Skip to content

Raw data: Inflation around the world

Is it true that the United States has the lowest inflation rate of any major economy? Not quite, but it's close:

China's economy is suffering, and they're starting to experience a bad bout of deflation. Aside from that, the US has the lowest inflation rate of the ten biggest economies in the world.

25 thoughts on “Raw data: Inflation around the world

  1. Justin

    Nice story about inflation in Egypt. Say what you want Israel being terrible for their treatment of Palestinians, the Arab world is a total shit show.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/05/world/middleeast/egypt-economic-crisis-gold-price.html

    “As they watched the value of their paychecks and savings evaporate over the past two years, the poor skimped on food, the middle class pulled their children out of good schools for cheaper or free ones, and even the better-off went without vacations and meals out. Millions of people descended into poverty.”

    If not for oil, it would be completely useless.

    1. Lounsbury

      Ah the opinion of someone who knows precisely fuck all about the Arab world and confounds the petrol Middle East with the entire region.

      1. Justin

        I know enough to conclude it’s a shit show. This is obvious to even a casual observer so I’m not sure why you find this offensive. Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Sudan… all shitshows. A thoroughly useless mass of poverty stricken, corrupt, and uneducated humanity. Israel is (was) the only reasonably prosperous part of the so called Arab world. No doubt only because they oppressed the Arabs… which is terrible, but telling.

        1. Lounsbury

          That you're a blithering moron and cretin spouting off in half informed ignorance irritates me generally. The distorted bullshit about Arab world (and other subjects you troll on about) is mere side dish

          1. CAbornandbred

            This comment would be more useful if you knocked off the name calling and provided a couple of links to actual facts that back up your gripe.

            1. Lounsbury

              Right, giving links for what purpose? Proving to whom that the Arabs are not sub-human untermenschen? Wonderful use of time that.

  2. Lounsbury

    As a general observation it is not particularly enlightening to show Developing Economies and Developed Economies together purely for reason for the size of GDP. Nominal GDP size of an India really doesn't make it actually a comparable with USA. Or Brazil for that matter.

    If one wants insight on comparative inflation, the best Apples to Apples comparisons are the OECD high income peer group - there you get modestly useful benchmarking on inflation and growth from economies in growth profiles reasonably similar in structure to USA.

    S. Korea, Australia, Canada and a couple non-Eurozone OECD peers is more enlightening for comparative inflation performance.

    1. RZM

      Fair point but Kevin's chart includes 6 countries that fit your description and only 3 that don't so I think it's still pretty significant, don't you ?

  3. Tbomber

    And yet, as usual, CNBC has mentioned out of control/runaway inflation several times this morning, with Kernen actually expressing shock at Biden's poor poll numbers without a bit of self reflection.

  4. jdubs

    Everyone knows the economy is terrible, inflation is outrageously high and Joe Biden is really old.

    Lets not mix any facts into this compellintg story line that we have created to boost ratings.

  5. bbleh

    What *I* want to know is, why doesn't Joe Biden go down into the Basement Control Room at the White House or wherever it is and just turn inflation off for a while? I mean, we can all use a break! Have you seen gas prices lately? [narrator: they're DOWN 12% from 6 months ago and up only 1/4 of 1% from a year ago] And what about food? [narrator: food at home is up 1.2% from a year ago] It's KILLING us! Why won't he DO something?!?

    1. jte21

      What Trump would do -- and it would be effective because he knows the media would eat it up -- is go on a huge rant tearing into grocery and food and consumer goods companies in particular about their high prices, threatening them with regulatory annihilation, criminal prosecution, and all manner of hellfire and brimstone unless they drop their prices by 10% starting tomorrow. What they would do then is make a big deal about knuckling under to the president's pressure by temporarily reducing the price of Kraft Mac-n-Cheese or Crest toothpaste by some token amount, Trump would hold up tubes of Crest at the WH giving his stupid, thumbs-up photo op grin, and it would be reported over and over again that Trump solved inflation.

      Either way, Trump would get credit for jawboning a greedy company into lowering its prices and the public would swallow it like a jello shot. A Democrat of course could never get away with something like that in a million years without being tarred as a power-mad socialist dictator, which is why Joe Biden doesn't do it.

      1. cephalopod

        He doesn't even have to do that. The second Trump is elected, major news outlets will run article after article about how inflation has been tamed and is at a multi-year low of 2.3%. Then they'll average out the inflation rate throughout the Biden administration to compare it against.

  6. lower-case

    ot... alabama is passing a law to carve out an ivf exception for killing embryos

    could someone explain to me how the alabama supreme court says their constitution classifies embryos as children, but this law claims to override that ruling?

    pretty that would require modifying the constitution to state clearly that embryos are not children

    why does the alabama legislature think this law supersedes their constitution? a lot of these legislators are lawyers ffs

    even more baffling, i don't see any media reports raising this issue

    1. lower-case

      also, what ivf clinic would feel comfortable proceeding with these procedures knowing there's a good chance the law will be struck down by the alabama courts?

      and when that happens these doctors can be prosecuted for murder charges

    2. jte21

      Alabama allows people to be legally killed for all sorts of reasons irrespective of their having been "made in the image of God." What's one more?

    3. cephalopod

      Don't the new laws just provide protection from legal responsibility if the companies are following standard IVF industry practices? I think it is just setting a standard for negligence, not redefining children.

      It's not unusual for laws to demand different levels of care for different groups, without making some groups not human. Daycares with infants have to have doors that go directly outside (so workers can quickly carry babies out in case of fire). Kindergarten classrooms don't have this requirement. Both groups of kids are legally children, but different standards of negligence apply. After Katrina there were lawsuits about abandoned people in nursing homes - no landlord renting to the general public had to worry about that, even if their tenants lacked cars or money to evacuate.

      I think they're basically saying that you can leave a freezer of embryos overnight unattended without fear of lawsuit if some bad actor breaks in, a meteor hits the roof, or some other unexpected problem disables the freezer, because leaving the freezer unattended outside work hours is a normal practice for clinics.

      1. lower-case

        it's not just negligence they'll have issues with since couples typically destroy embryos after the they're done having children

        and there are divorces where both parties agree to destroy frozen embryos

        since the AL SC says those embryos are children i don't think the legislature can legitimately pass a law saying that people killing them won't be prosecuted

        of course i totally expect the court to twist itself into pretzels upholding that sort of law since a lot of rich white conservatives undergoing ivf want the courts to say just that

        some people are saying they'd have to transport the embryos out of state to be destroyed, but crossing state lines to commit a 'murder' might be frowned upon by the AL SC

  7. Batchman

    See the chart and KD's description, "the ten biggest economies in the world." California is visibly absent from that chart. Just a reminder to all those Californians who like to throw hyperbole around.

Comments are closed.