CPI changes

[Derrick J Brashear]

On Fri, 7 Jul 2000, Jim Holland wrote:

> 	Honestly, I am on bended knee begging your forgiveness for even
> mentioning anything about inflation!  I was just trying to put things
> into a tiny bit of perspective.  I am only a stupid bus driver  --  what
> do I know about inflation.

Inflation is a crock. If you think about it for a while you start to
understand why... look at how Greenspan is dinking with interest rates to
slow down growth and hence "stem" inflation. Then think about how gas
prices have been going up, and more particularly about how fuel costs
affect the things you buy. Now, when you consider that realistically fuel
costs don't work exactly like many other things in a Keanesian system you
understand why stemming economic growth won't do diddly about inflation on
things like food which you're going to buy whether you have "disposable"
income to blow on other stuff or not... so the rise in interest rates
instead of just essentially making people have less money to play with and
hence less to spend disposably will compound with the effect of the rise
in fuel prices for a double whammy on people, especially those at the low
end of the economy, where it's not really "disposable" income!

Inflation is a problem if you let it get out of control, but in this case
it's not out of control, and it didn't appear that people buying more
because they had more money was going to cause more of a problem than fuel
costs, either.

Note that while fuel costs me more right now, I'm not complaining about
it. I'm also not suggesting the government "do something about it" for me,
or that I'm being gouged. The things which concern me are:
a) will bus fare go up, and if so what will the impact be on the
community? (electric rail, of course, could somewhat avoid this as while
i'd expect coal prices to go up because oil prices were higher, probably
not to the same extent)
b) Thanks to Norfolk Southern and CSX more stuff has been moving by truck
instead of rail in the recent past than did not long before, but whether
it's rail or truck, fuel costs will impact the cost of goods, including
food. How much unavoidable cost increase will there be as a result of this
which will not result in higher income for the farmers, truckers, etc, but
result in food prices going up, e.g. money "exiting" a mostly closed
system?

Of course, none of this has anything to do with trolleys in western PA.
Getting back to that, I know the reasons why things came out the way they
did have been beat into the ground, but it seems obvious to me that if
fuel costs continue to increase for oil-derived fuels that we will feel
the pinch from our move to oil-fueled over-the-road transit.

And getting back to more immediately relevant topics, if anyone expects to
find themselves around the area and want to go pick around remnants, let
me know; I'll be happy to drive, and even pick up the cost of the fuel;-)
assuming I can weasel out of work for a day or 3.

-D
-who got not nearly enough work done today, incidentally