Inflation: How Much Did You Spend? Food? Gas/petrol? Diesel?

[muxfolder]

How much is Trump earning now that he is at war in Iran? Every time some kind of deadline is set for when US is going to strike Iran it's probably a huge sum of money he's going to get. This is really starting to show here in Finland. In just few months the prices have gone up a lot. Some products in grocery stores are up to 2€ already. It started about 3-4 months after that war began when it really started to show. And that's all because of the Horunz which is a way to Trump and all the other ****ers to get even more money. So **** you Trump and **** Israel. I'm lucky I don't have to drive car to get to work. It's just insane. 2,3€ something already per liter.

[Casey Claar]

Posted by shaberon (here)
So much for psychological moments.

I thought I saw one of those dizzying figures that would make you remember it forever, and rue the circumstances which brought it about.

Drop that in the obsolete folder.

I turn around yesterday and gas is $4.19.

In generic terms, that's passing the plus 50% mark.

It's so relieving to know someone profits on those trades regardless.

Gas went up here in California again, too - just days after my last post where it seemed prices could be falling. Gas is now $6.38 - $6.98 a gallon.

[shaberon]

Posted by muxfolder (here)
How much is Trump earning now that he is at war in Iran?

...

I'm lucky I don't have to drive car to get to work. It's just insane. 2,3€ something already per liter.

So much insider trading going on, there will never be enough attorneys to figure it out.

I don't know how it works in all countries, but, here in the US, when you use public, tax-supported roads, you are forced to do business with a private company and buy insurance.

I'm trying to blot this out of my mind. It's super expensive to begin with. The difference in price between March and September was close to a 50% hike.

I didn't hurt anyone. Why am I being penalized?

It was so disorienting I can't remember the exact numbers. I think it was over $300 for the privilege of being able to drive to work for six months. Insane.

[Mr Nobody]

Posted by muxfolder (here)
How much is Trump earning now that he is at war in Iran? Every time some kind of deadline is set for when US is going to strike Iran it's probably a huge sum of money he's going to get. This is really starting to show here in Finland. In just few months the prices have gone up a lot. Some products in grocery stores are up to 2€ already. It started about 3-4 months after that war began when it really started to show. And that's all because of the Horunz which is a way to Trump and all the other ****ers to get even more money. So **** you Trump and **** Israel. I'm lucky I don't have to drive car to get to work. It's just insane. 2,3€ something already per liter.

Trump has been manipulating the markets since the start of the Iran "war". Him and his close circle of friends are making billions from inside information. I believe Trump being President was better for the world than Kamala Harris being put in the oval office but this Iran conflict has really shone a light on corrupt practices in the oil markets and stock exchange.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Mr Nobody (here)

Posted by muxfolder (here)
How much is Trump earning now that he is at war in Iran? Every time some kind of deadline is set for when US is going to strike Iran it's probably a huge sum of money he's going to get. This is really starting to show here in Finland. In just few months the prices have gone up a lot. Some products in grocery stores are up to 2€ already. It started about 3-4 months after that war began when it really started to show. And that's all because of the Horunz which is a way to Trump and all the other ****ers to get even more money. So **** you Trump and **** Israel. I'm lucky I don't have to drive car to get to work. It's just insane. 2,3€ something already per liter.

Trump has been manipulating the markets since the start of the Iran "war". Him and his close circle of friends are making billions from inside information. I believe Trump being President was better for the world than Kamala Harris being put in the oval office but this Iran conflict has really shone a light on corrupt practices in the oil markets and stock exchange.

And a warm welcome to the forum!

Yes, there's been so much market manipulation and self-serving exploitation over the last year or so that the quantities involved boggle the mind of a regular honest person counting their pennies every month. We have many posts about this in various places, including on a thread I started myself titled The Capitalism Problem.

(Off-topic on this thread, and too much to easily say in a short paragraph or two, but my increasingly strong personal opinion is that the entire system of manipulated global markets has to come down. I do think it'll inevitably collapse... but the big question will be how to minimize the damage to the lives of regular folk who have no money to invest in anything apart from food on the table for their children.)

[Mr Nobody]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)

Posted by Mr Nobody (here)

Posted by muxfolder (here)
How much is Trump earning now that he is at war in Iran? Every time some kind of deadline is set for when US is going to strike Iran it's probably a huge sum of money he's going to get. This is really starting to show here in Finland. In just few months the prices have gone up a lot. Some products in grocery stores are up to 2€ already. It started about 3-4 months after that war began when it really started to show. And that's all because of the Horunz which is a way to Trump and all the other ****ers to get even more money. So **** you Trump and **** Israel. I'm lucky I don't have to drive car to get to work. It's just insane. 2,3€ something already per liter.

Trump has been manipulating the markets since the start of the Iran "war". Him and his close circle of friends are making billions from inside information. I believe Trump being President was better for the world than Kamala Harris being put in the oval office but this Iran conflict has really shone a light on corrupt practices in the oil markets and stock exchange.

And a warm welcome to the forum!

Yes, there's been so much market manipulation and self-serving exploitation over the last year or so that the quantities involved boggle the mind of a regular honest person counting their pennies every month. We have many posts about this in various places, including on a thread I started myself titled The Capitalism Problem.

(Off-topic on this thread, and too much to easily say in a short paragraph or two, but my increasingly strong personal opinion is that the entire system of manipulated global markets has to come down. I do think it'll inevitably collapse... but the big question will be how to minimize the damage to the lives of regular folk who have no money to invest in anything apart from food on the table for their children.)

Thank you for the warm welcome Mr Ryan. There is a lot to get through here as a "newbie" but I will check out the mentioned thread soon. I don't believe the "system" is broken, it is working exactly how "they" want it to. Which is why, as you say, it must be shut down and ripped out, root and stem. To be replaced by what? I don't have the answers but it cannot continue as it is if "we" are to survive their plans for the future. Thanks again

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
the entire system of manipulated global markets has to come down.

Agreed.

When the financial power of the City of London moved to the Federal Reserve, especially the New York Federal Reserve, starting with the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913, and, over a few decades thereafter, the world's dominant currency went from:

• being nominally gold or silver backed (thereby somewhat limiting its creation) to
• being government debt backed (primarily US Dollar denominated debt, based on debt created primarily by the US Treasury and more recently the UK and European Union - aka Eurodollars).

Such debt-money systems historically don't last much longer than a century at best. They depend on steadily reducing the value, in real terms, of the lent money, so that the real value of necessarily larger repayment with interest paid back to the banks matches the real economic growth. However eventually the bankers central role in creating money, by lending it into existence, gives them a nearly absolute power (e.g. they can also buy control of institutions large and small, and of individuals, within this system, outside the reach of any government audit), and as we well know, and are seeing again, absolute power produces absolute corruption.

The deeper the corruption, the further the extended debt exceeds the real ability to repay. Eventually such currencies collapse, one way or another. The last time this happened, in the first part of the last century, the British pound sterling went from being the world's dominant currency to being the currency of an island off the French coast, with a rather remarkable history in recent prior centuries. Were that to repeat, would that mean the United States is destined to become the 11-th province of Canada? I'm sure Mark Carney would be delighted to take on that challenge.

As Mayer Amschel Rothschild supposedly said: "Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.". According to the history I've read, he knew a thing or two about money.

So, yes, the world monetary system reminds me of the Titanic, shortly after it "kissed" that iceberg. Score: iceberg 1, Titanic 0.

The essential "world war" now in progress is over what form the monetary system that replaces this debt-money system will take.

I see this as a battle between

1. the nationalist system, using real asset backed money, where the wealth of nations depends on their production of real goods, such as food, energy, minerals, and industrial, and
2. the globalist system, using another incarnation of debt backed money, which the Venetian, Spanish, Dutch, London, and now New York bankers have mastered for the last several centuries.

Which side, nationalist or globalist, Trump is really on is a controversial question, which, if I were a wagering man, I'd wager Bill and I disagree on, but which we would no doubt gladly enjoy the chance to share a beer and discuss, with vigor, in person.

We shall see.

[shaberon]

Picking at the precursors is not particularly pleasant, which came from the grind of two international systems, that of Venice and that of the Pope. The Papal one is more hugely responsible for worldly affairs, while the Venetian one became British and certainly made its mark.

The US Federal Reserve was designed around 1907 as a line-by-line copy of the Reichsbank.

Post-WWII US absorbed the French gold system, and then the UK Sterling Zone.

The question of debt is how all ancient societies ran, because there was no money.

The only way that works is by issuing debt cancellation, which is the story of good vs. evil in those societies. The message of Jesus was to offer a debt cancellation, which not only did not happen, but his followers do not even know what it means.

Reichsbank Germany was forgiven twice of massive reparations, but it paid for Israel up until about 2016. The Nazis were also on the side of rebuking "internationalism" and making a stable state-based currency; but those were the pro-Germans. Once defeated and seeing that Fascists are neither German nor Italian, British, French, or American, but all of them, that's what we have now. Fascism or non-German Nazism. It's working well for no one in particular.


What I am seeing here at a low level is gas fluctuating a nickel or a dime every few hours. It's weird. But we are also coming into the harvest season which we expect to be slack. We'll reach the end of "accumulated inventory" of everything from broccoli to plastic wrap, and then, when we have to pay the true cost, I'm sure we won't want to.

So far, the most impressive performance is Insurance, which, as I said, gouged me quite deeply, at no cost to them. Division by zero is undefinable, so, it's not possible to give any kind of ratio or comparison. I don't know if it's all kinds of insurance -- just the one I am forced to use.

The actual products, the goods, we just do without, for the most part. Once in a while I might get new shoes, and it doesn't go much further than that. So I return a lot of zeros into economic participation factors.

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by shaberon (here)
The US Federal Reserve was designed around 1907 as a line-by-line copy of the Reichsbank.

Then with the Great Depession and FDR's New Deal, the Federal Reserve was absorbed into the City of London's debt money system, controlled by the bankers, independent of the people's will. I figure that the wealthy families who got the Federal Reserve created intended this outcome all along.

Posted by shaberon (here)
Post-WWII US absorbed the French gold system, and then the UK Sterling Zone.

Then after World War II, the French and UK systems were absorbed into that same debt money system. as the US Dollar became the "world's reserve currency", first nominally backed by all the gold that nations had stored safely away from the War, in vaults in Manhattan and Fort Knox, then openly moved to US Treasury debt and (London controlled) Middle East petro "backing" a quarter century later.

This happens over and over. Sell whatever will be accepted, then leverage some stress on the user to get them to accept a transformation of it into whatever you really wanted. This has been happening for millennia, from the individual human level, through corporations and governments (but I repeat myself), all the way up to the civilization level.

Yes, debt cancellation puts a critical damper on the use of debt to enslave. I should have clarified that it was undampened debt that I was railing against. The key question is what happens when such systems collapse: are the debts defaulted, or the indebted properties stolen? When someone wins the final big hand at a game of Poker, do they get the pot, or do they get shot?

These gold, silver, bond, and petro "backings" provide gauges of the system's health. When the backing is longer affordable, that means the currency is no longer worth enough to remain useful, and the debt-money system collapses. Then you find out who won, whether it's the player who held the strong hand, or who held the pistol hidden beneath the poker table.

Yes, the Catholic Church (and Protestant and Episcopalian spinoffs) are parallel structures to the banking systems. Do you obey your banker, or your priest? Either way, if you've lost touch with your spirit, you've got a problem.

[shaberon]

Posted by ThePythonicCow (here)
Yes, debt cancellation puts a critical damper on the use of debt to enslave. I should have clarified that it was undampened debt that I was railing against. The key question is what happens when such systems collapse: are the debts defaulted, or the indebted properties stolen?

We'll find out.

What we are under is not exactly Bretton Woods, which is a meeting that took place during World War II, but, Bretton Woods people who arranged the working mechanism of the new financial order.

At the time, the British Maynard Keynes designed a bancor that would have killed debt. As a hypothetical example, if Germany made hot sports cars and Russia sold them the gas, but did not buy those expensive cars, then Russia would be at a huge surplus, which would be seen as a de-stabilizing factor, something would be done to cause them to re-invest. On the other hand, if Germany got in a bind, and couldn't pay for the gas, everything in the world would be done to get them out of the bind, up to canceling the debt.

Everything Keynes was shot down, and, we got the opposite, specialists in causing these binds, enforcing austerity or confiscating assets, and so on, up to a politically-motivated IMF trying to tell you what to do, i. e., pay tribute to America and its colonial system.

This has spent its course, its run is over, it's going nowhere. So, gold has been the major export for a long time now. That's so financial exchanges can run on gold and other currencies. The U. S. is isolating itself. However it still maintains the old policies as national security. So I don't expect it to say or do anything besides the same thing.




The next recurve I caught is that build-your-own-salad is now another $1 per pound. I don't know how long it's been charging that. No one told me. Don't ask me for prices on what I am selling, my knowledge is obsolete.

That's pretty serious, about 18%, and the wealthy don't like it because it means their assets are worth 18% less. Your $10 Treasury now has the purchasing power of $9 compared to when you bought it. The billionaire may not have a lot of cash, but, a billion of assets would then be $900 million in comparative value. Nobody likes inflation.

As an individual, I had to start watching myself on a rations regimen about ten years ago when such salad was $6 and now it is $10. Vegetables haven't really changed or anything. It's the same stuff. More efficient modern production methods? Hmmm....

And even then, there was a quality component, because that is real tuna salad, and if you go get the pre-packaged one, it's half corn starch.

That's why I scavenge, because I just found two humongous tuna steaks for $3. You can bet a store doesn't want no old fish. I am on those darn things like a sniper.

Everything is full of corn starch and corn syrup because of the corn subsidy, which, by volume, does far more into non-food grade animal feed and I think biodiesel and some other uses. Otherwise, I believe they can run it up to 49% and still give the product a food name such as "cheese". And *you* might be meticulous about reading labels, but, I can promise you, most folk will swallow half-corn product unblinkingly.

That's tied in pretty deep at least domestically. It guarantees a certain level of agriculture business, but, may be one of those programs "you can get in, but you can't get out".

Africa does not have a single iron refinery on the continent because it has been prevented from the means of self-development that leave it as a net importer of most basic foods.

One shooting star on how you take these colonial matters in your own hands, is Zimbabwe, where an astounding 62% inflation has been curtailed to a basically normal 2.6%.

[shaberon]

Here is a small blurb about some victims of inflation.

16 trucking companies file for bankruptcy protection during the space of about a month in September.

Contributing factors being insurance and diesel. Tonnage hauled is down .9%.

Business bankruptcy is rising across all industries. For the 12 months ending June 30, 2026, Chapter 7 business filings reached 15,298 (up from 13,314), and Chapter 11 reached 9,766 (up from 7,900).

The trucks were in small to medium companies, nothing all that large, to which we may comment that these "cycles" just crush small businesses.

The smallest ones filed Chapter 7, which is a court-protected liquidation.

You can operate in a structured bankruptcy indefinitely, and possibly overcome it.

We have about a two weeks' charade before the backup fuel is gone.

Part of the workaround will probably be Iranian crude sold through or refined by Russia. The Saudis are busy.

That means the mess is about to start, with the open question of what we will do to make it far worse. It can be fixed after about one to five years of repairs. It can be broken much faster.

[Ravenlocke]

The following is already happening, I was at local Walmart three weeks ago, and in the grocery section, when I went to check out the meat prices in the meat section, there were no price tags but a QR code, so I couldn’t tell what the meat was per pound for lamb, or pork or beef. I don’t have a cellphone with internet access or QR code. And each package also had a QR code so you couldn’t tell the price. No price no sale for me.

Months earlier at a local supermarket affiliated with Kroger, I picked up some avocados as the sign had a sale price. When Iwent to check out the charge showed full price, the cashier told me I could only get the sale price if I got the online coupon, so I didn’t buy any item that was only on sale online.


Jaxon

Walmart and Kroger are quietly rolling out an internal store technology across America that could either modernize retail or bankrupt the middle-class family budget.

Starting across thousands of locations heading into 2027, traditional paper price tags are being ripped off grocery shelves and replaced with cloud-connected digital screens. Raise the price of bottled water by 20 percent the second the afternoon temperature hits 90 degrees. Surge the cost of ground beef, milk, and sandwich bread between 5 PM and 6 PM when exhausted commuters are rushing home from work. Drop prices at 10 AM on a Tuesday, then hike them right back up the minute the after-school crowd walks through the sliding doors.

Every price change happens wirelessly in seconds from a central corporate dashboard. No store employee has to touch a single shelf.

Walmart has already signed a massive deployment deal with VusionGroup to wire 2,300 American supercenters with EdgeSense digital shelf rails by 2027. Kroger is expanding its own Microsoft-backed system called EDGE across hundreds of supermarkets. Over 60 million digital price tags are already blinking on US grocery aisles right now.

This is not supply chain inflation. This is Uber-style surge pricing built directly into the shelves where Americans buy baby formula, eggs, and medicine.

Last week I sat down for coffee with a former retail pricing director who spent 14 years building supermarket margin algorithms before leaving the industry. What he shared over the table completely changed how I look at a grocery aisle.

"Retailers just turned static shelves into live stock tickers. The question is not whether grocery chains will use instant price changes, because they already spent billions installing the hardware. The question is how much extra money a family of four will lose every week simply because both parents work until 5 PM and cannot shop during off-peak hours."

Here is how the digital grocery pricing system actually works, how it tracks you in the aisle, and the exact phone settings and checkout playbook you need to beat it.

https://x.com/jaxoncoder/status/2120465332230082724

[shaberon]

That's interesting, however, we use a digital coupon to give something away so that we make nothing on it.

It's not revoked at a busy time to make you spend more. It's to make me work harder. The hope is you will also buy something else.

I noticed a bread I often use appears to have vanished, perhaps replaced by something more expensive. The public, however, still grabs cases of things I avoid, which have nothing to do with buckling down for efficiency. It always looks a little strange to me.

[Ravenlocke]

Yes the thing is Shaberon, with the digital coupon you have to be a member of that grocery store, you don’t get the sale if you are a walk-in. So when the sign above the bin just says the item is on sale it doesn’t specify that it is on sale to online customers only. So when you check out if you don’t watch the ring up they overcharge the customer. So I don’t shop at those places, luckily I still have a supermarket that doesn’t do this member only sale thing.

[Sue (Ayt)]

I noticed the same type thing with a grocery store around here. Their sale required that you had downloaded their app on a phone and had to scan the coupon from your phone to get the sale price.
I actually took the time to email their headquarters, and I accused them of discrimination against the elderly and handicapped and poor who do not own cellphones. (figured they wouldn't like being accused of discrimination)

They did email back, apologizing and telling me that the clerk was remiss and should have scanned the coupon herself when I asked. They wanted me to report her name and scan my receipt to see when I was there, but I didn't bother.

[shaberon]

Well, yes, it's a gimmick...ours is the same...you have to have the card in order to get the normal store discounts, which is already an annoyingly huge thing.

The additional QR thing you have to scan into your account is so that you can only use it once per day. But we already discriminated heavily against anyone who doesn't have our card, and, currently at least, the use of these scan-ins has not spread to much else.

What is far more common is that people are eager to pay additional charges for Doordash to do their shopping for them. I'm told my store is targeted at a rich neighborhood, and, I don't know where it is, but I certainly can say that most of the workers do not in fact shop there. It's too expensive even with the discounts. My sale prices are about like regular prices anywhere else.

[petra]

I work at a grocery store and right now they have me stapling these QR codes to all the receipts trying to get feedback. Today I got to read some of the feedback and wow. Mostly all negative. I think I'm the only one stapling those things onto there too, no one else bothers. The receipts already have a survey link on there it's just that no one notices it. Weeks doing this now.. and no one even mentioned my name!

The biggest complaint is the prices.

A small thing of blueberries is 6.99

My favorite thing is when I get a customer who found the 99 cents bin. Or when the meat department marks down the meat too much and it's practically free. I had one the other day that was discounted more than the regular price, and I showed it to my supervisor. He just laughed and told me to change the price to zero.