Purchasing Power - significant shrinkage!

I do my own shopping and, since I don't change the things I usually buy often it's not hard for me to see the increased prices I'm paying over time. This weekend I noticed how many more dollars I need to buy the same stuff: items that used to me $11.65 are now $16.85 / flour went from $5.50 to $7.98. In general, my grocery bill is about 40% higher that 2021. The best investment I made during that time were my "forever stamps" which I purchased for $.44 and now I can still use them even though they cost $.66! My income hasn't increased by the same amount though, not even close! which means I'm losing money? well, not really. My purchasing power using the same dollars is shrinking. In the words of George Costanza: 'there's significant shrinkage!"

Everything that was in short supply has now come back only more expensive including credit. Everyone who uses credit is paying more for it while passing the extra cost on to consumers. Right now, many projects that were close to being finalized are finding themselves without financing. In order to replace the capital cost is going up decimating all the plans that had been carefully considered the last few months.

“The lender for our latest 30-story project in a tier-one city backed out, so we scrambled, and spoke with well over 100 banks. Not one will provide financing.” His firm is a leader in their market niche. A strong track record."

I'm seeing many new requests from business owners for a variety of financing products including CRE and short term working capital; these requests would normally be covered by their banks however right now banks aren't really lending out their capital.

“But now, we have legacy construction loans with a 4.0%-4.5% interest rate, and we’ll extend those out for the full five-year term even though the projects are complete. If we paid them back and refinanced with permanent debt, the rates would probably be 6.5% fixed with no pre-pay option or 8.5%-9.0% floating. There’s no way anyone is going to pay back those low-rate loans that were originated before the hiking cycle.”

Most of us have been conditioned to view "value" in dollars. When we think about our "Net Worth" it's always in dollars, right? House? Dollars. Bank account? Dollars again! That's why it's so hard to see when the dollar's purchasing power shrinks - right now in many American cities you need to earn over $300,000 dollars to feel as as if you earned $100,000:

"The study found that three major U.S. cities required take home pay of over $300,000 to be able to spend like you earn $100,000 per year. Among them, of course, is San Francisco: "Residents of Honolulu, New York City and San Francisco who earn this amount are taxed roughly 40.5% or higher and have a cost of living more than 82% above the national average."

Meanwhile, business owners are having to make adjustments to paying more for everything, receiveing less revenues with lower profit margins and not finding qualified employees that are willing to work:

“What is the single most important problem facing your business today?”

Inflation, and quality of labor.

For now there is still capital available from private lenders like myself in most industries. My offers include revenue factors that can fund in 48 hours for meaningful amounts up to $2MM.

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