Prices rise by five percent Highest US inflation since 2008

Status: 10.06.2021 5:44 p.m.

In the USA, consumer prices have risen as sharply as they did almost 13 years ago – which is felt above all by car buyers. The European Central Bank also expects higher inflation in the euro countries. Is it just a short-term phenomenon or is inflation now making its big comeback? In the USA there is a growing fear of ever higher prices. Some are already pulling Parallels to the 1970s when President Jimmy Carter failed to get a grip on high inflation and job misery. Although the USA is still a long way from the double-digit inflation rates of that time, the price jumps are getting bigger from month to month. After inflation had risen above four percent in April, it has now climbed to 5.0 percent in May. That is the highest rate since August 2008. Experts had only expected an increase in the cost of living of 4.7 percent. “The dreaded five has become a reality,” said market observer Thomas Altmann from investment management company QC Partners.

Federal Reserve under pressure

The strong growth impressively proves that the price surge in April was not a slip-up, said LBBW analyst Dirk Chlench. “The US Federal Reserve is coming under increasing pressure to reconsider its view that the recent price hikes are only of a temporary nature.” As in April, the prices for used cars turned out to be the biggest inflation driver. They rose again strongly – and, according to the US Department of Labor, accounted for around a third of the monthly price increase.

Core inflation at its highest level since 1992

Particularly alarming is core inflation, which excludes volatile components such as energy and food. It climbed 3.8 percent in May. The last time there was such a sharp increase was in 1992. In April, the core inflation rate was 3.0 percent. The end of the corona lockdowns and the trillion dollar cash injections by the US government have been driving inflation in the US for months. Prominent economists like Larry Summers, Olivier Blanchard and Mohamed El-Erian warn against underestimating the danger. According to Blanchard, the high government spending under US President Joe Biden could overheat the economy.

Just a passing trend?

Most economists are still looking at the trend with serenity, however. In their opinion, the development is mainly based on temporary factors. The US service sector is back in normal mode in many places. Prices for air travel and hotel accommodation are picking up again and are well above the previous year’s level, says chief economist Thomas Gitzel from VP Bank. “So there are so-called base effects at work once more.” At the same time, the shortage of semiconductors is now at least indirectly affecting consumer prices. If there are no new cars due to a lack of semiconductors, customers switched to used cars. These would have become significantly more expensive. Gitzel predicts that the price level will slowly drop from a high level in the summer months. The US Federal Reserve (Fed) claims that inflation will only pick up temporarily. Because compared to the previous year, the economic downturn in the Corona year 2020 resulted in high rates of price increase. That is why the central bank has not yet seen itself under pressure.

Little movement on Wall Street

Wall Street barely reacted to the renewed surge in inflation. The Dow Jones rose by 0.6 percent, the S&P 500 even jumped to a record high. The US dollar gained against the euro. So investors do not anticipate a tightening of monetary policy in the US for the time being. In the eurozone, too, the money locks are still strongly open. The European Central Bank (ECB) is sticking to its trillion-dollar anti-corona crisis program (PEPP) and plans to expand bond purchases in the next quarter compared to the first three months of the year. In doing so, the central bank wants to avoid tightening the financing conditions for companies, states and private households.

ECB raises inflation forecast

The rising inflation hardly worries the euro watchdogs . The higher euro will dampen inflation, said ECB President Christine Lagarde. Nonetheless, the ECB raised its inflation forecast. According to the central bank, inflation should be 1.9 percent in 2021. In March, the ECB was still assuming an increase of 1.5 percent. For 2022, the monetary authorities expect an annual price increase of 1.5 percent and for the following year unchanged at 1.4 percent. According to the ECB, inflation that is too high can lead to a price spiral. Higher prices mean consumers get less goods for their money. So they demand higher wages in order to be able to maintain their standard of living. In turn, in order to pay the higher wages, companies continue to raise the prices of their products. On the other hand, permanently low prices are seen as a risk for the economy: companies and consumers could then postpone investments – in the hope that it will soon become even cheaper. In the medium term, the ECB is aiming for an annual inflation rate of just under two percent. In Germany, the inflation rate is already above this level. In May the Consumer prices compared to the same month last year by 2.5 percent , the highest value since September 2011.

Especially, in the first quarter of this year, Vietnam’s mango exports earned 125.2 million USD, up 30.6% over the same period in 2020. However, these days, the price of mangoes at the market has dropped sharply. For example: An Giang low-seeded mangoes are reduced to 9,000-15,000 VND/kg depending on the type, many places sell for 15,000 VND/kg, Vip Taiwanese mangoes are only 7,000 VND/kg, Australian mangoes are advertised. As for export goods, the price has also decreased to 15,000 VND/kg,… Not only that, mangoes are also landing in the markets in extremely large quantities. So, on the “online market” instead of selling by weight as before, mangoes are now sold in sets of several pounds or sold in boxes. Mangoes are being sold on the “web market” for as cheap as vegetables Wholesalers said that currently Vietnamese mangoes are as cheap as vegetables, retail by weight, shipping is more expensive than mangoes. So, they switched to selling in sets of a few pounds or in boxes for convenience. Ordering a whole box of 15kg Taiwanese mangoes for only 95,000 VND, Ms. Doan Thi Thanh Hai from Nguyen Cong Hoan (Ba Dinh, Hanoi), said: “A box for only 95,000 VND, the price is only about 6,700 VND/ kg”. According to Ms. Hai, in the past, she often had to buy Taiwanese mangoes with flat seeds at the price of 35,000-45,000 VND/kg depending on the time. 4 days ago, she also ordered Australian mango with large fruit, red skin, ripe yellow inside, sweet and delicious, priced at only 15,000 VND/kg. “In previous years, Vietnamese mangoes were usually more expensive,. And now the opposite. At the market, Chinese mini mangoes cost up to 25,000-30,000 VND/kg, while Vietnamese mangoes are as cheap as vegetables,” she commented. Therefore, on this occasion, Ms. Hai did not buy foreign fruits anymore, but switched to buying Vietnamese mangoes to support farmers to consume products. The retail price of mangoes at the market mostly fell to less than 10,000 VND/kg (photo: BH) On the “online market”, Vietnamese mangoes are also crowded with customers because the price is so cheap. Most women choose to buy in boxes of 9-15 kg/barrel because the price is cheaper than buying in sets, 3-5 kg/set, depending on the type. Talk to PV. VietNamNet, Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy – a large online fruit seller in Cau Giay (Hanoi) admitted that on this occasion most mango prices have dropped sharply. Some are halved, some are now only 1/3 of what they used to be. Ms. Thuy said that on this occasion, she sells many kinds of mangoes such as: acacia mango, Australian mango, Taiwanese mango, flat-seeded mango, etc. However, each time she imports a different type of mango for customers to choose from. . Mangoes do not retail 1-2kg as before, but are divided into 5kg bags or sold in boxes of 9-15kg. “Because of the unprecedented low price, on this occasion, the number of customers buying mangoes has increased dramatically,” she said and revealed that it is normal for her to consume about 1-2 tons of mangoes a day. One day, she sold out more than 3 tons, because most of the customers bought by the box. Like last week, she sold out about 10 tons of mangoes of all kinds. On this occasion, the harvest season was in full swing with the Covid-19 epidemic, so the price of mangoes at the growers plummeted (photo: BH) Ms. Bui Thi Tram from Hoang Van Thai (Thanh Xuan, Hanoi), also said that in the past half month, she has consumed around 1 ton of low-seeded mangoes every day. “A lot of people will not believe it. But low-seeded mangoes are very cheap. Big and beautiful fruit is only 15,000 VND/kg I sell in sets of 5kg, customers buy less than 1 set, buy 2 sets more, so the amount of mangoes sold every day is very large,” she shared. Last April, many growers in An Giang and Long An said that mangoes were in the harvest season but faced difficulties in exporting due to the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic, so the price plummeted. Ms. An, a mango farmer in Chau Doc (An Giang), lamented that if Hoa Loc mango was purchased for 40,000 VND/kg, now it only sells for 20,000 VND/kg, Thai mangoes are still sold. 15,000 VND/kg, Taiwanese mango varieties are sold at the garden for only 3,000 VND/kg. Traders buying mangoes in Long An also said that because mangoes in the southern provinces were in the midst of a busy harvest and encountered an epidemic, the price dropped. Accordingly, acacia mangoes reduced to 4,000-5,000 VND/kg, Cat Chu mango 9,000-10,000 VND/kg, Hoa Loc sand mango 15,000-17,000 VND/kg.

Apple AirTag becomes an interesting accessory for Apple users As noted at the Mobile Institute system – Phone retail system with on-site repair and warranty repair, the first unit to bring the Apple AirTag locator to Vietnam market, the number of customers coming to buy navigation devices AirTag is quite large, after 5 days of opening, nearly 300 products have been sold, of which the 4-pack combo accounts for 40%. Currently, the price of AirTag sold at Mobile Institute is quite good, only 1.09 million VND and 3.99 million VND for a combo of 4 devices. This is considered an attractive price for Apple’s cult navigation line. According to the forecast, by the end of May and the beginning of June, the price of the navigation device will be stabilized after a period of launch, the price of AirTag may return to VND 790,000 and the 4-pack combo will cost VND 2.79 million. . The AirTag is a small circular tracker that attaches to things like wallets, bags or keys and allows users to track items in the “Find My” app on iOS. Using Ultra WideBand technology and U1 chip, AirTag can accurately measure their distance from iPhone and return the exact location. AirTag is an accessory with many smart gadgets worth owning.

In the past 2 years, across forums and groups of online markets, many small traders are selling butterfly pea flowers at prices ranging from 450 to nearly 700 thousand VND/kg. It is worth mentioning that despite being sold at a price as high as that of precious medicinal herbs, many people are still willing to pay for it. On the internet market, butterfly pea flower tea is sold a lot. Screenshots. In the early days of May of the solar calendar, Ms. Tran Thu Minh, 29 years old in Kim Ma, Hanoi started selling butterfly pea flower tea. According to Ms. Minh, this is the second year she sells this flower tea and is interested by many people. This type of climbing flower has purple-blue, dark blue-white flowers, but the most common is purple-blue. Illustration. This 29-year-old woman said: “ Butterfly pea flower is no stranger to many people. Because this type of climbing plant is grown as a fence in many countryside. Or many families plant them as a flower bed in front of the porch or in the corner of the garden to keep cool. This type of climbing flower has purple-blue, dark blue-white flowers, but the most common is purple-blue. When I was a child, my house in Nam Dinh also had a fence of butterfly pea flowers and their flowers fell all over the path, but no one picked them up because they didn’t know its use was so great. That day, only occasionally at home with her mother’s five-color sticky rice, she sent her children out to get butterfly pea flowers to create a beautiful purple-blue sticky rice. Or sometimes mom cooks jelly on summer days with butterfly pea flowers to feed “. It was not until 2 years ago, when many people discovered the wonderful health benefits of butterfly pea flowers, that Ms. Minh’s family began to collect wild purple-blue flowers that were not mixed with branches and stalks and were recruited. These are carefully selected to dry in the sun and then dry. Many people use fresh flowers to dry in the sun and then dry them to make butterfly pea flower tea. Illustration. Because of selling natural, safe and reasonable flowers, this woman gradually gained the trust of women: “ Usually my house has a lot of regular guests. They also know that this flower does not keep fresh for long, so they often have to dry it and then dry it. In fact, every 7-8kg of fresh flowers is 1kg of dried flowers. Due to being so sophisticated, the price of this flower tea is quite expensive “. It is known that 100g of butterfly pea flower tea is being sold by Ms. Minh for 106,000 VND. Customers who buy 200gr cost 177 thousand VND. Buying 500gr costs 360 thousand VND. And customers who buy 1 kg will get a discount of 680 thousand VND: “ Last year, there was a time when I also sold dried butterfly pea flower tea for 800-900 thousand VND/kg. But this year the epidemic is like this, so the price of butterfly pea flowers is also very affordable so that any customer who needs it can buy it. “, said Ms. Minh. Customers buying butterfly pea flower tea are mainly office women. Illustration. This small trader also shared, the buyers are mainly office ladies. They usually buy 1-3 ounces to dye sticky rice, jelly, cakes, jams or brew tea to drink. A few customers often order a kilogram to brew tea to drink daily to nourish and support health. As an office woman with 2 children, Ms. Nga, 40 years old (Thuong Dinh, Hanoi) loves to make cakes and drinks. Therefore, every year she buys half a kilo of dried butterfly pea flowers to color the cakes and drinks. “ I buy half a kilo and it’s enough for a whole year to make cakes and drinks because there are quite a few. The rest, I also bought 1 kg separately for my grandmother to drink every day. 1kg is a lot, use it for a whole year. Because mixing water, just 1 flower is enough for 1 cup of water to drink. As for making cakes or sticky rice, I just bring 3-5 flowers to create color.” , Ms. Nga shared. This person also shared, the market currently sells 2 types of fresh flowers and dried butterfly pea flowers. But buyers should buy dried flowers because they are easy to store and use. The price per kilogram of dried butterfly pea flowers is quite expensive. Illustration. In addition, these topics for sale of flowers that used to be fences attract a lot of attention from online users and online markets. Many people think that, with 1 kg of dried flowers that cost from half a million to nearly a million, it is also reasonable because to earn 1 kg of dry is not easy, must go to many places to collect and be dried according to the standards. However, many people do not believe their eyes when the flower that grows in full fence is sold at such a high price.