What exactly is “transitory?” You and your wife may disagree on its meaning when your old friend asks if he can stay with you while he “Sorts things out.” The term is virtually worthless without some guiding context, as in “Honey, he’ll be out of here by Monday. Tuesday the latest.”
In the Federal Reserve’s new world of “transitory” inflation, Americans are paying more to get less.
Retail sales were up 0.6% from May to June. According to the Commerce Department, American consumers spent $621 billion on retail goods and services last month. With the big 1.7% drop in May, retail sales remained below levels in March and April.
Chinese gold imports have nearly returned to pre-pandemic levels and the world’s biggest gold market continues to recover.
According to the latest data reported by the World Gold Council, China imported 67.6 tons of gold in May. That was 65 tons higher than May 2020 and only three tons lower than May 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic gripped the country.
PBS Frontline recently released a documentary titled “The Power of the Fed.” Peter Schiff watched it and offered his analysis of the show on his podcast. He said the documentary missed the real power of the Fed — the power to destroy.
The US government continues to borrow and spend at a torrid pace, running massive deficits month after month.
The US national debt currently stands at nearly $28.5 trillion. That doesn’t account for the trillions of unfunded liabilities. And there is no end to the spending in sight. There are trillions of dollars in new spending programs coming down the pike.
After hotter than expected CPI data came out for the sixth time this year, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell spent two days on Capitol Hill trying to convince everybody that there’s no problem. As Peter Schiff put in in a recent podcast, the Fed is betting the farm on “transitory” inflation. It’s really got no other choice.
This analysis focuses on gold and silver data provided by the Comex/CME Group. See the article What is the Comex for more detail.
Silver: Recent Delivery Month
First Position Day is when contracts must post 100% margin to stand for delivery. Once delivery begins, contracts can settle in cash, or more contracts can be opened and stand for immediate delivery (usually a sign of strong physical demand). Figure 1 below shows the last 24 months of silver delivery data when compared to First Position and the day
Falling lake levels due to drought in California have revealed the ruins of an old gold mining town. The story behind Mormon Island is pretty interesting.
Early in March 1848, W. Sidney, S. Willis, and Wilford Hudson set off from their fort to hunt deer. When they stopped along the south fork of the American River, they found gold.
This was just two months into the California gold rush.
Consumer price index data came in hotter than expected. Again. The producer price index data also came in well above projections. But Fed Chair Jerome Powell continues to stick to his “inflation is transitory” story. On this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap, host Mike Maharry digs into the inflation data and highlights Powell’s comments on Capitol Hill. He concludes the story is really all they’ve got.
Despite mounting evidence to the contrary, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell stuck to his “transitory” inflation narrative during testimony before the House Financial Services Committee. That’s his story and he’s sticking to it!
