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There is a meme floating around social media that seems to prove greedy corporations – specifically oil companies – are the root cause of inflation. How does this meme stack up to reality? Short answer — it doesn’t.
Inflation wasn’t transitory. And inflation hasn’t peaked. It’s more like peak inflation was transitory.
Everybody was thrilled to get stimulus checks in the mail during the COVID-19 pandemic. “It’s free money!” many exclaimed. But nothing in life is free. This includes “free” things handed out by the government. So today, you’re paying for those stimmy checks and the government pandemic spending spree.
There are a number of signals that the US economy is getting weaker even as inflation gets stronger. In other words, we are hurtling toward stagflation.
Average people are worried about the economy. Consumer confidence has been falling. People undoubtedly feel the squeeze of inflation. But despite their general discontent, most people don’t seem to think a severe economic downturn is imminent — despite many warning signs. Why not?
The Federal Reserve has talked a lot about fighting inflation. But what has it actually done? In practice, not a lot. It has nudged interest rates up 75 basis points. And while the Fed has ended the massive quantitative easing program that it ran during the pandemic, it pushed balance sheet reduction back from May […]
It’s the Fed’s “hold my beer” moment. After more than a year in which Federal Reserve leadership appeared clueless, pollyannish, and indecisive, the Fed is conducting a full-throated messaging campaign to show that it is as serious as cancer about the inflation surge that is scaring the bejesus out of consumers, investors, and economists.
When I was about seven or eight years old, I remember my mom taking me to the bank to open a savings account. She explained that if I put some of my allowance in savings, that money would grow over time. Well, that doesn’t work anymore.
American consumers are in a sour mood, but they haven’t stopped spending money. The problem is they’re spending money they don’t have. And they’re getting less for it.
The March Consumer Price Index (CPI) was 8.5% annually, the highest since December 1981. But the mainstream narrative was that inflation had probably peaked because core inflation, stripping out more volatile food and energy, “only” rose by 0.3%. Mainstream pundits reasoned that the oil shock in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine primarily drove […]
