Monday was tax day.
I don’t know about you, but my wallet is lighter. As always, I had to write a big check. But I took solace in the fact that I’m helping create a more civilized society!
American consumers are spending more, getting less, and borrowing more to fund this involuntary spending spree.
Retail sales in March were 7% higher than they were in the stimulus-fueled March of 2021, but thanks to inflation, they didn’t get as much bang for their buck.
This analysis focuses on gold and silver within the Comex/CME futures exchange. See the article What is the Comex? for more detail. The charts and tables below specifically analyze the physical stock/inventory data at the Comex to show the physical movement of metal into and out of Comex vaults.
On July 23, 2020, CNBC published an article by Elizabeth Schulze headlined: Here’s why economists don’t expect trillions of dollars in economic stimulus to create inflation.
That one didn’t age well, did it?
Bonds continued to get hammered. On Tuesday morning, the yield on the 10-year Treasury rose above 2.9%, and the yield on the 30-year is knocking on the door of 3%. Since bond yields rise as bond prices fall, this indicates a serious decline in the bond market. In his podcast, Peter Schiff said that at some point, the market is going to actually crash.
If the Fed is fighting inflation and has ended quantitative easing, why is its balance sheet still going up?
In the week ending April 13, the balance sheet grew by $27.9 billion, hitting a new record of $8.965 trillion. This is up about $3 billion from its previous high in March.
The Consumer Price Index hit 8.5% on an annualized basis in March, the highest level since 1981. In an attempt to get ahead of what everybody knew would be bad news, the Biden administration started blaming Russia for the big CPI before the data even came out. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, “We expect March CPI headline inflation to be extraordinarily elevated due to Putin’s price hike.” The mainstream media quickly picked up that mantra. Peter Schiff appeared on the Megyn Kelly show and explained why this is a false narrative.
We got the CPI data for March this week. As expected, prices spiked significantly again last month. A lot of people in the mainstream are calling it “Putin’s price hike.” Friday Gold Wrap host Mike Maharrey says it would be more appropriate to call it Powell’s price hike. In this episode of the podcast, he digs into the CPI data and explains why the blame for high prices is largely misplaced and inflation probably hasn’t peaked.
The mainstream seemed to take the March CPI data as good news. With core CPI coming in below expectations, the narrative is that we’ve probably hit peak inflation. But the producer price data that came out yesterday tells a different story.
As expected, the March Consumer Price Index was smoking hot with a 1.2% month-on-month increase and an 8.5% annual gain. But the mainstream found a silver lining in the numbers. Core inflation wasn’t quite as high as expected leading many to conclude that we’ve reached “peak inflation.” In his podcast, Peter Schiff said this is just wishful thinking.
