People need to learn that when they hear 'inflation is down', it doesn't mean things are getting cheaper, it just means that the increase in cost is slowing down.

Is it a psychological tactic that news media is using to make consumers more complacent? Who knows. But, whenever I hear someone mention that phrase like things are improving, I die a little more each time.

They use a "basket of goods" that conveniently has nothing to do with how real people actually live.

Beef, in particular, has experienced an intense price shock following a national shortage of cattle, with the national herd at a 73-year low.

This stems from severe drought conditions that have been plaguing the cattle-heavy mountain west for the better part of the last decade. Higher feed prices have also contributed to rising prices. But even beyond that, demand for beef continues to outpace the supply, driving prices upward as the raw supply of cattle falls.

I guess vegans can kinda-sorta rejoice. We're killing fewer cows and wasting less animal product, as the conditions of our country making herding both environmentally and ecologically unsustainable. This has spurred more investment into alt-meats, while also forcing states to grapple with how they're expending diminished water reserves.

But since we live in a plutocracy, I'm not sure we'll get better policy out of these material changes to the ecology. Mark Zuckerberg can keep force-feeding his Austin steers buckets of macadamia nuts while his AI factors belch CO^2^ and guzzle potable water long after the rest of us are living in Gaza-like conditions.

I'm gonna drop this here. No reason. Probably the same no reason they chose this topic last week.

Planet Money (podcast)

What happens when governments cook the books
August 8, 202510:48 PM ET
By Mary Childs, Sally Helm, Jess Jiang, Sam Yellowhorse Kesler

https://www.npr.org/2025/08/08/1256971798/bls-bureau-labor-statistics-greece-argentina

Eh, 49 + 2.7 = 76 ; close enough

/s

As much as it fun to rag on supposedly out of touch economists, this "cheapflation" phenomenon is very documented and accepted among mainstream economists. Like many others in the public sector, government economists have been calling for more suitable and timely measures of inflation for decades, only to have their requests for more funding and support denied as the public service falls apart.

Price discounts and cheapflation during the post-pandemic inflation surge - ScienceDirect - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304393224000977