We’ve heard all kinds of excuses for inflation. It was COVID. It was Putin’s price hikes. It’s greedy corporations. This week, we learned it’s the millennials’ fault. As host Mike Maharrey explains in this week’s Friday Gold Wrap, all of these notions miss the mark. And they let the real culprit get off scot-free. How? They’ve redefined inflation. Words matter!
Inflation is off the chain. The CPI rose by 9.2% on an annual basis in June. As Ron Paul explains, everybody is feeling the pain. Even penguins.
Putin is causing inflation. Greedy corporations are causing inflation. COVID-19 caused inflation. We hear all kinds of reasons for the recent spike in prices. And now we have a new one. It’s the millennials’ fault.
This is all wrong and it illustrates the problem with redefining inflation to be something it isn’t.
It happened again. The CPI data for June came in hotter than expected. Prices rose at the fastest pace in this inflationary cycle. That pushes the Fed ever closer to having to make a very difficult choice. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap, host Mike Maharrey breaks down the most recent CPI data and talks about the “Sophie’s choice” facing the Federal Reserve.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell and other members of the central bank have continued to talk tough about fighting inflation. But I’m pretty certain that in private, they were desperately hoping to see some cooling in the inflation data so they could start backing out of the ring. With a recession pretty clearly on the horizon (if not already here), you can bet that the central bankers don’t want to keep tightening monetary policy.
They didn’t get their wish.
After the June FOMC meeting and the Fed’s 75- basis point interest rate hike, I argued that the central bank is totally winging it. Reading between the lines in the minutes from that June meeting seems to bear this out. The Fed appears to be in reaction mode. The question becomes what will it react to next? How long will the hawks keep flying as the economy tanks?
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell continues to insist that the economy is strong enough to withstand tighter monetary policy to fight inflation. But the economy seems to be saying otherwise. So, how will this play out? In this week’s Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey gazes into his crystal ball and speculates about what might happen over the next several months. He also tells the tale of two central bankers and discusses the current gold market.
Well-known investment advisor Rick Rule said the Fed will chicken out on its inflation fight.
Rule runs Rule Investment Media and formerly served as the president and CEO of Sprott US Holdings Inc. In a recent interview, Rule said that the Fed could get inflation under control with significantly tighter monetary policy for a sustained period of time. But he said he doesn’t think the central bank has the wherewithal to follow through when the economy starts to crash.
Ronald Reagan once said the most terrifying nine words in the English language are, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
One of the biggest problems with government help is that it always comes at a cost. And the burden of that cost almost always falls on the very people that big government claims to help – the poor and middle class.
They tried to deny it for months, but now everybody knows we have an inflation problem. The president, Congress and all of the central bankers at the Fed are trying to find ways to solve this problem. But as host Mike Maharrey explains in this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap, all of their solutions are the equivalent of dumping buckets of water on a drowning man.
