Baytex Energy Corp T.BTE

10 year US treasury yield

[Kelvin]

I guess spin it and interpret it anyway you want. To me it's saying that the market is pricing in long term, persistently high inflation. If true, then where to best protect your money to return you higher than the inflation rate. Where may that be? In a commodity that is getting ever scarcer that everybody needs.

[Kelvin]

https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/bond/tmubmusd10y?countrycode=bx

[Cobalt]

Almost no talking head agrees with persistently high inflation, right now the choice with them is the economy is hot as seen by Jolt numbers vs to much debt paper about to hit the market or both but inflaton has come down faster then most thought it would. Good for us all 3 lead to higher rates killing the green econmy.

[Kelvin]

Well OK, but measure inflation in how many more hours someone needs to work in order to make ends meet. Measure it in time. What could a plumber buy with after tax earnings for one hour's worth of work ten years ago compared to today?  Fact is that the published inflation rates don't come close to reflecting reality. Back when I was a kid, dad could support a family with 4 kids while

[Cobalt]

Ya that is another story i just checked the inflation calculator 1913 to 2023, 3001.3% inflation, a 1 dollar item now costs $31.01

[Kelvin]

What you're saying is that someone making $1 per hour in 1913 to buy a given basket of groceries has to work 31 hours today in order to buy the same thing. Yup, that's inflation. 

[Retiredgeo]

That's nonsense!  A union worker today makes 90X what their counterpart made in 1913 (~35 cents/hour).  Food costs have increased 10-40X in the same time period depending on the staple. Many items such as cars and houses are far more expensive today, adjusted for inflation, then they were when we were kids.  They are also larger, better built and with modern features.  If

[Kelvin]

 I just checked. A loaf of bread in 1913 cost about 5 cents or at one dollar per hour wage about 3 minutes work. What does it cost today in minutes work?

[Retiredgeo]

5 cents out of 35 is 1/7th or ~9 minutes.  A loaf of bread now costs $3.  A union worker making $20/hour takehome can afford it in ~9 minutes.  The idea that we are living worse now than 110 years ago is nonsense.

[Kelvin]

So about 3 times more time. Mom, dad working multiple jobs. 

[Cobalt]

You need to find the average wage in 1913 fast search showed manufacturing was 14 cents to 17.5 cents an hour

[Kelvin]

Yeah Cobalt, too much for me to try to normalize so that we can compare apples to apples. All that I know for sure is that my friends in Ontario said that minimum wage just went up to $16.75 per hour and people are complaining that it's still not enough to make ends meet. Some economists say that wage inflation will trigger even more inflation. Because of the months long time lag between cause

[JohnnyDoe]

When has minimum wage ever been enough to make ends meet? It is the LEAST amount of money someone can pay you for your time.  By any measure, there's far less people living in poverty in Canada today than at any point in time. 

[dllscwbysfn]

Of course raising the minimum wage is inflationary. If a person gets a raise by say 2.00/hour then one would think that the person who was already at the new wage will demand to get a 2.00/ hour increase as well because why would they settle for minimum wage. Anyway this works its way all the way up the ladder.   Businesses pass the increased cost on to the consumer, inflation.  Don

[VeritasVern]

Um, my father who was working in the 1950's made $0.50-0.60 cents an hour. I made $3/hr in 1980 at a pizza joint. The average man did not make $1/hr in 1913

[Kelvin]

Great comment! So in the 50's a man could support a baby boom family making 60 cents per hour. 

[jack4567]

That's right, VeritasVern--the average man did not make $1/hr in 1913. At the start of 1914 for example, the Ford Motor Company doubled its workers' wages from $2.50 US a day to $5.00 US for an 8-hour day.  The new pay rate was considered very high at the time..