This tweet is making the rounds today:
"A gallon of milk was $1.99. Now it's $2.79. When you buy 12 gallons a week times four weeks, that's a lot of money."@EvanMcS goes grocery shopping with the Stotlers and shows us how badly inflation is hitting the middle class. pic.twitter.com/39hPPRHLja
— Brianna Keilar (@brikeilarcnn) November 4, 2021
Most of the tweets are from people wondering who buys 12 gallons of milk per week, but that's hardly interesting. The answer is that the Stotlers have adopted a bunch of kids and now have nine children living under their roof.
What's more interesting about this news segment is what it tells us about people's perceptions of inflation. Let's review. At one point, Mrs. Stotler says, "I think probably in June it was about a dollar was worth a dollar, so now that dollar is worth about 70 cents."
A little later, she gets specific: milk has gone up from $1.99 to $2.79.
Their total shopping bill for the week comes to $310. A few months ago, "we would have spent probably 150, 200 dollars, something like that."
We also have USDA figures for the price of milk. In Dallas, it's gone up from $2.99 to $3.29 since last June. (That's an average. It might be cheaper at certain stores.)
As it happens, the price of milk bounces quite a bit around depending on the mood of the cows and the whims of the bureaucrats. In the past year, a gallon of milk in Dallas has gone up from $3.03 to $3.29.
Here's how this nets out:
- First Stotler guess: Inflation is running at about a 100% annual rate.
- Second Stotler guess: inflation is running at about a 90% annual rate.
- Third Stotler guess for all groceries: inflation is running at a 70-140% annual rate.
- USDA figures: Extrapolating from the June price, the cost of milk is going up at about a 25% annual rate.
- Also USDA figures: Milk has actually gone up 8% in the past year.
- BLS: The inflation rate for groceries in general is currently 4.4%
Altogether, as we move from personal feelings to actual numbers, our estimate of inflation in the grocery store declines from about 100% to about 4%.
There are some cognitive biases at play here. Obviously one of them is that most of us are bad at mental math and draw wildly incorrect conclusions about relative prices.
But the cognitive bias most at work here is that when we think of prices, our brains go back to eras long past. It seems as if milk only cost $1.99 a few months or a year ago, but it didn't (unless it was on sale or something). It's been years since milk cost so little, but our memories are largely stuck in our early adulthood, when we first started paying attention to things like the price of milk. Mrs. Stotler, by misremembering the price of milk a year ago and then doing some bad mental math, concludes that inflation is running at an insane rate. The truth is that groceries are up 4.4% and milk is up only a little more than that.
I don't blame Mrs. Stotler for any of this. It's just a common human foible. But I do blame CNN for not spiking this story—or, at the very least, providing the full context along with the actual level of inflation in the grocery store. Instead, Evan McMorris-Santoro made every effort to imply that the Stotler's figures were an accurate and alarming reflection of the actual inflation rate today.
Why? Why do television correspondents keep doing this? It's very little short of a bald-faced lie.
Because it gets fabulous ratings, and because they are simply pointing the camera at the Stotlers, they are not responsible for falsehoods.
We really need to do something about this.
CNN's ratings are never "fabulous". They miss Trump so badly it hurts, and have to broadcast filler like this instead.
Further to that most journos are math innumerates and think via anectdote and stories.
How many has it been anyway?
How about the professionals and their impressions? https://finance.yahoo.com/news/goldman-sachs-brings-forward-u-073452403.html
I found the walking back of “transitory” something interesting: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/03/follow-the-feds-market-moving-decision-on-interest-rates-and-bond-buying-here.html
If from nothing other than how laypersons and other can be using the same words but a different vocabulary.
True, but yry inflation is going to get hacked next spring. It could peak at 6% yry and decline to 3% by summer.
This is Jimmy Carter's second term in the media echo chamber. Stagflation is a given, all that's needed are some human interest elements like a lovely caring woman who buys 12 gallons of milk a week for her sweet adopted children.
Problem is, the story loses legs next year. Peaking too soon.
Because Journalism Schools operate on the assumption that Journalism is a free floating skill, devoid of factual content, that can then be easily directed by the Journalist at whatever specific content he is looking at that day. Today it is inflation, tomorrow it is dark matter. It's all the same. Journalists learn to Ask The Hard Questions. Actually Having The Hard Knowledge is irrelevant. That's why they fall back on reaction quotes as a substitute for analysis. God forbid they, you know, call an expert or something. Or even learn what an expert looks like.
And, as more than a couple of journalism have told me, one of the attractions of journalism school is that there's no math requirement to graduate.
Years ago, I taught one intro class at a j-school I won't name. At the midterm I gave them a math test including things like percentage change and calculating inflation rates. Afterward, the students went to the dean to complain. I was not invited back.
Gasoline and oil are cheaper than in 2008. Deflation! This whole inflation debate is silly.
I still live in the early 70s. Someone at the gas station misplaced the decimal point, I'm sure it is supposed to be .32 cents, not $3.20.
Sounds like I'm not alone.
Are you John Lydon?
Not to my knowledge. But that ain't saying much.
Hah!
Like Bannon says, the media is stupid and lazy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm5xxlajTW0
& always stupid to his benefit.
Our lamestream media is Berners & Nat-Cs. Populism for days.
You know why, Kevin. Because, while the MSM may be 'liberal' (for various values of 'liberal'), the one thing it is not is pro Democrat. In fact, and as we all know, the MSM could be accurately characterized to the first approximation by noting that it is, above all, anti-Democatic party.
We are not a center-right nation. We are a falangist nation with a token progressive opposition.
The media reflects this. Nothing but Berners & National-Conservatives all the way down.
The Democrat Party might as well be the Whigs.
Perhaps Kevin, one day you will be appointed head of the Information Ministry and will be able to out a stop to all that.
Why do you think Kevin has gone in so hard on anticancellation?
He's trying to prove his fealty to land a job in the Josh Hawley-Tulsi Gabbard American Orbanite regime at the Ministry of Plenty.
Texas has both state sales tax of 6.25% on all retail sales but many counties impose a 1+% additional tax bringing many counties sales taxes to around 8%
The tax burden there is smaller than most other states on the whole, however.
I think Texas ranks about 47th in overall tax burden.
This women is bitching about Biden not about inflation IMHO.
Texas is well down the ranks for tax burden on the rich. But much higher up for tax burden on the middle class.
https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-highest-lowest-tax-burden/20494
puts texas at #30.
Looking on Google, milk prices seem to vary widely from state to state and probably from city to city. I just don’t know what you can tell inflation-wise by the cost of a gallon of milk. I’m sure there are a lot of factors that have nothing to do with inflation.
Not to mention, the sales and "loss leaders".
I'm guessing with the pandemic, stores did not have to do as much to drive traffic, so a lot of the huge discounts disappeared.
********Off Topic COVID***********
Europe now expecting another surge
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/4/who-europe-chief-voices-grave-concern-over-regional-covid-surge
{snip}
The current rate of COVID-19 transmission in Europe is of “grave concern” and the region could see another 500,000 deaths by early next year, according to the European head of the World Health Organization (WHO).
WHO Europe Director Hans Kluge told reporters on Thursday that new coronavirus cases in Europe were near record levels, with spiralling infection rates fuelled by the highly transmissible Delta variant.
“Today, every single country in our region is facing a real threat of COVID-19 resurgence or already fighting it,” Kluge said from the global health agency’s Europe headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark.
With 78 million cases in the WHO’s Europe region –********* which includes all 27 member states of the European Union and the United Kingdom, Russia, Turkey, several Central Asian nations, and Israel*********** – its cumulative toll now exceeds that of South East Asia, the Eastern Mediterranean region, the Western Pacific, and Africa combined.
Kluge said******** hospitalisation rates due to COVID-19 in the region more than doubled over the last week.********* If that trajectory continues, Europe could see another half a million more pandemic deaths by February, he warned.
“We are at another critical point of pandemic resurgence,” Kluge said. “Europe is back at the epicentre of the pandemic, where we were one year ago.”
{snip}
Bad news folks.
We will need to rollout boosters NOW, then again in 4 months
This is not going away - not yet
It is starting to look like the winter surge is coming.
Rolling out boosters isn't going to prevent half a million more deaths. More first time vaccinations will.
Yes, more break through infections, esp. among the elderly.
But still mainly driven by those not vaccinated.
Boosters?!? WHO says we don’t need no steenkin boosters…
Pretty sure the price of milk is determined by a formula and only somewhat influenced by "inflation".
Farmers get milk price supports and there may be a formula in that, but the price is also influenced by supply and demand. But the supply of milk is pretty local - it has nothing directly to do with the computer chip shortage or international supply-chain problems. There is no reason for milk to be strongly influenced by the things which are actually causing overall inflation at this point. Even aside from the nonsense spouted by the Stotlers it is a very bad indicator of general inflation.
Nah.
I blame Eau Claire.
As if elevating Bon "Justin Vernon" Iver wasn't bad enough...
The price of Lucerne whole milk has been $1.99 1/2 gallon up here in Bellingham for the 2 1/2 years we've lived here, including the milk I bought a week ago. I just yesterday read a local Safeway ad with Lucerne whole milk at $1.99 a gallon - so we are now experiencing catastrophic deflation. Can I panic now? Or should I wait till Monday?
Anyone ask themselves are these televised rubes rustic enough for your typical heartland viewer? I'm sure that CNN had plenty of test footage to run by sample audiences until they found the optimal couple to mouth their anti-Biden propaganda.
Didn't Evan Mc Morris-Santoro get his start at Joshua Micah Marshall's TalkingPointsMemo?
If so, explains everything.
Ever since JMM went to bat for Andy Breitbart everything dude touches has been sus.
Unless I’m missing something, they’re buying 46 gallons of milk each month. There’s Starbucks locations that probably don’t go through that much milk in a month.
Also, would’ve been nice to have heard about the dough they’re undoubtedly getting from Biden’s child tax credit, etc.
Earned benefit.
Maybe they are also lining up an expose about the modern orphanage operators who feed kids only cereal?
That’s as good an explanation as any and better than some. But, no matter how you divide it up or what it’s being used for, that’s an astonishing amount of milk. Those people would have to be force feeding kids cereal like foie gras producers force feed geese.
A lot of people still drink glasses of milk for breakfast and snack time. Kind of grosses me out, but it takes all kinds to make a world. Unless my math is wrong (it could well be) their milk consumption seems to be about 1 pint each per day. That doesn’t sound that outrageous to me.
I also looked up how much milk cost when I was a teen. There were different answers with a low of about 45 cents to a high of about a dollar per gallon. This means that at worst milk costs about the same in constant dollars as in 1968.
Math is definitely not my strong suit but to use up 46 gallons of milk in a month every member of this family of twelve would need to drink or use for cereal at least one eight ounce glass of milk for every meal, for every day of the week. I like some milk and I like me some cereal, too. But that much milk strike me as wholesale child abuse.
Well let’s see (takes out calculator) buh buh buh…buh buh buh….ok, thats11 heart attacks per week, give or take a heart attack or two.
Yep, your math sucks. 12 times 4 is 48. And there are 9 kids. So instead of screwing around with the monthly rate, let's just stick to the weekly rates. And I'm going to assume the parents don't drink milk. So each kid is drinking 12/9 gallons per week, or 12/63 gallons per day or 48/63 quarts per day or 96/63 pints per day. Which is pretty close to 1.5 pints or 3 cups. That's 12oz on morning breakfast cereal and a 12oz glass for dinner.
I check you, sir.
It’s certainly true that maths is definitely not a strength for me but I’m visualizing what 48 gallons of milk looks like and visually translating that into 2 glasses of milk every day seems wrong. It seems like an insanely large amount of milk for anyone not running a coffee shop to buy.
FWIW, 12 gallons of milk works out to be 1,536 fluid oz. Divide that by 7 days and you get about 219 fluid oz per day. Divide that by 11 people and you get about 20 oz per person, which works out to about 2.5 (8 oz) glasses per person.
When I look up recommendations for milk, I see between 2 and 3 cups for kids. Granted this doesn't all have to be in liquid form. Still, if a family enjoys milk, this doesn't really appear absurd to me (8 oz glasses would tend to be the small size, a typical can of soda would be 12 oz.)
I could tell you stories about goat's milk. But probably 95% of the people posting here wouldn't get it.
It still seems like a ridiculously large amount of milk to me but I accept that life is a question of taste.
We all went to the same school in different places.
Back in the 1970s my Mom was stuck on the notion that we all had to drink a ton of milk everyday so we were served up milk at each meal and not tiny glasses and she drilled into my sis and I the notion that we needed to be getting enough calcium via milk.
It's a cultural thing - all my ancestors came from Northern Europe well the furthest south would be Bavaria. My people have been drinking cow's milk for centuries.
The only milk I drink these days is in my coffee but I also consume yogurt most days and I love cheese.
As America has become more multicultural and there is increased awareness of milk intolerance, milk drinking like this seems so old school.
Your whole family must have bones of titanium!
There’s titanium in milk?-)
No, it’s a play in the old advertising slogan about milk building strong bones.
Apparently it’s a great and memorable slogan but a poor reflection of reality.
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/can-drinking-too-much-milk-make-your-bones-more-brittle/
Is that like Wonder Bread building strong bodies 12 different ways?
Voilà !
When I was a kid I hated milk. As I got older I liked skim milk a bit. Now I find it pretty gross again. Just half and half in my coffee. Like whipped cream too. Fwiw.
I want Kevin to make the case that Social Security COLA for 2022 should not go up by 5.9%.
That's it. Nothing more.
That would indeed be interesting to see.
Let's all remember that inflation is a tax. A regressive tax.
Those with real assets or robust brokerage accounts can rest easy, since those keep up with inflation - more or less. But for holders of cash, which is a lot of low-income people, they lose out.
Yeah. All those low income people with a million dollars in cash sitting in the bank just getting whittled away by inflation.
Even more startling: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=IyOG
Milk prices have risen the most during Trump's last two years.
If only El Jefe's titties could lactate...
...he'd actually be a billionaire.
Most of the tweets are from people wondering who buys 12 gallons of milk per week, but that's hardly interesting. The answer is that the Stotlers have adopted a bunch of kids and now have nine children living under their roof.
Imagine putting a black family with 9 kids and struggles affording milk on TV. I don't people would be arguing about inflation.
Setting aside ratings and other nefarious drivers for this continued misinformation (which, to be clear, clearly also exist), the people who make the news are no less likely to be useless at math than anyone else. I think another cognitive bias at play is the assumption that these people are some sort of special class of super smart people who know more about everything than “us.” They aren’t - they exist in the same distribution as the people you know and work with everyday (probably a lot worse if you are an engineer, computer scientist, etc.). Which means it’s the same problem for the smartest person in the room as anywhere else - there’s only so much stupid you can solve or prevent per unit time.
Milk prices vary wildly by store, but I'm pretty certain that I could buy milk for less the $2 a gallon within the past year here in MA. I haven't observed a steady upward trend (except with gas), but milk and egg prices have bounced around really wildly.
1 Gallon Whole Milk, Shorewood, Wisconsin, at Kroger's Metro Market, Store Brand (Roundy's), Today (11/5/21): $2.19. Price is pretty much where it's been for the past few years.
Next time, stop for a pint at the Three Lions on the way in.
Fish 'n Chips on Friday, if you can get a seat.
I don't t'ink I could.
I think more examples like this are appropriate. Facebook has no business spreading mis-information, and neither does the mainstream media.
But I do blame CNN for not spiking this story—or, at the very least, providing the full context along with the actual level of inflation in the grocery store.
We do not believe in context. All of us suffer from thinking that reality began no more, at best, 3 years ago, and ends about the same time in the future - again, at best.
We largely live day to day, and think the same. It's natural.
Once we all understand that about ourselved, the easier it becomes to explain how people behave...
We see this in discussions of voting patterns & demographics all the time. People still act like the high propensity 70 year old voters of today are the Greatest Generation, when in fact any WW2 veteran voters we have left are 95 & small in cohort size.
It's not 1996 anymore. We are as far away from the Democrat Injustice Department of Janet Reno besmirching the heroism of Richard Jewell (because he was white & cis), then going on a witchhunt for Eric Robert Rudolph (because he wanted to save the children from the abortionist & homosexual abattoir), as 1996 was from the Radical Left Democrat Party allowing the perpetrators of the Sterling Hall bombing get away with it.
CNN is now saying that one could buy milk for $1.99 with coupons and that coupons are now not available. So perhaps the story would have been better served if it was about how so many people depend on coupons.
If coupons were really unavailable, the Grey Panthers at AARP would be on the geriatric march.
The Stotlers are just too lazy to clip.
I see what you did there. Good show, sir!
That's why they let her claim that her grocery bill has gone from $150/week to $300/week in 6 months. It's all the coupons fault.
The Stotlers should be complaining about the higher cost of insulin.
Stop fat shaming.
A complaint about pharmaceutical price gouging should not be confused with insults of America's significant population of overweight citizens, whose innumeracy may be as awful as their diets but insignificant when compared with their self-regard.
TV News would have so much less to talk about without total economic illiteracy.
a bit more of a detailed comment expanding on a reply I did above:
The question is, are stores having sales and deep discounts, aka. loss leaders, to drive traffic like they used to. If someone is bargain hunting, they might be able to routinely find milk for $1.99/gallon or a loaf of bread for $1. Different stores at different times, but doable.
Consolidation of grocery stores has meant less of that. Depending on your area, those kind of mega-deals, even with your card, fell away years ago.
Pandemic has driven traffic to grocery stores. They no longer need big sales to bring in people, so the don't have them.
Finding a bargain on one item usually means you're overpaying for others, so you may or may not be saving a lot of money. The important thing is that you feel like you're saving money.
This does not have to be a case where the women's memory is playing tricks on her--though some of that probably does come into play.
CNN was lazy. This was not a story about inflation per se, but the loss of loss leaders. That's due to the effect of consolidation in the grocery store business and an increase in people buying at the grocery store, i.e. not going out.
Dammit Dammit Dammit:
No, CNN was not being lazy. CNN was being blatantly anti-Democratic Party and carrying Republican water. These people are snakes. With all due apologies to snakes. The 'journalists' these days don't come from the humble backgrounds that defined a Studs Terkel or a Mike Royko.