I no longer know what a "good" price is for anything, because everything is ~30% more than pre-pandemic. It's really hard to determine right now if you are sinking or swimming, you pay what you're asked to pay and move on to the next price shock.
Looking for thoughts and opinions, are prices today the "new normal?" Should we expect prices to continue to go up? Level off? Will we have a deflationary period where prices fall back to somewhere between what they were pre-pandemic and what they are now?
Personally, I am of the opinion that we will have a deflationary period this fall/winter due to: (1) People having less discretionary income as necessities (especially energy) demand a higher percentage of income; (2) Recession causing businesses to flounder and fail and unemployment inching up; (3) The stock market losing value day after day as people watch their savings and retirement shrink to a fraction of what it had been; and (4) Retailers having an overabundance of stock on hand as they over-ordered trying to get stock in during the pandemic at the very time as the first three factors are taking away buying power away from the average household, which means retailers will have to cut prices if they expect to move inventory during the holiday season.
Looking for thoughts and opinions, are prices today the "new normal?" Should we expect prices to continue to go up? Level off? Will we have a deflationary period where prices fall back to somewhere between what they were pre-pandemic and what they are now?
Personally, I am of the opinion that we will have a deflationary period this fall/winter due to: (1) People having less discretionary income as necessities (especially energy) demand a higher percentage of income; (2) Recession causing businesses to flounder and fail and unemployment inching up; (3) The stock market losing value day after day as people watch their savings and retirement shrink to a fraction of what it had been; and (4) Retailers having an overabundance of stock on hand as they over-ordered trying to get stock in during the pandemic at the very time as the first three factors are taking away buying power away from the average household, which means retailers will have to cut prices if they expect to move inventory during the holiday season.