Go on then

Grow your own food.

Start supporting your local animal farms and find yourself a butcher.

It’s time to become self dependent and we are in a unique period of time where we have the knowledge and material to do it on an individual and hopefully local level.

A lot of people already do this, just not the ones in your circle!

Hi, I live in a rented apartment, what can I do?
- Hmm that’s tuff bro.
  have to get creative.
  Look up urban farming and still try get to know everyone at your local farmers market.

The American economy is three pyramid schemes in a trench coat

2.7% for the rich, they don't care what the serfs eat

Meat isn't food, it is a luxury good made by refining mountains of actual food through the body of a vulnerable individual. Of fucking COURSE it's expensive. It's been cheep for decades because you pay for it in your taxes and I'm fucking sick of paying so much money so you can have cheap meat. Fucking deal with it.

Brazil is the largest exporter of meat and Trump is tariffing them 50%

so, more than 2.7% in that category. almost like that claimed 2.7% is an intentionally misleading choice of "measure" of central tendency.
- Sure, and less than 2.7% in other categories. That's how averages work...
- It takes so much into account that it becomes almost meaningless for the average person.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUSR0000SAF112

Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: Meats, Poultry, Fish, and Eggs in U.S. City Average (Seasonally Adjusted)

Entire Time Series (1967+) Normalized to '82-'84 =100:

Last 5 Years (2020+), Renormalized to 100 = Jan 2020:

So, yeah, thats about 35% increase in 5 years, if you specifically look at the Meat Poultry Fish Eggs component of the CPI.

The CPI numbers, the, '2.5%' inflation number... thats ~~month to month~~ the last 12 months, annualized, like an APR, ... and they are a weighted basket of many, many different subcomponents such as this.

Sort of analagous to how a say, 10% APR... well, thats annualized, so to get the monthly interest rate, you roughly divide by 12... but technically it is more complicated, because that monthly interest rate is actually compounding every month over month.

So the acutal monthly rate is:

MPR = [ ( 1 + APR ) ^ ( 1 / 12 ) ] - 1

If you treat an ~35% increase over almost 5 years with this kind of math, then you end up with an average, effective monthly inflation rate for meat and eggs of:

6.642%, since Jan 2020.

EDIT: I fucked up the math, goddamned javascript based web calculator on shitty mobile phone,.here's something more accurate:

4.984%, since July 2020.

(I'm basically just doing napkin math here, picking specifically July 2020 just because its the 5Y window, normally you'd use a longer period of stability to base this off of, but hopefully ya'll get the idea)

Also worth noting, the latest August numbers are of course backward looking, in time. So, if these price pics in the OP image are literally from today... they may not be reflected in the numbers untill next month.

... Assuming Trump has not destroyed the BLS/FRED by then, who fucking knows.

.........

Why doesn't this line up with broader inflation?

Well, lots of reasons, I'm going to pick probably the biggest one, as opposed to writing an entire PhD level dissertation...

The CPI, the big headline number... is based on an average basket of goods and services that, ie, a weighted index, and uh... that basket, those weights, represent the average, the mean... not the median.

Here's 2022.

https://www.bls.gov/cex/tables/calendar-year/mean-item-share-average-standard-error/cu-income-before-taxes-2022.pdf

Yep thats a household that makes $94k before taxes, $83k after taxes.

In 2022, the US Median after tax household income was... $64k.

So, the entire basket, and thus CPI, is thus weighted toward the spending patterns of people about 1 standard deviation higher than the median household income.

Rich people do not have the same spending basket as poorer people, poorer people disproportionally spend a lot more of their income on food, rent/mortgage, gas / car expenses...

... And as wealth disparity, and wealth transfer to the elites gets worse and worse, the reported CPI thus underreports actual inflation for more and more people.

........

Hope all these fun numbers help explain some things.

.........

EDIT 2:

Without having to doing a bunch of math yourself...

Probably look at the CPI-U series and components instead of the broader CPI... as the U refers to Urban, and something like 80% of Americans live in what is considered an Urban area.

So looking at the CPI-U is probably a relatively easy way to get a somewhay more realistic look at price levels that actual people pay... but the flipside is that the wealthy disparity is even more lopsided in Urban areas... uh, good luck, lol.

.........

The financial news and media still focus on the broader CPI... basically because of outdated tradition.

Much like how they almost never pay attention the BLS employment number revisions... unless they are very very bad.

You don't need to be very smart to have money, basically just lucky. Or ruthless.

.......

EDIT 3

Ok, using the actual numbers from OP Image... maybe this can demonsrate the power of compound interest.

Thats a 1y difference of +45.496%, in $/lb of beef.

All it takes to get that, in one year...

Is an average, compounding, 3.1742% price increase every month, for 12 months.

Exponential equations run away fast, and human brains tend to default to thinking of linear relationships... not exponential... and thats why credit card companies make so much money, lol.

Anyway, yeah, check this CPI U meat/eggs subcomponent next month to see august price levels, and if they do a massive jump, or if data is now considered a woke diversity hire and now banned shrug

This was a great read. Thanks for taking the time to post this.
- How dare this user assault U.S. with egghead facts and numbers. Doesn't he know they're eating the cats?!
  USA! USA!
  /s
I'm just chiming in to say, yeah, the logic of this is directly in line with the statistics, and economics that I learned in college. I drifted away from it and I haven't run the numbers myself, but I have no reason to doubt the calculations.
I agree with you, and I'm hoping that will reinforce to others that this is far more complex than most people can comprehend. It's certainly more complex than what the Whitehouse economists seem to understand.... Regardless, I think you said it perfectly with "exponential equations run away fast", and I think that might even be understating it; especially that the average person doesn't "get" how quickly compound rates can increase the costs of things over time.
I understand that they have to set limits for themselves or they'll be doing calculations all year and never get enough done to have the whole picture. What they are working from is certainly not the whole picture. Regardless, the math doesn't lie.
If things keep up like this, I think that in less than one quarter, we'll see the numbers skyrocket.
- I appreciate the reinforcement that I am not insane, genuienly.
  Struggled with impostor syndrome for a loooong time, and uh... welp, yeah, turns out I spent roughly 2 decades being a lot more right than wrong (not just specifically on this), and everyone else actually either had no clue what they were talking about, or massive unexamind normalcy bias, ignorant of the concept of a state change, a phase transition.
  ... So as the world now burns, I at least find a modicum of horrendous solace in knowing that I was at least not overreacting... though I obviously wish more people had listened to me and taken me seriously, at least ... I tried ... thus my conscious is clear.
You're leaving out the substitution principle.
If a can of Spam becomes cheaper than actual meat then the CPI will substitute them as "equal". Cheese Wiz is just as "cheese" as stuff that comes out of a cow.
CPI is nothing but a gamed statistic. It's fake. Even then they can't pretend all is hunky dory.
- So, the very complicated and expansive version of what you are talking about is Hedonics, Hedonic Adjustments... and lets just say it is so fucking technical and complicated that as I have said elsewhere in this thrrad, I basically have PTSD from trying to have detailed discussions about which elements of this are valid and to what extent they are valid.
  Its not quite as simple and straightforwardly bullshit as you describe, but it also does functionally end up resulting in the general bullshit that you do describe... its just that quantifying the exact amount of bullshit happening, due to illegitimate hedonic adjustments... is a statistical and accounting nightmare.
- Substitution bias tends to overstate inflation, because they only reweight once a year (which is much more frequently than what they used to do). And the reweighting of the components won't change the fact that the individual components continue to be published.
  Beef is getting much more expensive than it used to be. In the 90's, ground beef used to be cheaper per pound than chicken breast. In the 30 years since, beef has gotten expensive much faster than chicken, and now ground beef costs almost 50% more than ground beef:
  Ground beef
  Chicken breast
Wow this is a great write up
- I am an unemployed econometrician, and laughing about it.
They constantly tell you the monthly rate for the same reason as credit card companies (to obscure the long term effects). It's a grift either way. I think that's a point of the comic.
To add to your comment, if anyone is interested in the data series for steaks generally:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU0000FC3101
This was very informative, thanks for taking the time to write it.
- Thanks for reading it!
  Too bad when I pointed this kinda shit out when it was more nascent, a decade ago, everyone acted like I was a hysterical loon... fucking oh well I guess!
  Hope you're stocked up on rice and beans and spam and what not.
Ty
TL;DR: so, we're fucked? That good enough? 😉
- The whole entire scope of how fucked we are is way, way worse than just inflation in the US...
  but yes, we, broadly, as humans, anywhere on the planet, that may want to live through the next 20 or 30 years... yep we are fucked.

People need to learn that when they hear 'inflation is down', it doesn't mean things are getting cheaper, it just means that the increase in cost is slowing down.

Is it a psychological tactic that news media is using to make consumers more complacent? Who knows. But, whenever I hear someone mention that phrase like things are improving, I die a little more each time.

How it feels when headlines celebrate that inflation is down:
- Celebrating the discontinuance of something bad happening... isn't that weird.
The inflation figure is an annual figure though. It means things are 2.7% more expensive than they were last year. OP is showing an example nearer 60%.
- Inflation isn't based on the cost of a single thing. You're confusing it with stocks.
- It's actually showing 47%. The price is based on pounds which increased from $10.99 to $15.99.
Tactics like this can be used because the education system has gotten so bad that people have terrible critical thinking skills.
- They want us smart enough to push the buttons and pull the levers, but dumb enough to not realize how badly we're getting fucked.
if inflation made my paycheck go up, that'd be great. As it stands I have a LOT less buying power and my industry is waffling so I'm only seeing 2% increases for years.
- It exists. In Belgium and I think also Luxembourg inflation in prices of common consumer things automatically triggers wages, unemployment money, pensions to rise too. For most jobs it triggers when it hits 2%. Life got 2 % more expensive, wages rise 2 % a few months / a year later. Using a basket of consumer prices, excluding things like fuel, alcohol, tobacco prices
The Titanic is sinking slower! HORRAY!
"Inflation is just supply-and-demand when you think about it."
- Not really... The economy is more and more controlled by a hand full of large multinationals. So if one corporation has 90% of the market (using different brand names to fake competition), they can raise the price far beyond just supply and demand. In the end we all need food and Healthcare etc. When you have the option of paying way to much (for some medicine) or dying, you can't really say no, right.
- Yes, vut with the supply being almost literally just a printer. Typically 2% inflation are intentionally targeted to prevent deflation (which is also not good).

They use a "basket of goods" that conveniently has nothing to do with how real people actually live.

According to our studies: accordion straps, horse shoes, goat bladder, those antenna from old TVs, and musket shot prices have all remained stable! Inflation solved!
- You joke but musket shot ie. Soft lead is actually up as well.
- braidon save the big piece of tv antenna for your father he had a long day
They use chained CPI too, which accounts for "the consumer adjusting their purchasing". It literally bakes in the concept of enshittification.
- You see, inflation is not in fact up, because if you replace your steak dinners with ground beef, you will be spending just as much as before!
- Hedonics is a whole fucking thing... I... I dont wanna talk about it lol.
  What I can briefly mention is that uh...yeah, recently?
  Well, there have been budget cuts to the orgs and personnel that actuslly do the price surveys... so a growing number of econ data dorks suspect that... we are now up to roughly 1/3 of individual items in the CPI being calculated by... imputation.
  Which is more or less a fancy stats way of saying 'we were not actually able to count this so we are just gonna assume it stayed the same.'
  And thats all before Trump just straight up fired the BLS chief and replaced her with a Jan 6th insurrectionist.
  You really shouldn't underfund or fuck with the people that produce some of the most important numbers in a financialized market economy, but oh well I guess!
  Into lalaland we a-go.

Lab grow all meats. Problem solved. Too bad Trump and his stupid MAGA base are against it. Timeline blows.

Why would a capitalist company making fake beef be any less inclined to upcharge on fake beef compared to real beef?
They both have lines that must go up.
- Sure, but if no one can afford to buy artificially inflated real meat prices, that's a good reason to sell fake beef at a price where people can afford it.... And THEN you start to increase the price of that too, but only once a Democrat is president so people can freak out like they did with egg prices
Lab grown meat isn't currently scalable at that level. Wish it were but unfortunately not. Consider not eating meat 👍 it's cheaper
- Then why are states banning it on behalf of Big Ag lobbyists? If it’s not a threat, why would they?
- I mix my meat with veggies and carbs to make it go longer
- I literally will become anemic if I don't eat meat. I grew up vegetarian for religious reasons; it was hell until my doctor worked with a nutritionist when I was a kid and determined that my body just needs the complex protein density that is provided in lean meat.
  That being said, considering the global catastrophe that is the way we produce and distribute meat as a civilization, I'm happy to pay high prices for quality and (to the extent any can be) ethically produced cuts.
  Of course, <redacted> tariff wars will hurt extra to me and others like myself.
It's not like it's on store shelves. It has to exist in the realm of reality before the public can weigh in to determine its corporate viability/profitability.
- It's available in at least 1 restaurant. But it is also completely outlawed in at least 2 states with more trying to ban it.
figure out the bovine serum problem
- The problem concerns ethics surrounding pain and discomfort the fetus may suffer in extracting the FSB without anesthesia.
  Use fucking anesthesia? 🤷‍♂️

Beef, in particular, has experienced an intense price shock following a national shortage of cattle, with the national herd at a 73-year low.

This stems from severe drought conditions that have been plaguing the cattle-heavy mountain west for the better part of the last decade. Higher feed prices have also contributed to rising prices. But even beyond that, demand for beef continues to outpace the supply, driving prices upward as the raw supply of cattle falls.

I guess vegans can kinda-sorta rejoice. We're killing fewer cows and wasting less animal product, as the conditions of our country making herding both environmentally and ecologically unsustainable. This has spurred more investment into alt-meats, while also forcing states to grapple with how they're expending diminished water reserves.

But since we live in a plutocracy, I'm not sure we'll get better policy out of these material changes to the ecology. Mark Zuckerberg can keep force-feeding his Austin steers buckets of macadamia nuts while his AI factors belch CO² and guzzle potable water long after the rest of us are living in Gaza-like conditions.

I guess vegans can kinda-sorta rejoice. We’re killing fewer cows and wasting less animal product, as the conditions of our country making herding both environmentally and ecologically unsustainable. This has spurred more investment into alt-meats, while also forcing states to grapple with how they’re expending diminished water reserves.
I switched to being a vegetarian proper about a year ago, and its been a little validating that my grocery bills went down even when meat was more affordable, but now is dramatically cheaper since Quorn and Impossible meat haven't inflated in price at all (and are even more affordable when picked up in bulk on sale for the freezer).
Those two alternatives are astonishingly good, even enabling me to convert my lifelong meat eating family to vegetarianism which was unreal to see. I can't even tell I'm not eating meat in all the meat-based dishes I use them in, they're so damn good. Also nice to avoid the increased cancer risk from red meat.
For anyone else reading this, I massively recommend giving those two meat alternatives a shot. Impossible is 1-to-1, and the Quorn only needs a good vegan bullion cube of whatever meat you're trying to replicate (or Marmite for Beef flavor) and it's perfect for anything.
We've been importing beef primarily from Brazil to make up the shortfall. Guess what country got a 50% tariff that has stuck?
- Because they're "not nice to us". Lmao. Fucking peach pedophile there.
Finland has been having "sorry for the beef shortage" signs on the shelves for at least like a month and a half. Less now, but for the last month or a couple

I'm gonna drop this here. No reason. Probably the same no reason they chose this topic last week.

Planet Money (podcast)

What happens when governments cook the books
August 8, 202510:48 PM ET
By Mary Childs, Sally Helm, Jess Jiang, Sam Yellowhorse Kesler

https://www.npr.org/2025/08/08/1256971798/bls-bureau-labor-statistics-greece-argentina

Yes, thank you! I wish I could upvote you twice. It’s immediately what I thought of, especially some of the methods governments can use to shift inflation numbers. Great episode, would recommend people listen given its relevance.

Not the most fair comparison. Cattle herd is smallest it's been in 60+ years and prices haven't gone high enough to reduce demand enough that the herd can rebound yet. You'll see higher beef prices for another 2 years before things calm down again.

Cattle numbers are definitely down, but monopolization of ranching has been carrying on at a pretty good clip as well. I think it's a safe bet that the new point of equilibrium they find will still be more expensive, even inflation adjusted. There's a similar trend across most agribusiness that I've seen, especially with farms going out of business in droves because of the pandemic.
Cattle numbers are also down because of Trump btw. Long term effect from his 1st presidency + his current policies helped the screw worm flies get through Panama.

Eh, 49 + 2.7 = 76 ; close enough

/s

It was just announced yesterday that inflation is up 3.3%.

Still not 60% as per OPs example.
- I know, but it's the true inflation rate, and I want to make sure EVERYBODY sees it, especially MAGA Nazis.
  3.3% this month, up from 2.7% last month. Great job HitlerPig.
- it's actually fits 3%.. PER MONTH
  april '24 to august '25 is 16 months
  1.03¹⁶ = 1.605
  $49.24 * 1.6 = $78.78
- Ops example would show 31%, if it was statistically significant at all.

The purpose of a system is what it does. Inflation isn't just temporarily malfunctioning - it's a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich.

You're spot on because inflation is what allows the whole thing to work. If instead there was rapid deflation on the trillions of debt held by Americans it would cause many to default.
But hell, talking about inflation is so weird because to most I feel like it just means the things people buy are now more expensive. Things are more expensive because people are able/willing to pay more, they're just in the losing side of the disparity. It wasn't inflation of the dollar that caused housing prices in places like Phoenix to climb over the past 20 years, it was people with more money than them moving in from places like California.
- You're a fucking genius! Just pay less for things and inflation will go down!

As much as it fun to rag on supposedly out of touch economists, this "cheapflation" phenomenon is very documented and accepted among mainstream economists. Like many others in the public sector, government economists have been calling for more suitable and timely measures of inflation for decades, only to have their requests for more funding and support denied as the public service falls apart.

Price discounts and cheapflation during the post-pandemic inflation surge - ScienceDirect - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304393224000977

That’s right . . . Big smile . . . Eeeeverybody’s happy . . .

If you take the timeframe between these two photos and apply a monthly inflation rate of 2.7, you would land at 70,5$ for August 2025. Now obviously either the inflation was higher in some month in between, or the vendor just hiked the price. But the general drift is correct.

Inflation rate usually is given in yearly rates. Things have to be absolutely fucked if you have to give them in monthly rates.
- I mean our country is beyond fucked so that tracks
apply a monthly inflation rate of 2.7
I don't think the inflation rate is supposed to be compounded on a month to month basis. 2.7 is supposed to track changes in the consumer price index over the course of the entire year.
- At least here in central europe, inflation rate is always monthly
Inflation is usually by the estimate it would be through the year though.
- Not in my country
Inflation isn't monthly. It's a rolling annual figure.
- Inflation isn’t monthly
  It is - if you want to make the number appear smaller. You can make it even smaller if you measure it daily!

That’s not “inflation.” That’s tariffs. And it wasn’t “inflation” under Biden. It was price gouging.

Fuck, I wish some of y’all would read a book once in a while.

Tariffs cause inflation. Price gouging also causes inflation.
- “Inflation” doesn’t just mean ‘prices go up.’ Again, please read a fucking book.

Economic "measurements" are one of worst pseudo-scientific grifts out there. Inflation is perhaps the peak example.

Also carnism is disgusting, unsustainable, inefficient, and literally destroying the planet. I hope meat becomes completely unaffordable as it would be without massive violent enforcement.

Evonomics is the theology of wealth.

I used to love me some new York strip ☹️ I can do some amazing shit with chuck roast these days tho.

Go to Texas Roadhouse. You can get a strip for under 30 bucks and sides. Somehow their prices are still reasonable.
- National restaurants buy ingredients in massive volumes at a steep discount compared to grocery stores and even butchers.
Honestly, chuck is great. I'm cutting weight, and trying to maintain muscle mass. I just make a big roast, portion it out into 180g servings (50g protein each), and make poor man's steak sandwiches out of them. It's generally tender, and not bad at all.
That, and you can use it for high protein stews etc.

Good I hope it keeps going up until the murderers can't pay for it and the whole industry dies out.

Erm, price /lb goes from 10.99 to 15.99, sure, but it doesn't explaik how tf total price goes from ~$49 to ~$78 for only 0.4lb more of meat?!

Yes, it does, it's literally basic math.
49.24÷4.48=10.99
78.03÷4.88=15.99
- Must've been pretty sleep depraved when i wrote that comment O.O thanks for taking the time to reply
- Witchcraft!
  @Dop ... probably

Meat should be too expensive for daily consumption

Maybe, but that should be due to removal of subsidies and banning of factory farms, not rampant inflation.
- Fair
...are you under the impression that this is restricted to meat?
- are you under the impression that the OP picture includes flax and machine parts?
It basically is
This is an extremely monkey's paw post if I've ever seen one.
(I tend to agree that meat is too cheap and has many externalized costs that we all bear, though.)
insert Thanos balance meme
- Yes, but it was never daily until a couple of decades ago.
  Before you had like 3 meals a week with meat.
- How much meat do you believe humans have been consuming for most of that existence?
- Something isn't 'right' just because we've been doing it for a long time. We have the knowledge and tools now to improve ourselves.
- Pretty weak argument, that. Humans have also been murdering, raping, and enslaving other humans for our entire existence.