Survival and Emergency Preparedness

I don't know if you've noticed it but I'm seeing prices going up all over the places.
We've all read about, house and gun prices. But, I'm also seeing fewer discounts, coupons and alike for food/walmart. That is a price increase. Then there have been just price increases even for things like soda. There aren't sales at fast food places.

The CPI does not capture any of this.

Yeah the Economy has been making an adjustment with Covid-19 hitting it in the side of the head with a brick.

We already know how the previous administration has been steering the ship. Lets see what is going to happen in the next few months.

Before we start assigning spurious correlations and causality a few things to consider:

#1 Prices ALWAYS go up.

#2 They go up every holiday season - The "market" (not the stock market) does not care who is the president.

#3 Covid hot a lot of peoples sales and production. Supply down, prices up.

No surprise here.

Not a surprise.
1. merchants have to pay rent. Many places have closed. The reaction is not to lower prices when the prices have increased in the supply chain. So, they raise prices.
The favorite taco stand raised prices 50%. The price will stay up 50% no matter who is president. And, the place may still not make it. We are not open for table dining. The raise in prices is going to be hit with a lowered demand - and the place may still not make it.
2. I just had dental work done. No option! Dipped into savings. Work is excellent. Fewer people will afford necessary dental work.

The whole economy is shifting.

What I have been noticing is many of the restaurants in our area are limiting what they are selling. They use to have multiple items on the menu, but they have reduced the number of different items down to less than half of what they were offering before the Covid outbreak.