Call it a sneak preview of Wednesday’s official release of April’s inflation figures, but American consumers expect inflation to rise — and stay higher for longer. New York Federal Reserve’s survey was released on Monday showing that consumers “have raised their expectations for both price increases in the near term and in the longer term due to higher inflation in fuel and energy prices.”
Don’t forget the coffee. Do not forget to drink coffee. I’ll get back to you on that in a moment.
CNBC reported today that the NY Fed report revealed that our expectations of inflation had “increased by 0.3 percentage points from March, and reached the highest level since November 2023.”
The Fed has set a 2% inflation target for the next five years. All of these readings, as you know, are above that goal.
Washington has stopped spending “stimulus money” that brought trillions into the economy and triggered the inflationary spiral that started in 2021. It continued until 2022. Even though the government has slowed down, I expect American consumers to be right in their darkening predictions. Washington adds [dr_evil_voice] One Trillion Dollars to its debt every 100 days, with no sign of relief.
The Big Re-Regulation Adventure of President Joe Biden and his trillion-dollar energy blunderings make it even harder for the economy’s productivity to keep up with the ever-growing supply of debt and money.
The interest we pay on federal debt is already the largest item in our ledger. It will soon surpass Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and other federal spending. When cutting the largest item will result in a default, it’s hard to make necessary cuts.
TL;DR Inflation will not go away.
Do me a favor and remember all of this on Wednesday, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its official number — especially when it comes to that morning cup of espresso.
BLS calculates inflation using a “basket” of goods that regular people purchase. They keep removing things from the basket. Coffee is the latest thing to disappear.
This is unusual:
The US BLS has announced that coffee prices will no longer be factored into CPI inflation data.
In fact, the April 2024 CPI inflation report this week will be the first to NOT include coffee price inflation.
Well, the obvious next step is to see what happened… pic.twitter.com/ibkc3HmISS
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) May 12, 2024
If BLS had continued to use the 1980 basket of goods, the rate last year would have been around 18% rather than the official figure of 10%. Even today, it would be around 8% rather than the official rate of 3.5% for March.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are lies and then there are the damned lies.
