7 ms·

Here are some N-year rolling total inflation charts to put this datapoint in a longer-term perspective: https://totalrealreturns.com/inflation https://totalreal

Here are some N-year rolling total inflation charts to put this datapoint in a longer-term perspective: https://totalrealreturns.com/inflation https://totalrealreturns.com/inflation . Zooming out always smooths the noise.

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searine 3mo ago
Simple, excellent data. Thanks.
listless 3mo ago
This is so good Ty. Basically, looking at inflation over time, we look pretty good here.
- jasondigitized 3mo ago
  Against what other metric? Income? Stock Market? Debt?
tclancy 3mo ago
I am not sure what the perspective is: we aren't the same economy (there are true financial system differences between now and say, 1985) and, even if we were the same, the three other shocks that rise like this are two world wars and an oil crisis. This is some dunderding old narcissist thinking he's the toughest kid on the block. You could argue the oil crisis was a similar result of the US never, ever learning a lesson about intervening in others' political systems (especially if there's oil involved), but trend line or not, no one had to go through this. And the trend line would bend differently if we could just learn the lesson.
- tclancy 3mo ago
  And yes I am oversimplifying: the current conditions are actually do to a number of stupid things the current administration did because they assumed everyone who came before them was stupid and woke, but this just strikes me wrong, as though the chart should be comfort to someone struggling to make rent or pay for medicine or what have you. Much of this could have been avoided.
  - cosmicgadget 3mo ago
    The "stupid and woke" thing is just marketing, they know exactly what they're doing.
embedding-shape 3mo ago
> Prices are up +4.25% in the past year, and +24.49% in the past 5 years, according to the latest CPI data released Jun. 10, 2026. The price level has approximately doubled (2.01x) today compared to August 1999. Not knowing if that's good/bad, as it is without any frame of reference, so the same data for Spain looks something like this: Prices up +3.2% in the past year, up +22.4% in the past 5 years. Compared to 1999, a 1.88× difference, and if you want to compare since when it doubled, it'd be around September 1996. This is according to a tool from INE, Spain’s national statistics: https://www.ine.es/varipc/index.do?L=1 https://www.ine.es/varipc/index.do?L=1
- hadlock 3mo ago
  2% is good, anything over 3% is not good, anything over 4% is bad, 5% and higher is really bad. Hope that clears things up for you.
  - kachnuv_ocasek 3mo ago
    Why those arbitrary thresholds?
    - horsawlarway 3mo ago
      In complete seriousness: An offhand remark made by New Zealand's Finance Minister, Roger Douglas, during a 1988 television interview.
    - hadlock 3mo ago
      The fed has a dual mandate to maintain full employment and keep inflation at 2%. Others have already explained why 2% and not 0%. Up to 3% is expected, 4% means significant price shocks and they should consider acting quickly. 5% means they are at risk of losing control of inflation as it's more than doubled from their mandate and the fed risks losing credibility with markets
    - JumpCrisscross 3mo ago
      > Why those arbitrary thresholds? The broad idea is you want a number low enough that people don't price inflation expectations into day-to-day pricing but not so low that a hiccup causes deflation. The empirical evidence around inflation persistence is a bit all over the place, but broadly suggests people start daily indexing between 2 and 5%. When that starts to happen, restraining inflation without causing a depression becomes incredibly hard, because people will actively countermand policy moves.
cyanydeez 3mo ago
Do understand actual policy decisions: https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/econ_focus/2024/q1_q2_federal_reserve https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/econ_focus...
alpinisme 3mo ago
That shows that it’s been since 1991 since we saw similar five year increases in prices. Which is a long time. You also have to be careful not to zoom out so far you get into the “we all die anyway” scale where you’re not really tracking things that are meaningful to on-the-ground, as-lived reality
cosmicgadget 3mo ago
Noise is a lot better when it's centered around 0.
dualvariable 3mo ago
1918 isn't very relevant to modern living. And nobody wants to go back to the stagflation of the 1970s. And that scale is logarithmic. Graph it without the logarithmic scale and draw a curve through the 1982-2018 data and the recent spike will explain why people are complaining about it.
- tjwebbnorfolk 3mo ago
  Indeed. Back then food and shelter comprised a much larger % of the average income, and so each percentage point of inflation was considerably more painful than it is now.
aftbit 3mo ago
Why is this logarithmic?
- tjwebbnorfolk 3mo ago
  Because inflation compounds
infecto 3mo ago
Zooming out in what sense? Those rolling charts don’t mean much imo. Year over year change is a pretty good perspective and a tick up like this is not great.
- jrflo 3mo ago
  Zooming out tells you this tick up to 4.2% is not nearly as bad as the post-covid inflation, and drastically better than the 70s. Not a good sign, but also not too far outside the historical mean and probably no need to panic in and of itself.
  - infecto 3mo ago
    I don’t think that tells us anything. We already know 7% > than 4.2. This should already be a fact that inflation was worse during Covid. I don’t think know that inflation was worse in the 70s helps fixes the narrative that 4.2% inflation is not good.
    - jrflo 3mo ago
      Obviously more inflation is bad almost always. The question is how bad. By looking at a graph, you can get a sense for the mean and standard deviation of inflation over time, and this looks to be a small deviation in the grand scheme of things. Of course, no one would call this good, but it's just good to put stuff like this in context.
      - infecto 3mo ago
        Again I don’t think it says anything. Yes inflation was worse during Covid and before I was born, that just sounds silly btw. There is no perspective to be frank, energy is up a lot, that will impact other goods over the next few quarters.
jasondigitized 3mo ago
Now overlay average income on top
deleted 3mo ago
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deleted 3mo ago

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searine 3mo ago

Simple, excellent data. Thanks.

listless 3mo ago

This is so good Ty. Basically, looking at inflation over time, we look pretty good here.

jasondigitized 3mo ago
Against what other metric? Income? Stock Market? Debt?

tclancy 3mo ago

I am not sure what the perspective is: we aren't the same economy (there are true financial system differences between now and say, 1985) and, even if we were the same, the three other shocks that rise like this are two world wars and an oil crisis. This is some dunderding old narcissist thinking he's the toughest kid on the block. You could argue the oil crisis was a similar result of the US never, ever learning a lesson about intervening in others' political systems (especially if there's oil involved), but trend line or not, no one had to go through this. And the trend line would bend differently if we could just learn the lesson.

tclancy 3mo ago
And yes I am oversimplifying: the current conditions are actually do to a number of stupid things the current administration did because they assumed everyone who came before them was stupid and woke, but this just strikes me wrong, as though the chart should be comfort to someone struggling to make rent or pay for medicine or what have you. Much of this could have been avoided.
- cosmicgadget 3mo ago
  The "stupid and woke" thing is just marketing, they know exactly what they're doing.

embedding-shape 3mo ago

> Prices are up +4.25% in the past year, and +24.49% in the past 5 years, according to the latest CPI data released Jun. 10, 2026. The price level has approximately doubled (2.01x) today compared to August 1999. Not knowing if that's good/bad, as it is without any frame of reference, so the same data for Spain looks something like this: Prices up +3.2% in the past year, up +22.4% in the past 5 years. Compared to 1999, a 1.88× difference, and if you want to compare since when it doubled, it'd be around September 1996. This is according to a tool from INE, Spain’s national statistics: https://www.ine.es/varipc/index.do?L=1 https://www.ine.es/varipc/index.do?L=1

hadlock 3mo ago
2% is good, anything over 3% is not good, anything over 4% is bad, 5% and higher is really bad. Hope that clears things up for you.
- kachnuv_ocasek 3mo ago
  Why those arbitrary thresholds?
  - horsawlarway 3mo ago
    In complete seriousness: An offhand remark made by New Zealand's Finance Minister, Roger Douglas, during a 1988 television interview.
  - hadlock 3mo ago
    The fed has a dual mandate to maintain full employment and keep inflation at 2%. Others have already explained why 2% and not 0%. Up to 3% is expected, 4% means significant price shocks and they should consider acting quickly. 5% means they are at risk of losing control of inflation as it's more than doubled from their mandate and the fed risks losing credibility with markets
  - JumpCrisscross 3mo ago
    > Why those arbitrary thresholds? The broad idea is you want a number low enough that people don't price inflation expectations into day-to-day pricing but not so low that a hiccup causes deflation. The empirical evidence around inflation persistence is a bit all over the place, but broadly suggests people start daily indexing between 2 and 5%. When that starts to happen, restraining inflation without causing a depression becomes incredibly hard, because people will actively countermand policy moves.

cyanydeez 3mo ago

Do understand actual policy decisions: https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/econ_focus/2024/q1_q2_federal_reserve https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/econ_focus...

alpinisme 3mo ago

That shows that it’s been since 1991 since we saw similar five year increases in prices. Which is a long time. You also have to be careful not to zoom out so far you get into the “we all die anyway” scale where you’re not really tracking things that are meaningful to on-the-ground, as-lived reality

cosmicgadget 3mo ago

Noise is a lot better when it's centered around 0.

dualvariable 3mo ago

1918 isn't very relevant to modern living. And nobody wants to go back to the stagflation of the 1970s. And that scale is logarithmic. Graph it without the logarithmic scale and draw a curve through the 1982-2018 data and the recent spike will explain why people are complaining about it.

tjwebbnorfolk 3mo ago
Indeed. Back then food and shelter comprised a much larger % of the average income, and so each percentage point of inflation was considerably more painful than it is now.

aftbit 3mo ago

Why is this logarithmic?

tjwebbnorfolk 3mo ago
Because inflation compounds

infecto 3mo ago

Zooming out in what sense? Those rolling charts don’t mean much imo. Year over year change is a pretty good perspective and a tick up like this is not great.

jrflo 3mo ago
Zooming out tells you this tick up to 4.2% is not nearly as bad as the post-covid inflation, and drastically better than the 70s. Not a good sign, but also not too far outside the historical mean and probably no need to panic in and of itself.
- infecto 3mo ago
  I don’t think that tells us anything. We already know 7% > than 4.2. This should already be a fact that inflation was worse during Covid. I don’t think know that inflation was worse in the 70s helps fixes the narrative that 4.2% inflation is not good.
  - jrflo 3mo ago
    Obviously more inflation is bad almost always. The question is how bad. By looking at a graph, you can get a sense for the mean and standard deviation of inflation over time, and this looks to be a small deviation in the grand scheme of things. Of course, no one would call this good, but it's just good to put stuff like this in context.
    - infecto 3mo ago
      Again I don’t think it says anything. Yes inflation was worse during Covid and before I was born, that just sounds silly btw. There is no perspective to be frank, energy is up a lot, that will impact other goods over the next few quarters.

jasondigitized 3mo ago

Now overlay average income on top

deleted 3mo ago

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