Surviving Inflation

The most common topic in the email I receive daily is inflation. I’d say 60% of the emails I get revolve around inflation, the other 30% is security and the remaining 10% about various survival related topics. Crime is probably the main concern in Argentina, with inflation in a very close second place, but you must understand that its been almost 10 years now since our economy collapsed and things have… lets just say, “evolved” into a new reality for us. For several years after the 2001 collapse, here as well, inflation was the main topic, the greatest concern people had. I find this to be interesting in many ways.
First, it clearly shows a growing concern about inflation in USA, and there’s good reasons for that. If you didn’t notice the inflation you just aren’t looking well enough.
This email is a good example, and I’ve received others mentioning the same trick being pulled:

You mentioned to watch for the downsizing of packaging at the grocery. Here in Nashville Tennessee I picked up a bag of sugar along with 70 some odd cans of fruit and vegetables. When I got it home I noticed that it was a 4 LB. bag. Normally these are sold as 5 LB bags.

Robert Nashville TN

That’s where you see what’s really going on, in spite of the official numbers. Statistics don’t mean much if the books are cooked. Why would I bother reading “The Washington Post” or “Wall Street Journal”, when the source used for their articles states source: INDEC. INDEC being in the hands of the Kirchners, who fired the people that did things right long ago, replacing them with pals that simply LIE about the economy. You can lie about lots of things, but you cannot LIE about data recollection, it’s a fatal mistake. You’re not only lying to the people, which should be bad enough, you’re also lying to yourself, destroying the opportunity of knowing what’s really going on with the economy as well as any chance of fixing it.

Information such as the one below, it gives you an idea of how bad things are, but at least in Argentina, we know for a fact that the official inflation is often half, one third or worse than the inflation indicated by private consultants. Keep this on for a few years, and there’s no records, no solid data left to work with to find a solution.

Hello Ferfal,

I just stumbled across this online inflation tracking tool, and I thought you might find it interesting.

Argentina is MUCH worse than the rest of the world! At least for now....

http://bpp.mit.edu/


Keep up the good work!

A-

When you check private sources like the one below, it gets scary and you understand why Argentina will devaluate soon, it must devaluate before the next elections. The graphic shows true inflationary prices per day, week and year. True Inflation in Argentina since 2008 according to MIT ? 100%
Check it out:
http://www.inflacionverdadera.com/

What it all comes down to is prices going up, and you can get by without changing the car that year or buying a new Laptop, but there’s still basic necessities prices and that’s where things get ugly fast:

CapnRick said...
As an Argentine resident with a dollar income accessed via ATMs, I can speak to my own personal experience with the dollar's problems in the international market.

The dollar has done very well against the Arg. peso... a 30% change in the dollar's favor since I moved here in 2008. However, the actual cost of things here in dollar terms have gone thru the roof over the last two years. I have no idea how families like FerFAL's with peso income manage.

Today, I walked out of the Toledo grocery chain store near my home without buying anything. The cold cuts I used to buy for 25 pesos have DOUBLED IN PRICE in the last 2 months. Whole chickens doubled in price about a year ago... but, their price went up 20% in the last few days (5 pesos a kilo 1n 2008... 10 pesos a kilo last week, and 12 pesos today). In dollar terms... 1.65/kilo in 2008, 2.50 a kilo last week and 3.00 a kilo today.

In terms my hungry tummy will understand, I can buy 45 pct less chicken as a year ago with my income staying the same. Damn.

Suerte -CapnRick
November 11, 2010 1:53 PM

Thanks Rick for the comment. (By the way, looking forward to seeing you guys this summer!)
This is a good example of daily life with rampant inflation. You just never know what the following day holds.
Yesterday for example, I went to Coto supermarket to buy groceries, cleaning products, etc. I didn’t buy anything fancy just, food and other house supplies. The toped off cart (small cart by US standards, not one of those big ones) ended up costing 1600 pesos. That’s 410 USD for pasta, cookies, vegetable oil, some frozen vegetables, milk and other dairy products. In January, a 120 gr. can of tuna, small one, cost 6 pesos. Yesterday I paid 10 pesos for it, about 2.5 USD for a tiny can of tuna.

The shopping cart inflation index is the most brutal one. They can say whatever they want on the news and in their financial reports, but when your money keeps buying less and less stuff, that’s what really matters. Its’ no mystery that today, with the same amount of money you used to top it off, you only fill the shopping cart half way through. That’s the explanation for the all too common Argentine joke whenever our president rambles about how great our economy is doing: “Its nice to know the Argentine economy is doing so well, too bad though that we don’t see any of that”.