by James Rickards
Daily Reckoning

Trump will begin his first 100 days with an emphasis on his economic plans.

His core economic team is already announced including Russell Vought as Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Jamieson Greer as U.S. Trade Representative, Kevin Hassett as Director of the National Economic Council, Scott Bessent as U.S. Treasury Secretary, and Howard Lutnick as Secretary of Commerce.

Hassett and Bessent will form the core of this team with Greer taking the lead on tariffs and Vought taking the lead on budget deficits and fiscal policy.

Trump’s economic policy will be built around what are called the Three Arrows. That’s a name adopted by the new Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. He took the name from the Three Arrows policy of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who announced them in 2012.

Continue Reading at DailyReckoning.com…

from CNBC Television

from Visual Capitalist

Visualized: Food Inflation in the U.S. (2015-2025F)

Over the past decade, U.S. food prices have fluctuated significantly, reflecting economic, environmental, and global factors. But where is the trend headed?

This bar chart, sponsored by Brazil Potash, uses data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to show U.S. food inflation from 2015 to the forecasted 2025.

The Inflation Peak of 2022

From 2015 to 2019, annual food price changes in the U.S. hovered below 2%, signaling a period of stability. The lowest came in 2016 at 0.3%. However, the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 disrupted this trend, pushing prices up by 3.4%, followed by a sharper climb of 3.9% in 2021.

In 2022, food prices increased by 9.9%, the fastest of any year since 1979. That same year, food-at-home prices increased by 11.4%.

Continue Reading at VisualCapitalist.com…

from Yahoo Finance

by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street

Energetic backpedal from the aggressive monster-rate-cut trajectory envisioned by the markets three months ago.

The FOMC voted today to cut the Fed’s five policy rates by 25 basis points, with 1 participant dissenting, (Cleveland Fed president Beth Hammack who preferred no cut).

And participants see only two cuts in 2025, after economic growth, labor market growth, consumer income and spending, the acceleration of inflation, and big up-revisions of the data this fall have changed the scenario from that infamous soft landing to cruising at a fairly high altitude at an above average speed.

Continue Reading at WolfStreet.com…

from Kitco NEWS

by Money Metals
GoldSeek

The Money Metals Midweek Memo celebrates its milestone 50th episode with host Mike Maharrey delivering an in-depth analysis of economic principles, investment trends, and the current state of the gold market.

This episode offers valuable guidance for navigating an increasingly volatile financial landscape.

The Economic Principle of Scarcity

Maharrey begins by highlighting scarcity as the cornerstone of economic thought. Scarcity reflects the reality that human wants are unlimited, but resources are finite. This fundamental principle underscores the necessity of efficiently allocating resources – a task Maharrey argues is best handled by free markets rather than central planning.

Continue Reading at GoldSeek.com…

from Palisades Gold Radio

by Martin Armstrong
Armstrong Economics

Our models do not indicate that food inflation will ease in 2025. In fact, I have repeatedly warned that people may want to stockpile food for the next two years as there will be weather events and supply chain shortages. Our model warns that we may see another severe drought, probably between 2025 to 2027, in both the US and Canada. The drought conditions are already beginning, and this is in line with our model, which warns it will expand into the 2025-2027 period.

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon announced last week that he expects persistent high prices at the grocery store. “I don’t know what the whole year is going to look like. I hope and I think it could be better as these commodities adjust — some of them,” he said per GroceryDrive. According to McMillon, he was “disappointed” at where food inflation was currently and cited that eggs and dairy were the main problems.

Food prices shot up during the pandemic and never fully recovered. Then the was in Ukraine hurt Europe’s food supply in a major way. In America, the Food Industry Association conducted a study that revealed food inflation in America rose 25% since the pandemic, and recently rose 1.1% on a monthly basis in November.

Continue Reading at ArmstrongEconomics.com…

from Proactive Thinker

by Simon Moore
Forbes

The Consumer Price Index for December 2024, will be released on January 15 2025 giving insight into recent inflation trends. Current nowcasts suggest that inflation may come in at a 2.9% headline annual rate, marking an acceleration from November’s figures of 2.7% annual inflation. However, core inflation which removes food and energy is forecast to remain flat at 3.3% compared to November. Nowcast data is based on real time observed prices for December, and so these estimates will update over the remaining weeks of the month.

Drifting Inflation

Inflation drifting away from 2%, should that occur, may help confirm the market’s view that fewer interest rate cuts should be expected from the Federal Open Market Committee in 2025. That’s because inflation could remain stuck at closer to 3% than the FOMC’s 2% annual target and that may prompt the FOMC to retain slightly more restrictive interest rates. Inflation would likely be less of a focus for policymakers if the job market weakened significantly, but for now unemployment is only moving up relatively slowly.

Continue Reading at Forbes.com…

from CNBC Television

by John Binder
Breitbart.com

Tariffs planned by President-Elect Donald Trump next year will not spike inflation, incoming trade advisor Peter Navarro says.

“We put on significant tariffs on China — steel, aluminum, dishwashers, solar, a lot of increased countervailing duties to stop the dumping. We had zero inflation from any of that,” Navarro told CNBC on Tuesday.

“So I would say that just go back and play all the interviews that were done on CNBC of people back in the first term with their hair on fire, worrying about inflation,” Navarro continued. “It never happened, and it’s the same movie this time.”

Indeed, as Breitbart News has chronicled, research has continuously shown that tariffs on foreign imports under Trump are unrelated to inflation that reached record highs under President Joe Biden following the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act.

Continue Reading at Breitbart.com…

from KSBY News

from King World News

It appears “transitory” inflation is back on the rise again. Take a look…

Inflation Is Back On The Rise

December 17 (King World News) – Gerald Celente: U.S. inflation is rising again.

In October, the annual rate moved up to 2.6 percent from 2.4 percent in September. In November, the pace edged up to 2.7 percent. The Consumer Price Index added 0.3 percent from the month before.

Last month, the core inflation rate, which excludes prices for energy and food, rose at 3.3 percent, its fastest clip in 18 months as vehicle prices jumped, due in part to drivers replacing cars and trucks lost in recent hurricanes.

Continue Reading at KingWorldNews.com…

from Wealthion

by Rick Newman
Yahoo! Finance

YouTubeTV just raised the cost of its basic service by $10 per month—a 14% price hike. If you’re on top of your email, you might have seen the notification. But you won’t see any mention of the price hike where you actually consume the product, on your television or other streaming gizmo.

Consumers have grappled with unusually high inflation for the last three years, an economic burden that may have cost incumbent Vice President Kamala Harris the 2024 presidential election. Harris and her boss, President Joe Biden, have repeatedly pointed to steady progress in bringing inflation down since it peaked at 9% in 2022. But inflation has morphed into a different creature than it was in 2022, and it’s proving difficult to slay.

Continue Reading at Finance.Yahoo.com…

from Kerry Lutz's Financial Survival Network

by John Carney
Breitbart.com

As the Federal Reserve prepares to decide on another interest rate cut this week, people close to President-elect Donald Trump’s economic team are urging caution, warning that inflation risks may be underestimated even as price growth has moderated in recent months.

“Powell had better be careful with these rate cuts,” said a person familiar with the team’s thinking. “Bidenflation may not be dead.”

The concerns reflect unease about a series of factors that suggest the economy remains strong, with persistent inflationary pressures that could complicate the Fed’s efforts to balance growth and price stability. A key point of concern is that underlying inflation remains elevated. Core services inflation, excluding shelter—a metric often cited by Fed officials, including chairman Jerome Powell, as a proxy for entrenched price pressures—stood at 4.2 percent in November.

Continue Reading at Breitbart.com…

from CNBC Television