Agricultural commodities just surged above the Russian invasion levels, reaching near-decade highs.
This surge is expected to have significant implications for inflation in the global economy, potentially driving food prices substantially higher.
It's worth noting the strong… pic.twitter.com/nkrKO7bs5D— Otavio (Tavi) Costa (@TaviCosta) March 15, 2024
Biden’s administrative decisions fuel $700 billion deficit increase, exacerbating inflation.
Took 2.5 months to go from $34 trillion to $34.5 trillion in gross federal debt. Running high deficits keeps inflation artificially elevated. Biden has made $700 billion worth of administrative decisions to increase deficits, as I show in my latest research (links below) t.co/dqLo8XVakI pic.twitter.com/9DDtnIKXec
— David Ditch (@DavidADitch) March 18, 2024
Price Inflation Is Sticky and That’s a Problem
Price inflation is like the gum on the bottom of your shoe that you just can’t scrape off. Or maybe it’s like a movie theater floor after a big premiere.
It’s sticky.
And that’s a problem.
The CPI data for February wasn’t anything to panic about. But nobody is throwing a party either. That’s because, like that gum adhering to your tennis shoe, it just won’t go away.
And that should come as no surprise given the amount of money the Federal Reserve and the U.S. government have injected into the economy since 2008.
Annual CPI rose by 3.2 percent, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That headline number was 0.1 percent higher than last month. The projection was for CPI to remain unchanged at 3.1 percent.
For folks keeping score at home, annual CPI was 3.1 percent in November.
On a monthly basis, CPI heated up a little more, with prices rising 0.4 percent after a 0.3 percent increase in January.
For a little perspective, prices have gone up by nearly 1 percent (0.9%) in the last three months. That annualizes to 3.6 percent, so the trend appears to be hotter, not cooler.
Excluding more volatile food and energy prices (as if anybody can exclude those things from their budgets) core CPI was also up 0.4 percent. On an annual basis, the core CPI dropped to 3.8 percent, down from 3.9 percent last month. This is the only number in the entire report pundits, government officials and central bankers can spin as good news. And they probably will.
In reality, the core data underscores the stickiness of price inflation. It has been hovering around the 4 percent range since July.
www.moneymetals.com/news/2024/03/12/price-inflation-is-sticky-and-thats-a-problem-003044