from NBCLA
Easter Inflation: Cost of Eggs, Chocolate Soars
by Olivia Rondeau
Breitbart.com
The price of Easter is nearing a historic high as inflation and supply chain issues send the cost of holiday staples such as eggs and chocolate soaring.
The average cost of a dozen eggs is about $2.99, according to data from the Federal Reserve obtained by USA Today. While this figure is lower than the whopping average of $4.82 that consumers were paying last year, the price is creeping back up — partially due to the bird flu.
Outbreaks of bird flu, or avian flu, have a direct correlation with the rise and fall of egg prices. Consumers faced the brunt of record-high inflation under the Biden administration in 2022, but the price of eggs was still noticeably impacted by a January 2023 flu strain, KIRO7 reported.
A more recent outbreak that began in November “caused prices to go up in the months after,” the outlet said.
Markets Mixed After U.S. Inflation Data, China Figures Give Boost
Asian markets were mixed Monday after data showed a slight uptick in US inflation but Federal Reserve boss Jerome Powell said the reading was “in line with expectations”.
from France24
Traders were also cheered by a big jump in Chinese factory activity that fuelled hopes that the world’s number two economy may have bottomed out.
The advances came after the Dow and S&P 500 ended at records Thursday, with the latter chalking up its best first quarter since 2019.
Long-awaited figures on the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index — the Fed’s preferred gauge of inflation — showed a small on-year rise in March compared with February, though the core reading eased slightly.
Powell said the report “is pretty much in line with our expectations” and decision-makers were on track to hit their long-term inflation target of two percent.
Price Inflation Comes From Government, Not From “Excuseflation” or “Greedflation”
by Douglas French
Mises.org
Followers of the Austrian school of economics know that the term inflation refers to increasing the quantity of money or money substitutes. The result being a rise in the price of goods and services or a fall in the value of money. But, in the modern era, this rise in prices is called inflation and as Ludwig von Mises wrote, “This semantic innovation is by no means harmless.” The semantic change has people looking everywhere but where they should to blame for higher prices.
Bloomberg’s Enda Curran writes, “A prolonged period of elevated inflation has left consumers cranky and eager to cast blame.” With the term inflation evidently getting tiresome, Curren lists some new price increase buzzwords and phrases.
Curse of Easy Money: U.S. Government Interest Payments On the Ballooning Debt v. Tax Receipts, Higher Interest Rates, Inflation
by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street
Biggest Drunken Sailors of all. Average interest rate on the Treasury debt spiked but is still only half of what it was in 2001.
Interest payments as a percent of tax receipts is the primary measure of the burden of the national debt on government finances – to what extent interest expense is eating into the national income. So the ballooning national debt, now at $34.6 trillion, comes together with rising interest rates on that debt. Interest rates have risen because inflation has roared back after decades of slumber. But inflation also inflates tax receipts over the longer term.
So higher inflation is now the third element in the mix – ballooning debt, higher interest rates, and higher inflation. In Q4, 2023:
Inflation Remained Elevated in February
by William J. Luther
The American Institute for Economic Research
When inflation picked back up in January 2024, many commentators described it as more noise than signal. The latest data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) casts doubt on that view.
The Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index (PCEPI), which is the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation, grew at a continuously compounding annual rate of 4.0 percent in February. The PCEPI has grown at an annualized rate of 3.3 percent over the last three months and 2.5 percent over the last six months. Prices today are 8.7 percentage points higher than they would have been had they grown at an annualized rate of 2.0 percent since January 2020.
BlackRock’s Fink: Inflation Will Be Sticky, but That’ll ‘Help’ Since Wages Are Rising, Food ‘Moderated’ – It Was Bad Before
by Ian Hanchett
Breitbart.com
During an interview aired on Tuesday’s broadcast of CNBC’s “Mad Money,” BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said that he thinks “we’re going to have higher inflation than most people believe, and much of that is going to help those people who are worried. Wage inflation is continuing. Food inflation has moderated in the last six to 12 months.” But we failed to account for how bad it was in late 2022 and early 2023.
Host Jim Cramer asked, “[H]ow do we convince them, like we were convinced by our parents, that we are going to make more than they did? I knew, from day one, my father said, you will make more than I do, and that’s what’s going to happen to you. And I had, every Thanksgiving, … you’re going to make more than I do. My kid — no kid I know thinks they’re going to make anywhere near what our generation did.”
Expect Massive Market Distortions to Worsen as Inflation Accelerates
from King World News
Investors around the world need to expect massive market distortions to worsen as inflation accelerates.
Expect Massive Market Distortions To Worsen
March 27 (King World News) – Gregory Mannarino, writing for the Trends Journal: Despite a world economy contracting at its fastest pace on record, stock prices are rising at a staggering pace. Here in the United States alone in just the first three months of the year, the stock market has hit a new record TWENTY TIMES!
There are several dynamics in play right now which are driving stocks higher. Let’s outline a few of these dynamics to better gauge if this phenomenon will continue, or not.
Gold Advances as Rate Cut Bets Firm Ahead of U.S. Inflation Test
by Anjana Anil
Reuters.com
March 26 (Reuters) – Gold prices climbed on Tuesday, as expectations of interest rate cuts by the U.S. Federal Reserve firmed, while investors waited for data due later in the week for underlying inflation trends that will help gauge the timing of these cuts.
Spot gold rose 0.2%, to $2,176.59 per ounce, by 02:01 p.m. EDT (1801 GMT), having jumped as much as 1.3% earlier in the session.
U.S. gold futures settled 0.04% higher at $2177.2.
Amid Canada’s Huge Immigration Surge, Population Growth Hits 3.2%, Fuels 10% Rent Inflation, Even as Home Prices Drop
by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street
The record 1.27 million immigrants that arrived last year have to live somewhere.
Canada’s population jumped by 1.27 million people in 2023, to 40.77 million by January 1, an increase of 3.2% from a year ago, the highest year-over-year growth rate since 1957 (3.3%), Statistics Canada said today in its report on the exploding growth of Canada’s population, driven by a huge wave of immigrants; 98% of the population growth came from immigration.
And this sudden population growth has been putting enormous strains on the rental housing market, where rents have spiked, and continue to spike. And it has had a number of other effects that pressure Canadians in their daily lives.
Is Javier Milei Making Argentina Great Again?
The new Argentine president is popular with American libertarians, but his record at home looks increasingly populist and authoritarian.
by Antonella Marty
Reason.com
In January, Argentine President Javier Milei went to Davos, Switzerland, to lecture the rich and powerful about the miracles of capitalism. During his speech at the World Economic Forum, Milei explained to his audience that entrepreneurs are heroes, socialism leads to corruption, and private property is the key to prosperity.
In his address, he referenced Israel Kirzner, an Austrian-school economist and disciple of Ludwig von Mises, who is far outside the intellectual mainstream. He even named his cloned dogs after iconic free market economists Murray Rothbard, Milton Friedman, and Robert Lucas Jr. Many libertarians have been thrilled to hear their ideas articulated so eloquently by the leader of South America’s second-largest nation, sparking widespread enthusiasm.