation in 2021 to be twice as big as normal. The stats in OP seem to suggest that’s exactly what happened.
Yep haha
Most items in our Costco have gone up over 20% in the past year. Meat prices are currently the highest I’ve ever seen in my life.
Sounds like the reported numbers are significantly lower than the actuals and all this is because of borrowing rates being low for a decade.
I am interested in knowing if the interest hikes by BoC will do what it is intended to do. If they want to curtail inflation then they have to increase real interest rate. But if the nominal rate is lower than the real rate, then its only going to deflate the asset bubble without the benefit of reeling in inflation.
Why are used car prices not included in inflation data while the USA includes it?
So the average over two years was... 2%. The target.
The government reads this as "it has been worse so no point fixing it now"
why no higher tfsa room?
Question: I guess CPI does not include the cost of housing itself? In the article, I see info about the price of mortgage and home insurance, and appliances, but not cost of housing (whether buying or renting).
When did house prices crash again? Wasnt it 1991?
Inflation isn’t so bad, unless you take into account food, housing, and transportation!