Introducing the fried-chicken-meal inflation index.
Previous discussions on this blog have featured the consumer price index measuring prices paid by urban consumers, the producer price index measuring input prices paid by manufacturers and producers, along with the personal consumption expenditure index, which is the favorite measure of inflation at the Federal Reserve Bank.
Now we have the fried-chicken-index.
This newest inflation measure is based on the price charged in Rancho Cucamonga, California (including tax) for a three-piece chicken tenders meal with one side, biscuit, and medium soda as prepared by the Colonel from Kentucky.
According to this index, the price of the meal went up 4.7% in the first quarter of 2022.
Rising PCE price index is sitting at the highest level since 1982, which is 40 years ago.
Unless you are in your 60s or older, you have little memory of inflation at this severe a level. If this sustains for a few more years, the impact will be brutal.
Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) inflation index increased 0.6%, which follows 0.5% in January 2022 which was revised downward from 0.6%.
The core PCE inflation rate (without food and energy) was 0.4% in February, following 0.5% rise in January, matching the 0.5% increase for the previous three months. The October 2021 increase was revised up 0.1%.
The Securities and Exchange Commission issued proposed rules for emissions risk accounting and disclosures by public companies. After the 60 day comment window the SEC will work on final rules.
(Discussion from my other blog, Attestation Update, is posted here because of the impact these rules will have on economic freedom and prosperity. You can ponder the impact for yourself.)
The proposal creates three areas for measurement and disclosure. Scope 1 is emissions from a company’s own operations, whether it is manufacturing cars, producing coal, or running a bank. Scope 2 is emissions generated from the energy consumed by company as an input to their operations. This could be the electricity to operate the branches and computers of a bank or it could be all of the coal consumed to produce steel.
As if that does not stretch your brain far enough, there is Scope 3. Those are the missions of all of the vendors to a company and all the consumers of its products. This is not just immediate vendors and direct consumers. This includes the emissions of the vendors’ vendors and their vendors, all the way back to when raw materials were first pulled out of the ground.
This includes emissions generated by your customers as they use your products and also your customers’ customers’ emissions. This goes all the way to the end consumer. Furthermore, this is life cycle costs.
As a brain stretcher, for a utility providing natural gas to consumers Scope 3 would include the emissions generated as consumers heat their home. The lifecycle is very short since the gas will be used as soon as it arrives at the houses.
Counting Covid deaths using CDC methodology. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.
Now that Covid infection rates have collapsed in the United States, our political and public health ‘leaders’ are backtracking on the steps they took which caused so much damage.
Before they take credit for a virus variant running its course and fading away, we need to be pay attention to all those who caused trauma by their actions and who had their thumb on the scales when quantifying the impact of the virus.
Articles for your consideration today:
CDC “accidentally” overcounted Covid deaths.
Massachusetts overcounted Covid deaths by including deaths from any cause whatsoever if a person had an infection diagnosis within 60 days prior to death.
An incomplete list of people and organizations who owe us profuse apologies for the damage they have caused.
That is a 24% drop in the number of children they count as having died because of Covid. With the revised tally of 966,575 deaths in total that means they reduced the total count by 7.5%.
This is a visual illustration of what we will eventually conclude the federal and state governments accomplished by their policies during the pandemic. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.
Now is the time to put these prediction into print.
How much harm was caused by government reaction to the pandemic? I will put into print my predictions of what we eventually learn of the damage willfully caused by the federal and state governments.
Over the last two years reports have surfaced here and there hinting at the following predictions. In the next few months more reports will emerge.
It will take honest, serious researchers years before statistically valid research provides solid evidence for these predictions. Strong, verifiable, reproducible proof will emerge with time.
I predict that in a decade or two there will be a consensus throughout the country that the government reaction to the coronavirus pandemic was the worst, most destructive government policy in U.S. history.
Seven predictions follow:
1 – Government response caused more deaths as measured by years-of-life-lost than deaths prevented by the government response as measured by years-of-life-lost.
It is time to lay down my predictions about what we will eventually conclude about the damage caused by the government reaction to the coronavirus pandemic.
It will take time, but we will eventually prove government actions caused horrible damage. We will quantify the destruction willfully inflicted.
Since April 2020 I have been writing about the damage caused by the economic shutdown imposed by federal and state governments. Over 200 posts on this blog point out the economic, political, social, educational, and medical damage directly caused by government action.
I started writing in early April 2020 calling out the danger of lockdowns with my first direct complaint on 4/26/20 about the damage caused by government actions.
To lay down my first marker, here is the headline and first paragraph from back in late April 2020:
Leaders in a few countries in Northern Europe started taking the above medicine, now available over the counter. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.
An astounding outbreak of common sense has appeared in Europe, spreading especially to all the countries of Scandinavia, I am pleased to report.
England has already lifted restrictions. Countries finding common sense, then letting their people out from under the jackboot of Covid restrictions include:
Denmark
Netherlands
Finland
Norway
Sweden
I do hope this emergence of rational thought visible in northern Europe is the beginning of a worldwide outbreak of common sense over the next few weeks.
