Bad news on the price of tools. (morphing into OT)

[Greg Cole]

Our ~4% inflation

Not including fuel, food and other basic necessities. The fabricated number for inflation is all but useless. Used to keep cost of living raises in the toilet.

I deal with all Euro manufacturers at the day job (ok, one Australian company too). In wake of the lenghty slide of the USD into the abyss, we have started either fabricating in the US for some of our suppliers. Their buying power here now is formidable, literally since the inception of the Euro, they are kicking our posterior. Trading all but on par with the AUD & CDN is bad enough, but the Euro is ridic.
I am having 40' containers of "stuff" (stuff= machined steel items for industrial food processing machinery) made here and shipped to Europe and it's still a HUGE benefit to said machine manufacturer. It's at least 25% cheaper for them per container of "stuff". Too bad as a nation in general we have NO ability to manufacture & export.

Greg

[Peter Quadarella]

Re: the 4% inflation comment - several of the posts above addressed this nicely.

Re: the comments about the USD and exporting - I don't follow that argument. The decreasing USD is a huge benefit to us when discussing exports. They make many of our manufactured goods much more attractive due to the relatively lower cost, and therefore we generate more sales. I don't understand where the problem is with more jobs being generated locally, more money coming in from other countries, and more customs fees being generated because of a lowered USD and more exports.

Doing anything in Europe has been more expensive for a while, mostly due to their higher taxes and stricter controls on employers, the USD just helps a little there. I wouldn't worry about Europe much though, look to the east for our real competitors.

[Steve Schoene]

The approx 4% number includes food and fuel. Excluding these items places the inflation rate in the 2.x percent range.