Economy

Thanksgiving Dinner Will Be 14% More Expensive This Year

Published

6 months ago

November 19, 2021

Team Terrell

As President Biden’s inflation crisis continues to worsen, the average cost of a Thanksgiving dinner will be 14% more this year than last year, according to the Farm Bureau.

The Farm Bureau noted, “The average cost of this year’s classic Thanksgiving feast for 10 is $53.31 or less than $6.00 per person. This is a $6.41 or 14% increase from last year’s average of $46.90. The centerpiece on most Thanksgiving tables – the turkey – costs more than last year, at $23.99 for a 16-pound bird. That’s roughly $1.50 per pound, up 24% from last year.”

Farm Bureau used ‘volunteer shoppers’ to check the prices from Oct. 26 to Nov. 8, about two weeks before most grocery store chains started lowering the price of whole frozen turkeys.

“Several factors contributed to the increase in average cost of this year’s Thanksgiving dinner,” AFBF Senior Economist Veronica Nigh explained. “These include dramatic disruptions to the U.S. economy and supply chains over the last 20 months; inflationary pressure throughout the economy; difficulty in predicting demand during the COVID-19 pandemic and high global demand for food, particularly meat… The trend of consumers cooking and eating at home more often due to the pandemic led to increased supermarket demand and higher retail food prices in 2020 and 2021, compared to pre-pandemic prices in 2019.”

According to the Department of Labor, U.S. inflation has hit its highest annual rate in more than 30 years in October. The consumer price index, a key inflation metric, increased 6.2% from October 2020 to October 2021, the fastest annual rate since 1990. In the month of October alone, inflation surged 0.9% compared to the 0.6% economists expected, according to CNBC.

Economy

Dow Jones Undergoes Losses Not Seen Since Peak Of Great Depression

Published

3 days ago

May 20, 2022

Leo Terrell Staff

As Americans brace for a likely recession within the next year, the stock market has undergone losses not seen in decades.

According to The Wall Street Journal, “The Dow industrials are headed toward their eighth straight weekly loss, their longest such streak since 1932, near the height of the Great Depression. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are on course for their longest streak of weekly losses since 2001, after the dot-com bubble burst.”

Brian Levitt, global market strategist at Invesco, explained that the losses were over worries about a stagnating U.S. economy.

“It’s clear that in a very short period of time, we moved from a pandemic to an inflation scare to now, serious concerns about growth,” Levitt said.

Economists warn that the U.S. economy could face a recession next year, which is defined as having two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. Goldman Sachs’ economists estimate that there is a 35% probability of the U.S. entering a recession at some point within the next two years.

“Recession risks are high — uncomfortably high — and rising,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “For the economy to navigate through without suffering a downturn, we need some very deft policymaking from the Fed and a bit of luck.”

“This week alone, former Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein warned of a ‘very, very high risk’ of recession; Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf said there was ‘no question’ that the U.S. economy is heading toward a downturn; and former Fed chair Ben Bernanke cautioned that the country could be poised for ’stagflation’ — a slowing economy combined with high inflation,” The Washington Post reported.

Economy

National Gas Prices Could Hit $6.20 Per Gallon By August

Published

4 days ago

May 20, 2022

Leo Terrell Staff

National gas prices could surge to well over $6 per gallon by the end of the summer, according to analysts at JPMorgan.

Natasha Kaneva, head of global oil and commodities research at JPMorgan, wrote in a research document that the United States was going to face a “cruel summer” as gas prices are expected to dwarf their already record highs.

“With expectations of strong driving demand — traditionally, the U.S. summer driving season starts on Memorial Day, which lands this year on May 30, and lasts until Labor Day in early September — U.S. retail price could surge another 37% by August to a $6.20/gallon national average,” she wrote.

“Typically, refiners produce more gasoline ahead of the summer road-trip season, building up inventories,” the analysts said. However, over the last month, “gasoline inventories have fallen counter seasonally and today sit at the lowest seasonal levels since 2019.”

The report comes the same week that the United States set a new record for gas prices with the average cost per gallon rising over $4 per gallon in all 50 states for the first time ever, according to a report from the American Automobile Association (AAA).

“The high cost of oil, the key ingredient in gasoline, is driving these high pump prices for consumers,” said AAA spokesperson Andrew Gross. “Even the annual seasonal demand dip for gasoline during the lull between spring break and Memorial Day, which would normally help lower prices, is having no effect this year.”

As explained in the report, “total domestic gasoline stocks decreased by 3.6 million bbl to 225 million bbl last week. Gasoline demand also decreased slightly from 8.86 million b/d to 8.7 million b/d. Typically, lower demand would put downward pressure on pump prices. However, crude prices remain volatile, and as they surge, pump prices follow suit. Pump prices will likely face upward pressure as oil prices stay above $105 per barrel.”