Grocery prices is actually a great example of official inflation numbers being underestimated. My grocery bill has increased by a minimum of 50% (and more like 100%) since the pandemic, but official numbers put it at about 25%. They have a basket of goods that they base their numbers off of, but that basket changes and my suspicion is that they change it in a way to make the numbers look better than they really are. In my case, I’ve been buying the same stuff all along (i.e. mainly simple non-processed ingredients) with modifications only to try to reduce my bill (e.g. I haven’t bought any eggs over $2 a dozen, which means I haven’t bought eggs in a long time).

I sarcastically pointed out “at least TVs are cheaper” because yes, there are categories where some things are cheaper, but the far more important categories of housing, education, food, and health care have experienced ridiculous amounts of inflation.

Exciting to see all sorts of batteries for different applications. Is lithium-ion still standard for home power backup? I’ve heard characteristics of the new sodium-ion batteries being ideal for that use case.

I’ve been shrimping for decades with minimal back pain so I think I’m doing something right.

Inflation adjusted looking pretty flat and that’s if you trust their optimistic inflation calculations that likely underestimate it. Housing, education, and health care greatly outpace inflation btw, but hey, at least TVs are cheaper.

The only purpose in normalizing relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel is to continue the divide and conquer strategy while destroying each country that opposes Israel. It’s the same reason why the US showers Egypt with money, to keep it docile. As each potential enemy of Israel falls, they focus their attention on the next target. Saudi Arabia will have its turn later and when it does, the US will bring out things like involvement in 9/11 from its back pocket to justify crippling sanctions and either regime change or potentially direct military action.

Countries useful to the US get carrots until they’ve outlived their usefulness, then they get impaled on the stick. Just ask Saddam after the US used him to carry out the Iran-Iraq war. Israel supported Iran in that war, by the way, because playing your enemies against each other is part of the divide and conquer strategy.