Palin doesn't know the price of milk (but don't tell the WSJ)

[ProSense]

Palin doesn't know the price of milk

by Jed Lewison

Sarah Palin, yesterday, complaining that the Fed's monetary policy will drive up inflation::

All this pump priming will come at a serious price. And I mean that literally: everyone who ever goes out shopping for groceries knows that prices have risen significantly over the past year or so. Pump priming would push them even higher."

Yeah, um, except the truth is that Sarah Palin obviously hasn't gone out shopping for groceries anytime recently because inflation is basically non-existent.

But far from "rising significantly," overall prices have moved at historically low rates in recent months -- just 1.1 percent in the past year. The Wall Street Journal's Sudeep Reddy dug deeper into the numbers and found there was even less evidence to back up Palin's specific groceries claim -- inflation for food and beverages was less than .6 percent for the first nine months of the year. That's the slowest rate of price increases for food and drinks since the Labor Department began keeping track in 1968. So Sarah Palin says inflation on groceries has been sky-high over the last year, but the truth is that this year food inflation is at its lowest level since we started keeping track. She defended herself by pointing to an article suggesting that next year food inflation will climb from it's near-zero levels to about 2% or 3%, but Palin was talking about the previous year, not the one ahead. And even if she had been talking about the year ahead, 2% or 3% would be far less food inflation than there was in late 2008, when it climbed over 6%.

Of course, the WSJ editorial page was impressed with Palin's drivel

Wonder why?

Could it be that Palin is Murdoch's pet project for 2012: Murdoch Speaks: Fox Civil War Deepens

News Corporation Shareholders Rebel Against Company’s Political Donations

AUDIO: Murdoch says News Corp. donations were in interest of "shareholders and the country"

Suddenly the WSJ is peddling Palin drivel as brilliant, but those political donations had "nothing to do with the editorial policies."

You betcha!

[bindelh]

1. I shop for my groceries

at the Grocery Outlet in my neighborhood. Kinda like a Scratch n Dent grocery store.

$50 fills a whole shopping cart and buys food for 2 weeks or more.

I see old folks, too uninformed or to proud, go in to the Grocery chain stores and spend the same $50 and walk out with two plastic bags of groceries.

Sad times...

What is the price of a gallon of 2% where you live?

[golfguru]

2. $2.09/gal for 2% milk

[ProSense]

4. Prices went

up significantly a few years ago, they haven't gone up much recently. In fact, some prices have leveled off and gone down noticeably in comparison to the highs.

[ProSense]

3. Facts

Comparing the WSJ editorial drool to the WSJ report:

Food prices are rising faster than overall inflation. The consumer price index for all items minus food and energy rose 0.8% over the year to September, the lowest 12-month increase since March 1961, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said. The food index rose 1.4%, however. The U.S. Agricultural Department is predicting overall food inflation of about 2% to 3% next year.

The current pressure is nothing like it was in October 2008, when food prices were rising at an annual rate of 6.3% and some hard lessons were learned when producers passed along those costs: Shoppers switched to private-label products.

[LiberalFighter]

5. I get whole for 2 for $4 but only buy 1 for $2 when it is on sale. About evey 2 weeks.

When I checked out Wal-Mart about a year ago they had it for about $4

Overall I would say prices are stable for the past year or so.

Palin couldn't possibly know about grocery prices down here in the lower 48. I wonder what the price of gas was in the summer of 2006. Here in Indiana it was $4 and up.

[ProSense]

7. The interesting thing is that

the facts are in the OP. They're not really disputable. A million anecdotes could be provided to show Palin is full of BS.

The thing is why is the WSJ peddling this BS as brilliant?

[LiberalFighter]

10. Because they have an agenda in conjunction with Fake News?

[Divine Discontent]

6. 3.40 for all gallons, Central FL

[sweetloukillbot]

9. I pay between $1.50 and $2 a gallon in Phoenix.

Depends on the sale - I pretty much only buy at one store which has consistently been cheapest for over a year. It's dropped significantly over the past couple years out here, at least a dollar a gallon. The prices I'm seeing now are more in line with what I remember about 10-15 years ago.

[joshcryer]

11. $2.28 here, I don't drink the stuff. I think milk drinking is actually down.

[wysingm]

8. Berkeley, CA

$3.29 a gallon

[ProSense]

12. "I'm well aware of the fact that Sarah Palin is deeply confused "

and the WSJ went along.

Steve Benen

<...>

The international dynamic is odd enough. Sarah Palin is taking China's side over that of U.S. officials? For that matter, it's amusing, in a way, for the former half-term governor to rely on Germany to bolster her case -- since when does the far-right care what Europe thinks? Isn't the conservative line that Americans should only reference Europe as an example of what to ignore?

More substantively, though, Palin's principal concern doesn't appear to make sense.

"All this pump priming will come at a serious price. And I mean that literally: everyone who ever goes out shopping for groceries knows that prices have risen significantly over the past year or so. Pump priming would push them even higher."

I'm well aware of the fact that Sarah Palin is deeply confused about, well, pretty much everything, but it's important Americans realize how painfully backwards the concerns from "inflation hawks" really are.

Indeed, David Leonhardt explained the other day that those worried about inflation over the last year or so have been consistently, tragically wrong. At the precise time the Fed should have been doing more, it did less, due entirely to fears about inflation that didn't exist.

So, when Palin insists inflation has been a real problem "over the past year or so," the people who tell her what words to say haven't the foggiest idea what they're talking about: "(F)ar from 'rising significantly,' overall prices have moved at historically low rates in recent months -- just 1.1 percent in the past year. The Wall Street Journal's Sudeep Reddy dug deeper into the numbers and found there was even less evidence to back up Palin's specific groceries claim -- inflation for food and beverages was less than .6 percent for the first nine months of the year. That's the slowest rate of price increases for food and drinks since the Labor Department began keeping track in 1968."

The real fear right now is over deflation. Palin may not know what words like these mean, but that's the opposite of inflation.

[ProSense]

13. Krugman

Krugman: RTE Gets Palinized

The Journal’s Real Time Economics, having had the audacity to point out that Sarah Palin’s attack on quantitative easing was factually challenged, gets a blast from the barracuda. As I read it, they seem somewhat shocked — it sounds as if they’re deeply surprised at being accused of villainy simply because they pointed out that the facts are somewhat at variance with what politicians on the right are saying.

Welcome to my world, guys.

Krugman: Inflation Delusions