Why the cost increase?

This hypothetical lays the issue out pretty clearly:

"Consider a hypothetical world where the pandemic had never happened, and instead the economy kept growing as forecasters in January 2020 had expected it would, with the various segments of G.D.P. retaining a steady share of the economic pie.

Services consumption in the second quarter remained 7.4 percent below the level it would have maintained in that alternate universe, while spending on durable goods remained 34 percent higher.

Those are extraordinary shifts in what the economy is being asked to produce, and it is hardly shocking that the physical goods side of the economy would be straining at capacity in light of such an epic reallocation of demand."

None of this surprising. I'm not even going to get into micro economic analysis. Crazy pricing within individual markets is likely to be the new norm going into future.

I believe we are now in the beginning days of a new realization of increasingly scarce resources. We will see a coming devaluation of equity the world has never seen. Panic and reactionary thinking taking hold, division and angst clearly seen. The glass is no longer half full, better see the glass with reality eyes. Of course, there will still be winners, but many more losers. Limited short term vision always puts us in worse positions than enlightened self interest would take us. Sorry for the bad news. If someone has a reality based positive future lets hear it,  will take innovations not yet produced.

You're lucky.  The last 2x4 I saw here was $12.50.   Were you aware that there was a pandemic?  And not all those you apparently consider flunkies (loggers, saw-mill operators, truck-drivers) were able to work full-time?   Or that others, like yourself, who sadly were not able to travel overseas (O woe!) put their money into home construction?   Stop whining.

oldhvymec

You didn’t go deep enough on your research. What the government does when it appears to take money from Social Security is skim off earnings of the surplus that is invested in bond funds. Money that comes in today goes right back out tomorrow to pay benefits. Any remaining surplus is invested in bond funds. Those bond funds generate earnings and only those earnings are used by Congress on other projects. So they don’t actually "raid" the Social Security fund, they use the earnings from invested surplus. But maybe most telling in your reply was that you didn’t show even slightly how Clinton’s budgets weren’t balanced, regardless of what was done with Social Security. Instead you went off on some unrelated and pointless topics which will disappear anyway when this entire thread is deleted by the moderators.

To think I just wanted to build some speakers. Even the speakers went up, I've been using for 15 year, from 111.00 if I bought 4 or more to 174.00, I think.. Best 10" driver on the market.. 

https://www.parts-express.com/Dayton-Audio-RSS265HO-44-10-Reference-HO-DVC-Subwoofer-295-463

How much of a mark up is that? 63.00 per driver? That's NUTS!!
I guess they ran out of aluminum cans or something. A shortage of CANS, really.. That driver is made of just that..

I get ticked but it is a heck of a driver even at 177.00. 12 drivers cost 800.00 MORE.. 6 per column. About 700.00 increase per column.

Worse than 9-11 by a long shot. I've never seen that much money waisted in my LIFE.. The Waste watching bridges for a year.. The nutsy Koo Koo waste of overtime payments for doing nothing.. Totally out of control.. Now setting and getting paid to NOT WORK.. NUTS.. 

Both sides and not a sane one in the bunch.. Really really broke..

Just to build a set of speakers and fix my house. My Lord..

I'm just waiting for the booster, shot LOL