from ABC News
Resurgent Inflation
by David Haggith
GoldSeek
In this weekend’s Deeper Dive, I dug into the many ways in which Powell’s words show a strong bias toward rate cuts that is likely to cause him to treat rising inflation like it is only transitory. That means the Fed may be as likely to let the growth in inflation go until it, again, becomes so hot it is hard to take back down. Because we never learn!
One example I gave was how Powell acknowledged January’s inflation was a lot hotter than the Fed would like to see and that February’s was climbing, though not as intensely, yet said both were likely to be “seasonal problems.” I gave a number of other examples where he was leaning too hard toward the returning rise of inflation being something that will, in his view, likely take care of itself. He admitted the Fed needs to be vigilant for the opposite prospect, as it waits to see if inflation takes care of itself … just in case the Fed is wrong.
Baltimore Port’s Closure Threatens Inflation and Bigger Deficits
by John Carney
Breitbart.com
The Port of Baltimore has been brought to a standstill thanks to the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, creating risks to the U.S. economy of additional inflation, diminished productive capacity, and larger government deficits.
The Port of Baltimore was the 17th busiest port in the nation ranked by total tons in 2021, according to the latest data available from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. It is the fourth largest on the East Coast, outsized by the ports of New York-New Jersey; Virginia; and Savanah, Georgia.
Governor Wes Moore that the port handled a record 52.3 million tons of foreign cargo, worth $80.8 billion, in 2023. That was a record high.
Moore described the port as”one of the largest economic generators” in Maryland.
CNBC Daily Open: Stubborn Inflation Complicates Rate-Cut Plan
by Sumathi Bala
CNBC.com
What you need to know today
Wall Street lower
U.S. stocks closed lower Monday taking a breather from a rally sparked last week after the Federal Reserve stuck to its rate-cut forecast. The 30-stock Dow
lost more than 150 points to dip 0.4%, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite fell around 0.3% each. Bitcoin, meanwhile, jumped 7% to retake the $70,000 level.
FTX to sell AI startup stake
Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX is selling its majority stake in AI startup Anthropic for $884 million, according to a court filing. The bulk of the stake is going to ATIC Third International Investment — a group aligned with a UAE sovereign wealth fund Mubadala. Other investors include Jane Street, venture fund HOF Capital, the Ford Foundation and funds managed by Fidelity.
Gold Holds Near Record High Ahead of U.S. Inflation Data Release
by Sybilla Gross
Yahoo! Finance
[…] The core personal consumption expenditures index, to drop on Good Friday, is expected to show inflation probably remained uncomfortably high in February. That could hinder plans by US policymakers to implement three interest rate cuts this year. Lower borrowing costs typically benefit the precious metal, which doesn’t yield interest.
Swaps markets trimmed wagers for a rate reduction in June to 65% from 69% late last week, after Fed Bank of Atlanta President Raphael Bostic on Monday reiterated his expectation for just one cut this year. Still, gold remains near an all-time high amid building momentum surrounding the central bank’s long-awaited pivot to monetary easing.
Climate Change Driving Up Inflation in Food Prices: Study
[Ed. Note: Yeah, that sounds perfectly credible. It’s that 0.03 extra degrees causing it. Uh huh. Go on.]
by Zack Budryk
The Hill
Rising global temperatures are associated with inflation in food prices, both in regions that are already hotter and in countries outside the tropics like the U.S., according to a study published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.
Researchers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the European Central Bank studied monthly price indexes between 1996 and 2021 in 121 countries. The study found food prices are the monthly inflation signal most strongly associated with the climate, which researchers attributed to the supply shocks associated with temperature increases. Both new milestones for extreme heat and shifts in average temperatures are associated with longer-term inflation. In European countries, where the summer of 2022 broke temperature records, that heat was accompanied by food inflation increases of 0.43 percentage points to 0.93 percentage points.
Why Everything Still Feels Expensive Even as Inflation Cools
by John Jennings
Forbes
Inflation has been brutal over the past few years. After decades of running below 3%, in early 2021, inflation increased rapidly as the economy began opening back up after the COVID-19 lockdowns. It peaked at 9.1% in June 2022 and has declined to its current level of 3.2%. While a 3.2% inflation rate is unquestionably better than it’s been since early 2021, it is still materially above the Federal Reserve’s 2% inflation target.
[…] Even though inflation has cooled dramatically, when I went to the grocery store this weekend to pick up a few items, I was surprised at how much my few bags of groceries cost. If inflation has been declining, why does everything still seem so expensive?
An Inflation Wave is Hitting That Will Terrify Already Shattered Consumers
from King World News
An inflation wave is hitting that will terrify already shattered consumers.
Another Inflation Wave Is Hitting
March 25 (King World News) – Peter Boockvar: In last week’s Fed dots, there were two people that wanted just one rate cut this year (also two that wanted none and I’m guessing Michelle Bowman was one of them) and notably one of them is a voting member it seems, the Atlanta president Raphael Bostic. He was also the one who warned us a few weeks ago about the pent up animal spirits that would be unleashed upon rate cuts.
Immigration Bigger Issue than Inflation, Economy
by Neil Munro
Breitbart.com
President Joe Biden’s easy-migration policies are the top issue facing the United States, according to the latest Harvard Harris poll.
Immigration — not inflation or the economy — was cited as the top issue among 36 percent of 2,111 registered voters in the March 20-21 poll from Harvard’s Center for American Political Studies.
Thirty-six percent tagged immigration as the top issue, while 33 percent tagged inflation. Twenty-three percent picked the “economy and jobs” category.
Demographically, 39 percent of whites, 41 percent of Hispanics, 28 percent of Asians, and 28 percent of people aged 25 to 34 chose immigration.
Summers: Inflation Reached 18% in 2022 Using the Government’s Previous Formula
by Avik Roy
Forbes
Numerous commentators—especially those defending President Biden’s economic record—have puzzled over why Americans are sour about the state of the U.S. economy. Unemployment rates have returned to pre-pandemic lows, they correctly point out, and the official rate of inflation is declining. So why are Americans ignoring the view of many experts that the economy is doing well?
According to a striking new paper by a group of economists from Harvard and the International Monetary Fund, headlined by former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, the answer is that Americans have figured out something that the experts have ignored: that rising interest rates are as much a part of inflation as the rising price of ordinary goods. “Concerns over borrowing costs, which have historically tracked the cost of money, are at their highest levels” since the early 1980s, they write. “Alternative measures of inflation that include borrowing costs” account for most of the gap between the experts’ rosy pictures and Americans’ skeptical assessment.
The Insanity in Our World is Driven by Money Printing
Fix the Money, Fix the World
by Marty Bent
Bombthrower
This chart has been making the rounds on Twitter this week and I think it’s a good image to send you freaks into the weekend with. It’s easy to get swept up in the chaos of the day-to-day volatility that exists in our world. Recently, our minds have been inundated with headlines about illegal immigration, squatters and the degradation of private property rights, war across the world, small battles within the larger “culture war”, increasing prices, and the decisions made by central banks around the world. In the midst of all of this chaos it is important to take a step back and remind yourself of what lies at the core of most of these issues; the fact that we’ve completely broken money.