I´ll Bet The BLS Will Miss This One....

I just want to remind you that i´m with Mish on Inflation ( see Inflation: What the heck is it? ). I also want to highlight a world class rant from Aaron Krowne on this topic. The Truth About Inflation .

But when you go with the "official" definition of inflation ( rising prices ) and take the history of BLS calculations or how Tim from The Mess That Greenspan Made has described it "Guantanamo-style torture of the inflation statistics by government economists" into account i doubt that they will adjust for such "complex" things like smaller box sizes .... :-).

Bekanntermaßen sehe ich die Definition von Inflation wie Mish ( siehe Inflation: What the heck is it? ). Darüberhinaus möchte ich Euch diesen wirklich gelungenen Rundumschlag von Aaron Krowne zum Thema ans Herz legen The Truth About Inflation .

Wenn man aber der offiziellen Sprachregelung ( steigende Preise ) folgt und dann die äußerst "kreative" oder wie The Mess That Greenspan Made es ausdrückt "Guantanamo-style torture of the inflation statistics by government economists" in die Betrachtung miteinbezieht habe ich starke Zweifel ob diese Preiserhöhungen "enttarnt" werden...... :-)


Thanks to Wall Street Follies

Smaller Box, Similar Price
WSJ: Many food manufacturers are retooling assembly lines to produce smaller versions of everything from cereal boxes and ice-cream cartons to mayonnaise jars, margarine tubs and cheese packages. By giving consumers less for roughly the same price, food executives hope to keep consumers from moving to cheaper brands.

Consider General Mills Inc.'s Cheerios cereal. When the American Farm Bureau Federation sent members into supermarkets to conduct its second-quarter food-price survey, the 10-ounce box of Cheerios had vanished. So the volunteer shoppers turned to the box nearest in size, 8.9 ounces.

The smaller box cost $2.98 on average, up from $2.86 charged by the stores for the bigger box a year earlier. On a per-ounce basis, the retail price of Cheerios jumped 17% to 33.5 cents in the second quarter from 28.6 cents a year earlier.

General Mills spokesman Tom Forsythe said moves by the Minneapolis company can't alone explain the big retail-price jump. It's possible that supermarkets, which set the retail price, are taking advantage of an opportunity to add some margin of their own.

David Mackay, Kellogg's chief executive officer, said in an interview last week that his company has shrunk about 10% of its U.S. breakfast-cereal boxes by an average of 2.4 ounces. With the company's input costs climbing 9% this year, Mr. Mackay said he doubts grain prices will ever drop back to where they were just a few years ago.