It ls called inflation and it is at the highest rate it's been in the last 40 years. Do I like it? Nope, but given the current challenges to the world's economy, I'm not sure there is anything we can do about it but endure it.

As to raising prices "unfairly", That's pretty subjective. Retailers are free to charge what the market will bear yet still make them competitive. Not the same as price gouging which has a very specific definition.

I do not like inflation, but recognize that the companies themselves are paying higher costs for materials, and lately, shipping costs. One cannot expect them to absorb these costs, especially businesses that have a more slender profit margin.

I agree they shouldn't have to absorb the costs, but I'm not as sure as you are about it being shipping, for instance. Why would vegetable oil that was $1.89 for years be $3.89 now? Overnight. Same with Blue Buffalo catfood. It's more than a 50% increase. I can name many things. Those are the two worst offenders in my instance.

100%. Our sale prices were last year's full-price. e.g. Vegetable oil, which I always bought for $.388 is now on sale for $7.99. The full price used to be $5.99.

This just blows me away. Campbell's soups used to be .50 on sale. This is last week.

I agree they shouldn't have to absorb the costs, but I'm not as sure as you are about it being shipping

Shipping is only one of several higher costs I mentioned, including the rising cost of raw materials- lumber, farm produce such as meat and vegetable and fruits, some kinds of metals. I do not ship many things, but even the cost of an occasional package is higher than it was a few years ago. I can't even imagine how much it would cost to fill up at the gas station one of those large semis filled with trailers of groceries.

I believe, like in many other instances, there will always be less than honest folks trying to get what they can while the getting's good, but in large part, costs for businesses have risen, and price hikes reflect that. Many had been trying keep their prices down before now, but may have had to give that up. The rising cost of oil is behind a lot of these cost jumps - it's used for transportation/shipping AND packaging.

Lucille, this is a photo taken on March 6.

ETA this is a tractor-trailer rig cost for a fill-up of diesel.

That's pretty expensive for a fill up. I can remember when I was in college paying around 50 cents a gallon.

Are businesses charging more than they should? Duh.

Lucille, you wondered what it costs trucks. This is what a tractor-trailer driver paid for his rig. You also didn't put 227 gallons in your vehicle.

People who are employed, doing whatever they do, want to get pay increases. Pay increases are paid for by charging more for the products or services their work provides. Other costs as mentioned, transportation, real estate, taxes, utilities, etc, all go up in mutually related ways. End user price increases are inevitable when there are increases to underlying inputs.

Broad price increases at such times have nothing at all to do with honesty or dishonesty, in my opinion and in my experience. It's market forces and basic economics at work.

But what grinds my gears is, when shipping and gas (as a for instance, like I used above), etc. go back down some, and they will, the prices won't go back down. How is that basic economics? It's a money grab! Why doesn't it go both ways? Capitalism at its worst. No way to balance it out.

You also didn't put 227 gallons in your vehicle.

At $4.66/gallon, it is expensive for a fill up even for smaller vehicles, for many people. Combined with inflation for many other goods and services, some families are having a tough time. But again, businesses can't absorb all of the rising costs.

Costs are through the roof for everything and the reasons just keep compounding on each other and I believe will continue to for some time.

If you have extra freezer and pantry space and room in your budget now, I would stock up on things like beef, pork, chicken, flour, oil, canned goods, etc. because chances are it's going to get worse.

We have a small herd of beef cattle so beef is not a concern. I looked at the price of beef yesterday while at the store and my jaw dropped. They did have some 5 lb. tubes of 70% lean ground beef(?) for $10 if you like grease.

We are going to split a whole hog with a friend in a few weeks which should last us awhile on pork but we will run out of bacon pretty quickly and need to buy some (Aldi has only raised their price on bacon about 10% to $4.19/lb. here). I get farm fresh eggs from a farmer's wife nearby and she is still charging the same $2/dozen as she always has. She lets them free range and supplements with grain grown on their farm so hasn't had to spend money on the higher price of feed.

Unfairly? No. Raised a lot? Yes. Inflation, extra production and shipping costs, and extra labour costs are all at play. Shipping includes everything from cargo ships to dock workers to trucks. Labour costs are increasing as people are less willing to take lousy and lousy-paying jobs (this is fresh in my mind as I watched last night's Last Week Tonight, which talked about the high turnover rate for truckers......the average turnover rate is 100% per year, sometimes 2 or 3 times that. That's a lot of truckers leaving their jobs.)

Elmer - thanks for the Economics 101 lesson but what you described is what is seen in normal times. Maybe living where you do makes you numb to high prices IDK. Normal inflation is in the 2% range and right now it is trending about 10% YOY across many commodities and even higher in gas and energy.

I see it snowballing as the year goes on with no end in sight. Will stagflation be next or recession?

But truckers leaving their jobs leaves opportunity for some to get into the game, and others to finally pick up the slack if they want. That can be a good thing. Someone is going to reap the benefits of better jobs. Surely, not every trucking company sucks. For instance.

I think trucking companies are cannibalizing each other's drivers which leads to the high turnover rate. Owner/operators may be getting out of the business completely if they are not able to make a decent living after paying the high fuel costs.

The railroad industry has always had fuel sur charges built into rates that somewhat protects them from the increased fuel costs with the increased cost is passed on to it's customers and ultimately to the end consumer. Rails also buy fuel contracts many months in advance and leverage their buying power to get a better price.

"But truckers leaving their jobs leaves opportunity for some to get into the game, and others to finally pick up the slack if they want."

Yes, and a lot of those truckers will go to other companies....but the costs of that kind of turnover rate is high. It's cheaper to keep employees than hire new ones, even at the same pay level.

I just noticed a bucket of pool chlorine tablets that cost $109 a year ago is now $259!

One of the largest US producers of chlorine tablets had their plant burn down in 2020 after hurricane Laura.

Yes LoneJack. It's so sad they can't rebuild that factory. Now chlorine tablets are coming from China. The shipping cost must be very high. I am wondering pretty soon some of the pool owners might close their pools.

Is is possible to convert a chlorine pool over to a salt water pool? Probably not cheap but possible? I have a friend that had a inground pool installed last year and it is salt water.

It's possible. But salt water pools have other problems. We stocked up chlorine tablets last year. We should have enough for this years and next year.

I don't think it's unfair, or at least I think most of them are being fair. Production costs are up, packaging costs are up, shipping costs are up. Employment costs have changed over the last couple years. It all adds up. I'm sure some businesses are being unfair, but that then falls into price gouging.

Some of it is regional, and some differences between rural and urban too. Like the Campbells soup pic. I dont' know where that is, but the units are in ml rather than oz. Where is that from?. But that price is a big no for me. Ouch. Around here a 10.75 oz can is regularly $1.19-1.79. On sale they are regularly 4/$5, and occasionally 10/$10 with 11th free on some of the soups.

Another way to say it is our money is worth much less now. It will be even worse. Watch our spending, don't need it, don't buy.

Apparently many corporations made record profits last year.

What's fair when you figure minimum wage/retail was shut down/our access to inexpensive oil reserves was cut off?

Overall our costs are up over 30% since the start of COVID (labor, equipment, insurance fuel, overheard, etc.). We raised our prices 25%. Yes even though we sent out a very detailed explanation, it was a shock to our customers. Some left only to find they were paying the same or more elsewhere with a lower service level so they are back. Others are suffering with lower quality service as they genuinely can't afford our services.

Payroll and equipment have been our two biggest hits.

<What's fair when you figure minimum wage/retail was shut down/our access to inexpensive oil reserves was cut off? >

Can you rephrase this without the "/"s? I cannot make sense out of this sentence.

And are you upset that we are not buying Russian oil? I hope that is not what you are trying to say, but I really have no idea.

"our access to inexpensive oil reserves was cut off?"

I don't believe there is such a thing as inexpensive oil reserves. I think how it works is when there's a draw down from the strategic reserve to supply oil companies with crude oil, it's a product loan they need to repay at a future date. It may take some pressure off market demand but it's strictly a barter situation - we give you crude now, you repay us with crude later.

If my understanding is wrong, I'll look forward to hearing a more accurate explanation.

"Elmer - thanks for the Economics 101 lesson but what you described is what is seen in normal times. Maybe living where you do makes you numb to high prices IDK. Normal inflation is in the 2% range and right now it is trending about 10% YOY across many commodities and even higher in gas and energy."

What I described is how markets work. Always. The reasons may change but market actions are always the same.

As far as regionality, sure, prices vary. Housing has been skyrocketing in my area for the last 5 years and were pretty steadily upward but at lower rates before then. The same is true in many, many urban areas and other desirable areas that have experienced robust growth and economic activity. If that isn't true where you are, I'd say you're in an area that's an outlier. Two people I know are trying to buy houses in urban/suburban areas in towns south of the Mason-Dixon line and the markets in these two different places have been crazy.

Other prices are up too across the board. Transportation and other cost increases are major factors. Pent up demand and recovery from the tumble at the start of the pandemic are now bidding up prices.

The national consumer price index was up 7 percent year on year, Dec 2020 to Dec 2021. The 2022 Social Security cost of living adjustment was 5.9%. This is about what's happening from coast to coast, not just where I am or where you are.

The way I understand it, truckers leaving their jobs isn't exactly the problem, the industry was having trouble getting new people for quite some time before the pandemic. It's not such good paying work any more, though it once was.

And diesel already cost more than regular gasoline, so I imagine it's gotta be worse now.

If my dollars have less value due to inflation alone, shouldn't I expect to pay more of them for any given item? If people earn a living wage in the production and transport of goods, the goods will cost more for those reasons too. One of the reasons Americans have seen low prices for food, clothing, and other items in the past is because the people producing them were paid a pittance in foreign countries -- and as (mostly illegal) immigrants right here. As for energy costs, a few smart countries have stopped relying on fosil fuels, imported or not -- a win/win for Earth and cost control.

you ain't seen nothing yet ...

I sense a comment trying to make normal market fluctuations (that happen mostly independent of what person or party happens to be temporarily at the helm) into a political matter,

Is that the case?

"The assessments are based on the home sale prices during past two years pandemic, which were much higher than normal."

If property tax in your area is based on market value, and these "much higher than normal" values are what homes can currently be sold for, I'm not sure what the gripe is. If the higher tax cost isn't affordable for some, then now is a good time to sell at "higher than normal" values.

In my state of California, if there has been no change of ownership, a home's property tax increase is limited to 2% per year. Reassessment to full value happens when a property is sold and has a new owner.

Edit to add - this comment and the words quoted are from a person's contribution that appeared just above this one that seems to have been deleted. I don't know if done before or after I submitted these words about higher values leading to higher taxes and sometimes large increases when there are large increases in value and no cap on annual tax increases.