Inflation continues to eat up your paycheck.
For the 21st month in a row, average hourly earnings failed to keep up with rising prices.
The CPI data for December buoyed markets and raised hopes that the Federal Reserve is winning its war against inflation. But in his podcast, Peter explained that the Fed isn’t winning the war. It is losing and will ultimately surrender to inflation.
The US government ran an $85 billion budget deficit in December, according to the Monthly Treasury Department Statement. That was much lower than November’s massive $248.5 billion shortfall, but don’t be deceived by the drop. December is typically a low deficit month. The relatively big shortfall indicates the federal government is on a trajectory to blow past the $1.38 trillion fiscal 2022 deficit.
Peter Schiff recently appeared on Dan Bongino’s Unfiltered on Fox News to talk about the economy, inflation, the stock market, the Federal Reserve and investing in 2023. Peter said the recession that everybody denies exists is going to get worse, and so is inflation.
The Federal Government ran a deficit of -$85B in December. While this was much smaller than the deficit posted in November, it marks one of the largest December deficits ever.
That pushed then 2022 calendar year deficit to over $1.4 trillion.
The CPI cooled again in December driven by a massive fall in Energy prices. As shown below, the fall in Energy has been a big reason for the recent drop in inflation. Commodities have also been a driver down as Used Cars and Trucks fell -2.5% MoM and -8.8% YoY. That said, stickier items like Shelter continue to increase.
The headline numbers from December’s CPI report give the impression that price inflation is continuing to cool. Markets are giddy at the prospect. But in this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey argues that “cooling” price inflation is most likely transitory and the markets still don’t really understand the Fed’s position. He also gives an overview of gold’s performance in 2022.
Based on the headline numbers, price inflation cooled again in December, boosting market optimism that the Federal Reserve will continue to ease off the pedal on its monetary tightening. But this could be setting the stage for more price inflation down the road.
And a deeper look at the data reveals that a lot of inflationary pressure remains despite the optimistic headlines.
A bill introduced in the Alaska House would exempt gold and silver bullion from local sales tax and make them both legal tender in the state. Ending the sales tax would relieve some of the tax burden on investors, and take a step toward treating precious metal bullion as money instead of a commodity.
Business school professor Greg Harmon says investors should consider gold and silver as portfolio diversifiers in 2023.
Gold and silver were among the best-performing assets in 2022. As Wall Street suffered through its worst year since 2008, gold eked out a small gain on the year.
