President Biden’s reaction to the CPI report today was amusing. Let’s investigate. 
Food at Home vs Food Away From Home
- Since January 2023, sixteen months, the month-over-month price of food at home has exceeded 0.2 percent only three times.
- Since January 2023, the month-over-month price of food away from home has exceeded 0.2 percent fourteen times.
- The average monthly increase for food at home in this timeframe is 0.1 percent.
- The average monthly increase for food away home in this timeframe is 0.4 percent.
Let’s Blame Grocery Stores
Food away from home has been rising 0.3 percentage points more per month than food at home. So hey, let’s blame grocery stores!
Blaming grocery stores is the claim. Let’s do a fact check on the claim.
Statement from President Joe Biden
For our fact check, please consider the Statement from President Joe Biden on the April Consumer Price Index
Fighting inflation and lowering costs is my top economic priority. I know many families are struggling, and that even though we’ve made progress we have a lot more to do. Inflation has fallen more than 60% from its peak, and core inflation fell to its lowest level in three years. Prices are still too high—so my agenda will give families breathing room by building two million new homes to lower housing costs, taking on Big Pharma to lower prescription drug prices, and calling on grocery chains making record profits to lower grocery prices for consumers.
Fact Check True
Biden cites grocery stores for “record profits” and calls on them to lower prices.
CPI Year-Over-Year Percent Change Food
Year-over-year food at home is up 1.1 percent. Food away from home is up 4.1 percent, 3 full percentage points higher.
Why is that? Let’s do some more fact checks.
Cost of Running a McDonalds Jumps $250,000 in CA
On February 4, I noted the Cost of Running a McDonalds Jumps $250,000 in CA Due to Minimum Wage Hikes
California already has some of the highest fast food prices in the nation. Expect to pay still more, and not just in California.
Fast-Food Wages Set to Rise
On march 26, I noted California Restaurants Cut Jobs as Fast-Food Wages Set to Rise
California is not having a good week. State Farm cancelled 72,000 policies and now fast-food chains are slashing workers.
Chipotle CEO on Menu Prices “California Isn’t Making It Easy”
On April 28, Chipotle’s CEO commented on menu prices “California Isn’t Making It Easy”
Food away from home has risen at least 0.3 percent for 34 out of the last 36 months.
As of today, it’s now at least 0.3 percent for 35 out of the last 37 months.
The monthly average in that 37 month period is 0.5 percent.
But hey, let’s blame grocery stores.
Food a Bright Spot
Rent rose another 0.4 percent in April. Food and beverages were flat with food at home declining but food away from home rising.
Earlier today I noted CPI Up 0.3 Percent With Rent Still Rising Steeply, Food a Bright Spot
Food was the bright spot in April, provided you eat at home. Food at home declined 0.2 percent with food away from home rising 0.3 percent. Overall, food was unchanged.
Other than food at home, there is not that much to cheer about this month. Rent remains the killer.
Hoot of the Day
Biden took the one bright spot in the CPI and blamed grocery stores for record profits.
What a hoot.
Yesterday, I noted Producer Price Inflation Has Bottomed and Is Now Heading Back Up
Producer prices were a bit higher than expected today but negative revisions take that away. Importantly, prices appear to have bottomed.
Joe Biden vs Joe Biden on Tariffs, a Green Trade War Is Underway
Joe Biden’s changing story of tariffs would be funny if it was not so damaging. The president announced huge new tariffs today.
The Above Tweet was from June 11, 2019.
Yesterday, president Biden blasted China with huge new tariffs. For discussion, please see Joe Biden vs Joe Biden on Tariffs, a Green Trade War Is Underway
Also see Biden Wants EVs so Badly That He Will Quadruple Tariffs on Them
Astute readers will immediately notice the title of this post makes no sense. It’s not supposed to. But it is exactly what President Biden is doing.
A big green trade war has started. The result will be higher prices for cars, solar panels, even lumber, and housing.
It Trump was clueless, what does that make Biden who took Trump’s policies and escalated them?
My base case is a huge, damaging trade war no matter who wins the election in November. I have been talking about this for months. Mainstream media is finally starting to pick up on the idea.
This is straight up James Taggart out of Atlas nonsense. The problem is that half the country believes it.
“Biden cites grocery stores for “record profits” and calls on them to lower prices.”
The federal debt grows a trillion every 100 days. Biden should lower federal deficit spending if he wants prices down.
“Biden Blames Grocery Stores for High Prices and Excessive Profits”
I am not surprised at all, and nobody else should be either.
– Biden Blames banks for not Lending (Not Credit Scores)
– Biden Blames The Rich for not paying fair share of taxes (They Pay around 50%)
– Biden Blames Price Gouging for gas prices (But We are Not Allowed to Drill)
– Biden Blames An Open Border for Republicans not doing anything (Um Not in Power)
– Biden Blames Teleprompters for Him Being Unable to Read.
– Biden Blames Everything On Everybody But Biden, unless it benefits Him otherwise.
The primary cause of inflation is credit creation. Every new dollar of credit created debases the dollars in your wallet. In the aggregate, credit creators confiscate goods and services from Americans, and then lend Americans back their own goods and services. Pocketing some of those goods as a fee for mediating this absurd transaction.
Credit creation is the primary reason the dollar only has 2 or 3% of its 1913 value.
Joey, you of all people should know that, ” There is no cure for Stupid” and you’re eaten up with it…..
Biden (and his team speaking through him) is now just blatantly lying, because they think enough people will hear and believe the lie and not hear or not listen to any fact check of it, so it’s a strategy to capture influence over both busy people and lazy people.
The presidential race is no different than pro wrestling… it’s all fake.
Ya’ll are being played… voting gives the entire charade credibility
The presidential race is a debate who win will most likely be the next president.
You don’t need to prove you are suitable. Wyo can put blame more on opponent will win.
True, at this point you can basically lie all you want, and it doesn’t really matter what any media says, because most people don’t listen to or consume the media, and most votes are decided by voter registration and postal vote campaigns in swing states.
Doing nothing about millions of illegal aliens is inflationary.
It’s actually deflationary, because they undermine wage growth as money supply falls.
The pushing up of rent is not inflation, it’s engineering scarcity by engineering growth in demand for housing that can only exist by encouraging and allowing unwanted illegal mass immigration. The US government should be impeached for breaking immigration law to interfere with the election outcome, and compromising national security, and reducing law enforcement’s ability to maintain an environment conducive to economic prosperity.
Yes, if Biden Inc. are printing $ and then giving it away to them, and charging the American Taxpayers for it.
Sorry, my bad, as that’s exactly what we are doing… carry on.
My base case is a huge, damaging trade war no matter who wins the election in November. I have been talking about this for months. Mainstream media is finally starting to pick up on the idea.
–
I started buying stuff on Aliexpress. A lot of stuff is 50-60% cheaper than Amazon. You do have to wait longer but it is worth it., More consumers should find the cheapest prices instead. The only way out of this is demand destruction which results in deflation.
At the moment credit/moneysupply is contracting in China. Exports are down, and incomes are down. You can see this in the data; you can also see reduced demand for raw materials in China by companies that normally export. The only moments of credit/moneysupply expansion is when the CCP issues government bonds, and they are doing that to try and arrest the fall of the Yuan against the USD. It is that economic implosion in China that is making your Aliexpress purchases cheaper.
Some trade items have strategic military context, and that’s a reason to restrict them.
SNAP was the bigger problem than grocery stores. Free money led to indiscriminate buying.
There is SNAP fraud. How much is a guess, but you can buy SNAP cards where I live for 50 cents on the dollar. I am a Midwesterner by birth and upbringing and have quite a soft spot for the hungry. I bake 10 loaves of bread a week, and soon will be planting my raised beds, 80% of which will go to the same food bank where I donate the bread.
I do not give money to the beggars next to the freeway ramps. My belief is that most of the people (about 75%, I was informed yesterday by a lady who used food banks for 8 years to feed her children) who go to food banks are the invisible poor who wouldn’t be caught dead begging.
We have an Indian camp nearby, and after making an acquaintance with a resident last summer, I dropped off 50 lbs of potatoes that I grew last year. SNAP could be done better to have less of it turn into drug money. It should include commodities like government cheese, but to me the bottom line is that no one in America should go hungry. I am generally pretty conservative these days, but I turn liberal when it comes to food.
Both the grocery store down the street from the White House and the one near Biden’s delaware house ran out of Joe’s favorite ice cream flavor, so he is lashing out.
The man is a senile idiot, formerly a corrupt politician who takes bribes. He is on his way out in November, and more importantly he f#cked up so bad he discredited other marxists at the same time.
“Never discount Joe’s ability to f#ck things up” — Obama the Marxist, to whom current White House staffers actually report to
“I am not a crook! I did not have the FBI and CIA spy on my political opponents” — Obama the Marxist
Sorry Joe, but building 2,000,000 new homes is not going to lower the cost of housing. Like all of your policies that is extremely inflationary. It will send the price of lumber and all other building materials through the roof.
Price Rises Are Not Inflation; Engineered Scarcity Is!
The price of lumber imports from Canada has tariffs on it, that is also contributing to housebuilding costs; never mind the unwanted illegal mass immigration.
Seriously, Biden is still out of touch with reality. How can anybody think he can be an effective president again?
He is not and never was an effective president.
He’s “president “ in name only.
More of a resident than a president.
These are the new Democratic talking points. Living in Northeast Ohio we’ve been receiving ads from Sherrod Brown(oh) and Bob Casey in Pa and they’re both essentially saying the same thing & that is inflation is allowing grocery suppliers to place less products in their packaging at the expense of the average joe while achieving record profits. But, they’re in DC to save us poor slobs from the evil corporations who are ruining our happiness by placing less chips in the bag. They both claim they’ll never stop fighting for us from those evil corporations. I haven’t figured out what they’re doing, but dammit they’re doing it. Apparently profit or record profits will be a dirty word according to Democrats this election season. It’s only just begun.
…until those evil corporations leave town when the shoplifting destroys their thin margin.
You want a real hoot…Red Lobster is supposedly going bankrupt. A reason cited was their “endless shrimp” promo cleaned them out. I can imagine people not eating all day and heading their for dinner to save money and probably sneak some shrimp out for later.
https://abc7.com/post/is-red-lobster-closing-2024-bankruptcy-endless-shrimp-locations/14819751/
There’s a Simpson’s episode about this somewhere…
rats that should be *there* not *their* when we getting the edit button back?
you should have an edit button – not sure for how long
No button at all?
Edit lasts for a short while
I didn’t see any edit, maybe the cogwheel? I’ll try it next time, gone now.
Well that was it, it’s the cogwheel.
Every business in America, including grocery stores, are trying to get back some of the money/profit they lost during Covid. It’s not surprising given our capitalist (more or less) system. Most of your (Republican) business owners would have gotten PPP money and, being the types they are, would want even more.
Grocery stores didn’t lose money during Covid. Most of the grocery stores by me stopped having sales flyers – NO SALES.
And how about how much more they had to pay what workers actually stayed to continue to stock the shelves and direct people into the store all of whom were about to start fights?
They received direct and indirect government subsidies… because… obviously.
No one told me I was supposed to stop eating during COVID-1984. Had I known, I wouldn’t have bought any food from the grocery stores.
Says the demented, pathological liar.
Which one(s)?
To believe the profit causes inflation nonsense, you have to really come up with a crazy set of circumstances for it to work. And, you would need some kind of cartel with enforceable penalties to make it all work.
For instance, using the grocery store example. The businesses that sell products to the grocery stores would need to work a deal with their competitors not to undercut their price increases. They would also need a downline agreement to their suppliers that they will continue to buy their products at an increased price, and that these suppliers will not sell those products to their competitors at a reduced price. Furthermore, they would need an agreement with the stores not to shop their product to non cartel members for less expensive ones. Then the stores would need an agreement with other stores not to, undercut their increased prices and steal sales from them. Then to make matters even more complicated, you would need to know that your customer will continue buying the same things at the increased prices. It requires a lot of faith and basically goes against the concept that greed drives business.
True.
Price rises are not inflation, they are scarcity/demand, and often that scarcity/demand is artificially engineered by stupid policies by elements of the state, thinking that they can engineer the market to make them look good; in almost every case it fails; the only exceptions are during post-war reconstruction and demographic growth, which is what happened in the west due to boomers, and in Japan and Germany too.
Biden (and some commenters here) are too stupid and too lazy to look u the income statements of the grocery companies. The two largest are Wal-Mart and Kroger, and their margins have not changed in five years,.
I should be more precise. Margins have changed a little bit, but in both directions. Changes have not been material (materiality being a basic financial accounting principle), and there is no sign of any connection or correlation between the inevitable small fluctuations and inflation.
…because it’s not inflation; it’s politically engineered scarcity.
And yet….does anyone not think that Kroeger and the other big grocery chains are not jacking up prices because they can?
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-corporations-are-reaping-record-profits-with-inflation-on-the-rise
Garth Hankinson, CFO, Constellation Brands:
We’re going to look at this on a market-by-market basis, brand-by-brand basis, and we will take as much pricing as we think the consumer can absorb.
Rodney McMullen, CEO, Kroger:
A little bit of inflation is always good in our business.
How about an actual credible source? Like a financial profit and loss statement?
Biden has no clue about the economy. Grocery stores make razor thin bottom line profits, about 1%-1.5% of sales.
Yes, but sales are breaking records simply because of inflation pushing all the input costs up.
As I mentioned above, if your margin is 1% and your revenue goes from 1 billion to 2 billion due to inflation you make more profit even if your total sales are stagnant simply because everything doubled.
There’s no gouging which the President is implying. It’s all because of his inflationary effects.
There is no inflation: price rises are not inflation, engineered scarcity/demand make prices rise; and presumably all those millions of new illegal immigrants have to eat, and get public money from new debt to pay for that food; that debt is not moneyprinting either, it directly feeds into the bond market, and has a cost associated with it, that is not an inflation cost, but an interest cost. The Fed does not “raise rates to fight inflation”, because there is no inflation, and rates rise by issuing and selling new debt at lower prices (because the market has too much debt on offer), and that puts yields and thus rates up… ergo, “raising rates” means creating more debt (which is not “inflation”, and not “moneyprinting”), and putting pressure on incomes.
The only remedy (apart from not issuing more debt) is to cut the national budget (meaning cutting services), and allocating part of the national budget to overpay the debt. You also need to increase exports, which means a weaker USD against other currencies… alas, the USD is not weakening much, and other countries are selling US debt to avoid US government using the USD as a weapon, and that selling of debt lowers the price of debt, and keeps the yield from falling and keeps interest rates from falling… so the cause of the problem is always the state, and solution is to reduce the size and cost of the state, and to curtail it’s expensive foreign policy activities, and to put politics to one side and focus on education and exports: simple.
“Food-at-home prices declined .02%”
I guess I need to change stores. I certainly don’t see it.
Here’s a list of recently lowered grocery prices at Walmart.
https://www.walmart.com/browse/food/976759?cat_id=976759_976794&povid=EDN_EDNCP_May_hubspoke_shopgroceries_PantryStaples&facet=special_offers%3ARollback
Just remove the expensive food from the CPI and voila!
I’d say my personal inflation rate is between 7-10% this year. So when I see 3.5% I wonder where that is
You paid the same for gasoline, diesel and natgas that you paid 11 years ago. I assume you travel by helicopter with their 10% increase in rates?
But groceries, health care, health insurance, housing/rent, property taxes, homeowners insurance (if you can get it), auto insurance, automobiles, parts and service on automobiles, housing repairs/home maintenance, cable tv, broad band, electricity(!), food away from home, personal services, etc etc etc.
But you go ahead and focus on gas and diesel.
Midnight is correct, I track expenses VERY closely since I was laid off and retired. You can’t possibly defend the official rate if you inspect your entire household budget.
It’s tiresome to see the same shills protecting their political party or candidate when all one need to is focus on economic facts. If inflation were at the actual rate, I wouldn’t notice it in EVERY transaction outside of fuel.
Still, conveniently omitted, fuel is massively more expensive than 4 years ago–if one were to focus only on fuel. See, if I cherry pick a category AND a timeframe, the picture is different eh? Wouldn’t it just be better to admit the rate is higher and ask what your protected candidate is actually proposing to do about it other than push policies, as Mish has pointed out, are all massively inflationary, ironically and especially his very own “Inflation Reduction Act” <smh>
Energy was the basis of the 1970s inflation. If the rules are different now, thats fine.
That was before the gigantic credit bubble, and gigantic derivatives market; and the gigantic Eurodollar futures expansion, and before the internet economy, and so many other things, you may as well compare the 1870s to now.
The increases in rices for fuel and fertilizer raise costs for farmers, who operate on very thin margins. These increases go into the supply chain, and cause mayhem in the grocery stores. I see it all the time at the store. When I see the economic boom bullshit out of the Democrats, I wonder whether they ever imagine where their god damn food comes from.
Gas wasn’t $4.38 a gallon in 2013. It is now. I can’t speak natural gas, I don’t have it.
Chicagogasprices.com. Regular unleaded in 2013 was $4.21 in Chicago. Today it is again $4.21. The Trump dip was due to frakking which is coming to an end now.
There’s a lot more unexploited energy resources in America that the Biden regime has adamantly not only refused to allow the exploitation of, but attacked the exploitation of, whilst expending the emergency reserves!
Biden has been lying throughout his entire public life. I find him to be the least inspiring person to ever lead our country. I don’t trust him or anything he says.
The people who hate Trump should still be able to acknowledge just how terrible a job Biden has done. But most cannot
IMHO you’re correct. Biden’s job was to beat Trump, then retire. Trump inherited a ton of assets, and has bloviated but failed to stay even with GDP growth. They both seem on the edge of senility. What a choice??
I think they also hoped Trump wouldn’t run again.
Sadly in 4 years neither party developed any viable candidates or else we would not be getting a repeat of 4 years ago. In truth, both guys ran in 2016 (Hilary just beat Biden) so in reality neither has developed any candidates in 8 years!
The real concern is not the current election, but the one after… who are these two incompetent political parties going to allow through to run for POTUS in 2028?!
Blame your party system, out of 300+ million, these two are the best you’ve got?! Really?!
“Anyone but Trump” isn’t looking quite so clever now, is it…
I didn’t see a fact check of what the President actually said. Are grocery stores making record profits or not?
Albertsons as one example does have record profits, up just under 1% more than its previous all time high. Adjusted for inflation their profits are lower.
Kroger is about 30% below their all time high profits. So Biden as always is trafficking in misinformation, and should probably be censored and banned from X to save our democracy.
Does that help?
Exactly, any raises I’ve gotten in the last few years have been more than eaten up by inflation. By Biden logic I am wealthier.
I am a retired securities analyst. Profit margins are what counts.
Kroger is the largest traditional grocery retailer. Here are their operating margins and gross margins for the last five fiscal years.
2023: 2.0%, 22.2%
2022: 2.8%, 21.4%
2021: 2.5%, 22.0%
2020: 2.1%, 23.3%
2019: 1.8%, 22.1%
2018: 2.1%, 22.0%
For Albertson’s, the second largest traditional grocery retailer.
2023: 2.6%, 27.8%
2022: 3.0%, 28.0%
2021: 3.4%, 28.9%
2020: 2.3%, 29.3%
2019: 2.3%, 28.2%
2018: 1.3%, 26.8%
Gross margin is also called merchandise margin in that business. But Kroger includes costs beyond merchandise when reporting gross margin. Albertson’s puts some of those costs, such as advertising, into SG&A, a/k/a selling, general, and administrative costs. (I favor Albertson’s way of doing it, but both ways are honest.)
Operating margin is broadly comparable for both of them, with some wiggles but not many. After that comes interest expense and taxes, and net margin is the bottom line. Net margins for grocery companies is typically 1-1/2% to 2%. There has been no significant change in the past five years.
As usual, Biden is lying through his senile teeth, and the Democrats are innumerate as always.
They all got a little boost in 2020 from the taxpayer, courtesy of the government. Who was in charge then? Trump.
Their profits look more like declines under Biden.
My fact check was on the claim. I don’t believe it when people say: Trump said this or Biden said that.
I believe that was obvious.
The two largest are Walmart and Kroger, and their profit margins have not changed in 5 years.
I should be more precise. Of course the margins bounce around, but the changes have not been material, nor is there any evidence that they have been tied to inflation or even correlated with it.
Definitely making record profits.
But that’s because if your margin is 1% and your revenue is 1 billion this year and your margin stays the same but revenue goes up to 2 billion you will indeed make record profits (twice as much).
But it’s not because you are gouging, but rather because everything doubled and your margin stayed the same. Essentially inflation makes everyone’s profits look better if they can maintain their margin.
It’s like when he says inflation was 9% when it was actually 1.4%
Profits might have been up 40% on the previous year… but the previous year was 1% and so that “record growth in profits” is up to 1.4% profits… political calculus 101.