a consumer buys it without an equivalent cut-back other expenses (pays the higher price out of savings or credit)
Both parts are necessary or inflation does not happen.
Inflation ends with demand destruction. It ends when the consumer says “I can’t afford to keep paying these prices out of savings/credit.”
Anyway as (asking) prices rose for a year consumers paid them.
Now consumers are finding ways to avoid spending so much.
Walmart sales “surprise” are higher than expected.
Target sales “surprise” are lower than expected.
Of course, no one is surprised that Target sales are dropping, and Walmart sales are increasing. Afterall, Walmart sells the same can of Starkist tuna and same roll of Bounty towels for less.
Point being, Walmart sold for less last year, and consumers did not care.
“Consumers did not care” is a key aspect of inflation.
Inflation begins when “consumers did not care.”
Inflation when “consumers care.”
It would be silly to say
“Inflation used to be high because corporations were greedy, now it is coming down because corporations aren’t as greedy anymore,” or
“the 80s had lower inflation than the 70s because in the 80s corporations weren’t as greedy and there were no wars or problems overseas.”
For how much less? I know there are people that pinch pennies, but enough to make a difference? My occupation tells me that there are a lot more people that don’t care about their money, or are naive in general. If they don’t care about their money, I’m certainly not going to.
I just think Target isn’t what comes to mind for a lot of the products people buy. Walmart and certain big supermarkets are more popular in general.
Side note. I was behind a woman in a supermarket one day, and she was buying a few things. One of the items was a bag of chips she thought was on sale for .99 cents. It took about 5 minutes for the cashier to find out the sale was expired. Now she had to pay $1.25. She put it aside and said she didn’t want it. I wanted to throttle that battle hag! But I’ve not known or run into too many people like this.
Ahh, very interesting. But I don’t see it at my job. In fact, it’s the opposite. Unless I’m just looking at this the wrong way.
I notice more and more people asking to pay their toll online than ever before. That’s at a 20% increase for convenience fee. Are these just people with more money? Or people with less money that need time to pay? I don’t know. But you would think they’d avoid the extra cost.
That said, what you said makes a lot of sense and would indicate inflation is the cause.
