from Kitco NEWS
Trump’s Treasury Pick is Scott Bessent. He’s Said It’s Absurd to Fear ‘Trump-Flation.’
Hedge-fund manager Bessent was among a flurry of cabinet selections announced by Trump late Friday
by Victor Reklaitis and Robert Schroeder
Market Watch
Bessent, who for months has been viewed as a likely choice for the Treasury post, has called for a second Trump presidency to focus on deregulation, increased energy production and a lower federal deficit. He also has defended the president-elect’s economic policies from the charge that they would boost inflation, telling MarketWatch in July that it was “absurd” to think they’d be inflationary.
Three Unusual Inflation Hedges
by Adam Sharp
Daily Reckoning
As we float in the trough following the first wave of inflation, bracing for the next, it seems an excellent time to review a few alternative inflation hedges.
Today we’ll examine the benefits of owning firearms, farmland, and fixed-rate mortgages during inflationary periods. Let’s get started.
Inflation Hedge No. 1: Firearms
I’ve honed my “firearms as a hedge” pitch to perfection. I’ve found that it works fairly well on skeptical wives when one needs to justify certain purchases.
But it’s also real. High-quality firearms tend to hold their value remarkably over time. As long as they are properly stored and maintained, firearms tend to keep pace with inflation.
Egg Shortage and Price Increase Hit U.S. Amid Holiday Season
by Amy Furr
Breitbart.com
Americans may find it hard to get eggs this holiday season because of bird flu outbreaks and the economy.
There has been a shortage of eggs in some stores across the nation, CBS News reported on Friday, noting the businesses in states that require eggs from cage-free hens have been affected by Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI).
“More than 40% of the nation’s roughly 300 million egg-laying hens are raised in cage-free facilities, but roughly 60% of ‘bird flu’ cases recently detected involved cage-free farms,” the report continued. There have been outbreaks recently in Utah, Oregon, California, and Washington, per Emily Metz, who is the chief executive and president of the American Egg Board.
She added that the reports of shortages are coming from grocery stores such as Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s. Meanwhile, shortages related to the virus have caused egg prices to rise, and experts predict the cost may remain high into 2025.
Does Government Spending Cause Inflation, and Did Biden-Harris Make it Worse?
by Daniel de Visé
USA Today
Prices rose 2.6% between October 2023 and the same month in 2024, an unremarkable figure.
Yet, inflation seems to be on everyone’s minds.
This month, higher prices helped deliver the presidency from the Democrats to Donald Trump. A CBS News Election Day poll showed three-quarters of voters considered inflation a hardship.
“I think that cumulative inflation is the main reason people were annoyed, going into this election,” said?Ryan Bourne, an economist at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.
The emphasis here is on “cumulative.” Inflation has eased, but prices are likely higher for good: about 21.4% higher since February 2020, according to an?analysis?by the personal finance site Bankrate.??
Fed’s Barkin Says U.S. is Vulnerable to Inflation Shocks, FT Reports
by Reuters
Yahoo! Finance
(Reuters) – The US is more vulnerable to inflationary shocks than in the past, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Tom Barkin said in an interview with the Financial Times published on Thursday.
[…] Barkin said he expected inflation to continue dropping across the US while cautioning that businesses were passing on costs to consumers more readily than in the past.
“We’re somewhat more vulnerable to cost shocks on the inflation side, whether they be wage-[related] or otherwise, than we might have been five years ago,” Barkin told the FT.
Oh… Canada: Liberals Wanted to Rename Inflation to ‘Heat-Flation’ to Show Effects of Climate Change On Prices
from Western Standard
In an attempt to link rising living costs with climate change, the Canadian government explored renaming inflation as “heat-flation,” documents reveal.
Blacklock’s Reporter said focus groups rejected the idea, showing little support for the term.
A report from the Privy Council Office dated April 24 indicated that in-house research was conducted on the concepts of “climate-flation” and “heat-flation” to see if Canadians would connect with the terms.
According to the report, Continuous Qualitative Data Collection Of Canadians’ Views, none of the participants had previously heard of the phrases.
Business Inflation Expectations Show No Sign of Tariff Price Pressure
by John Carney
Breitbart.com
One of the most important signals of future inflation suggests that businesses do not expect increased tariffs to increase costs.
Business inflation expectations were unchanged at 2.2 percent in November, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s monthly survey of around 640 businesses in six states. That is lower than the 2.4 percent inflation expected a year ago.
The survey asks businesses to forecast their own costs rather than the prices they charge. Tariffs are levied on imports and directly paid by companies that import goods but may be offset by changes in the value of the dollar compared with foreign currencies. When President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on some imports from China during his first term, the dollar rose against China’s currency, largely eliminating any increased costs to importers.
Inflation Isn’t What You Want it to Be, It’s a Shrinkage of the Dollar
by John Tamny
Forbes
Inflation is all over the news and commentary today, particularly after a presidential election that was allegedly all about it. The problem remains that few who utter the word grasp its singular meaning.
This includes Stanford professor Jennifer Burns, who not-so-ironically wrote a book about Milton Friedman. Friedman had his own problems with the definition given his view that increases in so-called “money supply” that he somehow knew the non-inflationary quantity of was “always and everywhere” evidence of inflation.
In Burn’s case, a recent opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal indicates she wants inflation to be different things at different times. Quoting Keynes and his classic line about debauching the currency as the best way to overturn ‘”the existing basis of society,”’ Burns happened on the correct – and yes – non Friedman-ite view of inflation: a shrinkage of the unit.
Expect Hyper-Accelerated Currency Devaluation in 2025
from King World News
Investors around the world need to buckle up because the world is going to see hyper-accelerated currency devaluation in 2025.
November 20 (King World News) – Gregory Mannarino, writing for the Trends Journal: The people of the world and the economy of the world are in a transition phase. A transition into a new system with a new set of rules.
Global debt is surging as the world economy is free-falling. Here in the U.S., we have factory activity, manufacturing, industrial output, along with business activity overall in contraction.
Moreover, ever since the beginning of the year we are getting mass corporate layoffs (which was one of my main “themes” I said would happen at the end of last year moving into 2024). With that, debt and deficits continue to HYPER-INFLATE.
ECB’s Own Measure of Wage Increases Blows Fuse, Sets Off Alarms About Stubbornly Hot Services Inflation
by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street
Meanwhile, the ECB’s QT marches on, balance sheet has shed €2.45 trillion since the peak, or 59% of its pandemic QE.
The ECB’s own measure of wage increases, its index of “Negotiated Wages,” is based on collective bargaining agreements after they were negotiated between employers and organizations that represent workers. It’s a forward-looking measure, reflecting wage increases that are going to be implemented soon. “Negotiated wages” cover about two-thirds of the Euro Area economy. These “negotiated wages” exclude bonuses, overtime, and other individual compensation that is not linked to collective bargaining.
And it blew a fuse today. In Q3, “negotiated wages” spiked by 5.4% year-over-year, according to the ECB today, after the false-hope deceleration in Q2.