The October Consumer Price Index data came out this week. They expected it to come in hot. But not this hot. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey digs into the CPI numbers, along with another inflation index that looks even worse, and he wonders out loud how anybody can still buy into this “transitory” inflation narrative.
When we talk about “inflation,” most people immediately think about rising prices. That is indeed one of the effects of inflation. But that isn’t inflation itself. Properly defined, inflation is an increase in the money supply. In fact, that used to be the standard definition of inflation. Over time, the government has changed the definition. Today, pretty much everybody defines inflation as rising prices.
The mainstream blames inflation on “supply chain bottlenecks.” But they have it completely backward. In reality, Federal Reserve-created inflation is causing the supply chain mess.
In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey answers listener questions. Some of the topics covered include bitcoin, fractional reserve banking, the silver/gold ratio, gold as a safe haven, precious metals in a crisis, and more.
Have you heard the latest news on the fake debt-ceiling fight?
The Senate has approved a measure to kick the can down the road a couple of months. So, the “fight” will continue!
The $480 billion increase raises the debt limit to $28.9 trillion, but that’s only going to last until Dec. 3. That means we have time for more political theater. Yippee!
Inflation continues to run rampant, eroding our purchasing power even as policymakers continue to tell us there’s nothing to worry about. The US government continues to run up unfathomable levels of debt. We continue to endure a repeating cycle of booms and busts as Fed and US government policies blow up bubbles that inevitably pop.
It’s easy to get caught up in the news of the day and look at these issues in isolation, but there is one factor that ties them all together – fiat money. As economist Thorsten Polleit put it, “Basically everything bears their fingerprints: the economic and financial system, politics—even people’s cultural norms, values, and morals will not escape the broader consequences of fiat currencies.”
Consumer prices have been rising precipitously this year. If you annualize the Consumer Price Index through the first five months of 2021, you get a CPI increase of over 6%. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell continues to push the narrative that inflation is transitory, but not everybody buys into this storyline. On the Wolf Street Report, Financial Analyst Wolf Richter said Powell’s temporary inflation is turning into an “inflation spiral.”
We got another round of hotter than expected CPI data this week. The mainstream financial media is spinning this as good news. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap, host Mike Maharrey digs into the CPI data without the rose-colored glasses. He also talks about an announcement by a major restaurant chain that may well be a canary in the coal mine. His conclusion – in the end, economics wins.
High inflation is the worst-kept secret out there, but the government, central bankers and financial media have all downplayed the threat. The folks at the Federal Reserve keep telling us that rising prices are “transitory,” the product of a robust and fast-moving post-pandemic economic recovery.
One of the reasons often given for rising prices is “supply chain bottlenecks” caused by the sudden recovery in demand. But a dive into the data reveals that most commodity prices have risen in tandem in an environment of wide levels of spare capacity, and in some cases, even overcapacity. The supply chain isn’t the problem. The money is the problem.
There’s been some chatter in the financial media about the decline of the gold market. Gold is a relic of the past and crypto will replace it as the go-to safe haven and inflation hedge, according to some. But as host Mike Maharrey explains in this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, the demise of the gold market is greatly exaggerated. A lot of people still want gold. Mike also touches on the national debt in this episode. It’s even worse than most people think.
