Inflation is running rampant. At first, the powers that be tried to convince us it wasn’t a problem because it was just a temporary phenomenon caused by coronavirus. (As if a virus could cause the money supply to increase.) But now, the transitory inflation narrative is dead. Jerome Powell recently admitted that it’s time to “retire” that word. The new strategy seems to be to try to convince you that rising prices are “good for you” and the broader economy. You can decide for yourself the veracity of that argument.
The price of pretty much everything is rising precipitously. The CPI for September came in above expectations with a month-on-month increase of 0.4%. Peter Schiff appeared on Unfiltered with Dan Bongino to talk about inflation in Joe Biden’s America. Peter said you should stock up now because things could get ugly really quickly.
Bongino pointed out that while wages are rising, they aren’t rising as fast as prices. Wages have risen 4.6% while inflation has surged by 5.4% — according to government numbers. Peter said that is typically the trend.
For the sixth month in a row, Consumer Price Index (CPI) data came in much higher than expected. But the question remains: how long will the Fed keep up the “transitory” inflation narrative? And when they do abandon this storyline and acknowledge inflation, what can the central bankers really do about it?
The CPI surged 0.9% month-on-month in June. It was the biggest monthly price increase of the year, blowing away expectations of a 0.5% increase. Stop and think about that number. Prices rose nearly 1% in a single month.
The Labor Department released February’s CPI numbers on Wednesday. The mainstream spin was “no inflation, nothing to see here.” But what will we find if we dig a little deeper into the numbers?
CPI was up 0.4% in February. That follows on the heels of a 0.3% rise in January. The rise was in line with expectations.
One of the biggest enduring economic myths is the notion that the minimum wage laws only help workers and have no real negative effects. The fallacy inherent in this line of thinking becomes immediately clear if we simply propose a $1,000 per hour minimum wage. After all, if $15 is good, $1,000 would be fantastic, right?
Of course, nobody would pay somebody $1,000 per hour to perform a low-skill task. It’s obviously unaffordable. A $15 per hour minimum is just as unaffordable.
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Over the last 12 months, the purchasing power of your dollar has dropped at the fastest rate since 2011.
According to the latest data released by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) jumped by 2.8% year-over-year in May. That follows on the heels of a 2.5% leap year-over-year in April.
In other words, prices are going up. That’s not good news for people who buy stuff.
Inflation is low – so we’re told. But this simply isn’t true.
Now, it is true that the consumer price index (CPI) has remained relatively low. But rising prices aren’t in-and-of themselves inflation. In fact, we can have inflation without a corresponding rise in CPI – at least in the short-term. That’s exactly what we’ve had over the last decade. We’ve had rampant inflation, but it hasn’t manifested in broad-based rising prices – yet.
Inflation came in hotter than expected at 2.1%. A CNBC report said the number “pushes the economy toward a potential danger zone for inflation.”
Analysts had expected January inflation to come in at 0.3, after being up by 0.1 the previous month. Instead, the December number was revised up to 0.2 and January came in at 0.5. As Peter Schiff pointed out in his podcast, if you multiply 0.5 by 12 months, it comes to 6% inflation per year.
In his Feb. 16 Liberty Report, Ron Paul talked about inflation and its effect on everyday Americans. He said when it comes to this subject, the mainstream is all mixed up. More significantly, the creation of new money doesn’t impact everybody equally. Some benefit at the expense of others.
