from hoser
Gold’s Highs; Inflation’s Rise
by Mark Mead Baillie
GoldSeek
Gold’s Highs … Gold just recorded its 16th All-Time Weekly High within the 44 trading weeks that have completed the first 10 months of this year. Price by Gold’s “continuous front-month contract” (at present that for December) tapped 2800 for the first time ever in reaching up to 2802 this past Wednesday.
‘Course — as has been our ongoing take of late — Gold whilst still long-term vastly undervalued per the above Scoreboard’s 3738 Dollar debasement level vs. Friday’s actual settle at 2746, price near-term remains overvalued per our following Market Value gauge. Such measure assesses Gold’s typical movement relative to that of the primary BEGOS Markets (Bond / Euro / Gold / Oil / S&P 500) which at present shows the yellow metal as +96 points “high” above its smooth valuation line to which inevitably price reverses:
A History Lesson On Inflation
by Alasdair MacLeod
Gold Money
The history of money and credit is that the separation of the two always ends in the destruction of credit. We appear to be edging close to that event again.
“While it is the duty of the citizen to support the state, it is not the duty of the state to support the citizen” – President Grover Cleveland (1885—1889)
The point President Cleveland made back in the 1880s was that individuals and vested interests had no rights to preferential treatment by a government elected to represent all. For if preference is given, it is always at the expense of others.
Those days are long gone, and the last president to take this stance was Calvin Coolidge in the 1920s, a whole century ago. He was followed by Herbert Hoover, who was very much an interventionist. As Coolidge reportedly said of his Vice-President, “That man has given me nothing but advice, and all of it bad”. Hoover was criticised for his disastrous intervention policies by Franklin Roosevelt, who succeeded in ousting him in the 1932 election, and then outdid him with even more intervention. The outflows of gold generated by accelerating government spending and the Fed’s monetary policies led to the suspension of gold convertibility for American citizens in 1933 and the devaluation of the dollar in 1934 from $20.67 to $35 per ounce of gold.
Americans Shop for Halloween Costumes at Thrift Stores as Inflation Bites Into Budgets
by Amy Furr
Breitbart.com
Inflation is pushing many families to find cheaper options for Halloween costumes this year in the Biden-Harris economy.
A Goodwill shopper in the Nashville, Tennessee, area told WSVM it is important for families to consider essentials over things such as costumes, the outlet reported on Wednesday.
“There’s no sense in us parents stressing, getting the kids the best of the top, when they would be okay with something lower, and you don’t have to worry about what to feed your child,” Tiffany Hunt said.
Families in Las Vegas are also feeling the pinch when it comes to high prices. They too are looking to make the holiday season more affordable by shopping for Halloween costumes at thrift stores, KTNV reported October 14.
Inflation Doesn’t Want to Cooperate: PCE Price Indices for Core, Core Services, and Durable Goods Worsen Further MoM
by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street
The YoY “core” PCE price index, the Fed’s yardstick for its 2% target, rose 2.65%, with no progress over the past 5 months. But energy prices plunged.
The “core” PCE price index, the Fed’s primary yardstick for its 2% inflation target, rose by 3.1% annualized in September from August (not annualized, +0.254%), the biggest month-to-month increase since April. And August was revised higher (blue in the chart below). This month-to-month acceleration was driven by:
Four Charts Examining Grocery Inflation
While high grocery prices have remained a hot topic among consumers and politicians, the annual rate of food-at-home prices has held steady at about 1%.
by Catherine Douglas Moran
Grocery Dive
Food prices have remained a hot topic among consumers and politicians — yet grocery inflation has decelerated in recent months, according to government data.
Grocery inflation reached a multi-decade high during the pandemic with a 13.5% year-over-year increase in August 2022 after steadily rising each month after May 2021. Two years later, the food-at-home rate has plummeted and now hovers close to where it was prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since December, the annual rate of food-at-home prices has held steady at about 1%. In September, the rate came in at 1.3%, according to Consumer Price Index data by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Inflation Gauge Closely Watched by the Fed Falls to Lowest Level Since Early 2021
As a presidential race profoundly shaped by Americans’ frustration with high prices nears its end, the government said Thursday that an inflation gauge closely watched by the Federal Reserve has dropped to near pre-pandemic levels
by Christopher Rugaber
ABC News
WASHINGTON — As a presidential race profoundly shaped by Americans’ frustration with high prices nears its end, the government said Thursday that an inflation gauge closely watched by the Federal Reserve has dropped to near pre-pandemic levels.
The Commerce Department reported that prices rose just 2.1% in September from a year earlier, down from a 2.3% rise in August. That is barely above the Fed’s 2% inflation target and in line with readings in 2018, well before prices began surging after the pandemic recession.
Yet some signs of inflation pressures remained. Excluding volatile food and energy costs, so-called core prices rose 2.7% in September from a year earlier for the third straight month. On a monthly basis, core prices rose 0.3% from August to September, up from 0.2% from July to August. The increase in the core rate is higher than the Fed would prefer.
Why Inflation in One Battleground State Could Sway the Election
by Aimee Picchi
CBS News
In a tight presidential race in which Americans cite the state of the economy as the most important issue, one aspect of the country’s performance could prove decisive: How voters in battleground states currently perceive inflation.
Americans rank the economy and inflation as their top two issues in the November 5 election, according to CBS News and other polls. But perhaps even more important than current price levels is how voters in key states interpret their experience with inflation, according to Bernard Yaros, lead economist at Oxford Economics.
All eyes on Pennsylvania
Yaros notes that voters’ views on inflation are particularly important in Pennsylvania, a state experts say could be a tipping point in the contest between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
You Know It’s Bad When 3.1% is Too Expensive
by James Hickman
Schiff Sovereign
The year was 1991. The shoulder pad fashion craze of the 1980s was finally coming to an end, and Kurt Cobain’s “grunge” look was in.
The Silence of the Lambs hit the theaters and swept the Academy Awards that season (with a nice chianti and some fava beans)— Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Picture.
The World Wide Web became accessible to the public that year.
The Berlin Wall was a distant memory, and the Soviet Union was dissolving in front of the world’s eyes. Gorbachev resigned on Christmas Day, and the Soviet flag was lowered over the Kremlin for the last time.
Overnight America became THE dominant, unchallenged global superpower.
The Price of Garbage is Up 18.5% Under Biden-Harris
by John Carney
Breitbart.com
The prices Americans pay for garbage collection have jumped 18.5 percent since Joe Biden and Kamala Harris entered the White House, according to data from the U.S. Department of Labor.
The consumer price index for water, sewage, and garbage collection was up 4.75 percent in September compared with one year earlier. Trash collection inflation peaked at a year-over-year rate of 5.8 percent in June of last year.
The Harris campaign was scrambling on Wednesday after Biden called Trump’s supporters “garbage” in an interview. Biden has said he only meant to refer to some of Trump’s supporters.
“The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters,” Biden said.
Understanding the Roots of Inflation
The causes of inflation are philosophical.
by Dan Schwartz
New Ideal – Ayn Rand Institute
With the recent high rates of inflation, Americans can hardly ignore the devastating effects of their lost purchasing power. Prices of food, gas, and housing are up, and retirement accounts are down. Meanwhile, as Ayn Rand said under similar circumstances fifty years ago, our leaders are “chanting that they want to help” while “pouring paper refuse on the flames.” Her lecture, delivered at the Ford Hall Forum in 1974 (when the inflation rate was 11 percent), was titled “Egalitarianism and Inflation.” She later described it as presenting “a metaphysical approach to economics: the cause, the mechanism, and the moral meaning of inflation.”
Rand’s profound analysis of inflation is as relevant today as it was then. Rand wants us to understand why mankind never seems to learn its lesson: economics alone, without philosophy, is insufficient. In this article she draws a philosophical lesson with epistemological and moral dimensions.