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Inflation Week

by Craig Hemke
TF Metals Report

Here we go with a new week. Pending are the latest inflation numbers as well as an update on US retail sales. Also pending…who knows? So let’s just take it day by day and see where we are by Friday.

I hope you had a relaxing weekend with the knowledge that not only did gold extend from its all-time highs on Friday, the 1st, it extended by almost a full $100. My concern as last week began was that The Banks might come for us as they did in early December but it appears that the intervening 90 days allowed them time to get their books in order. Here’s one more look at last week….

Continue Reading at TFMetalsReport.com…

What to Expect from February’s CPI Inflation Report

by Simon Moore
Forbes

Consumer Price Index data for February is expected to show relatively high monthly inflation on nowcast estimates compared to recent data. If this forecast holds, that would be similar to January, where inflation sees a relatively high monthly increase, but stays close to 3% in terms of the annual inflation rate.

When Is The February CPI Report?

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics will release CPI data for the month of February 2024 on Tuesday, March 12 at 8:30 a.m. ET. This will come roughly a week ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s next scheduled meeting on March 20.

Continue Reading at Forbes.com…

Gold Price Rally Stalls with Eyes on U.S. Inflation Data

Gold price clings to all-time highs and awaits US Inflation data for further action.

by Sagar Dua
FX Street

Gold price (XAU/USD) rally hit a pause in Monday’s European session as investors await the United States Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for February, which will be published on Tuesday. The precious metal takes a breather as the inflation data will provide cues about the US interest rate outlook.

The Gold price remains near all-time highs as yields on interest-bearing government bonds were hit hard after the Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP) report indicated that the labor market conditions are cooling. The 10-year US Treasury yields drop to 4.07%. The US Dollar Index (DXY) also exhibits a subdued performance, trading at around 102.73. On Friday, the USD Index recovered after printing a fresh seven-week low near 102.35.

Continue Reading at FXStreet.com…

Fact Check: Joe Biden Claims Inflation Trending Down

by Paul Bois
Breitbart.com

CLAIM: President Joe Biden said during his State of the Union address that the record inflation that has crippled the nation during his tenure has been trending down.

VERDICT: Misleading. While it’s true that inflation has fallen from nine percent to 3.1 percent, it has been trending upward for the past three months.

The monthly pace of inflation began to rise in November and has increased in each subsequent month, according to the Department of Labor’s consumer price index.”

“Biden brags ‘wages keep going up’ (real earnings are down 2.1% under Biden) and “‘inflation keeps coming down’ (overall prices are up nearly 18% under Biden). ‘Bidenomics’ is a FAILURE!” the RNC posted on X.

Continue Reading at Breitbart.com…

Gold Spurred By Fed Pricing Still Below Inflation-Adjusted Peak

from Zero Hedge

Authored by Ven Ram, Bloomberg cross-asset strategist,

Gold is still hovering near a nominal record, but the scope for further gains from here may be limited.

Bullion approached $2,200 an ounce last week, annexing a new record, though stated in real terms, gold is still shy of its previous peak set more than a decade ago. Even at current levels, an investor who bought gold at the end of 2012, when it was trading around $1,675 an ounce, would still be sitting on losses of more than 3% after adjusting for the corrosive effect of inflation on the dollar.

Continue Reading at ZeroHedge.com…

Oh… Canada: These Unclaimed Dead Bodies Are Stuck in Limbo in Freezers Outside the Health Sciences Centre

Cadavers accumulating in storage units as cost of living — and dying — rises

by Anthony Germain and Mike Moore
CBC

A smattering of nondescript storage containers sit nestled on a concrete slab in a back alley in St. John’s, taking up a couple of hundred square feet between the Janeway children’s hospital and Memorial University’s school of medicine.

A large, bright green dumpster is pushed up against the rail that cordons them off.

Anyone making use of the nearby busy parking lot — only a stone’s throw away — would likely pay no attention to the scene.

But the containers are actually freezer units, and inside are dozens of corpses in body bags. Twenty-eight was the most recent number they held, CBC News confirmed, but that number changes daily as bodies are added or removed during the night.

The morgue at the Health Sciences Centre in St. John’s uses the containers as overflow storage. Bodies are placed in the freezers until the next of kin can claim them.

But some are no longer claiming the bodies of their loved ones. Inflation and the cost of living are eating away at pocketbooks, leaving very little left over for the costs of cremation or other funeral services.

Continue Reading at CBC.ca…

Fed Chair Powell Delivers Semi-Annual Monetary Policy Report to Congress

from Zero Hedge

In prepared remarks, released ahead of his ‘Humphrey-Hawkins’ testimony this morning, Fed Chair Powell reiterated to lawmakers that the US central bank is in no rush to cut interest rates until policymakers are convinced they have won their battle over inflation.

“The committee does not expect that it will be appropriate to reduce the target range until it has gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2%,” Powell confirmed.

The snoozer of prepared remarks simply reiterate the more-hawkish stance that has appeared recently after proclaiming the pivot prompted rational exuberance in every quarter of the markets.

Continue Reading at ZeroHedge.com…

When the Debt Supercycle Bubble Bursts the Pain Will Be Enormous

Bubbles exhibit a “final blow-off top” right before they burst. We’re in that stage right now. The evidence is compelling. What happens next? And how should you prepare? Tune in to find out.

by Dr. Chris Martenson
Chris Martenson’s Peak Prosperity

Imagine, if you will, a world where Nvidia is “worth” more than Saudi Aramco. That’s in quotes because it’s a ridiculous notion.

But it’s also the current ‘reality.’

But we’re surrounded by numerous examples of bubble charts, ones where it’s impossible to distinguish their shape from that of the infamous Tulip bubble of 1634 to 1637. And it’s across all western markets including Germany and Japan’s equity markets, and it’s flitting effortlessly from one stock (Apple) to another (Nvidia).

But what will happen when the mega bubble finally bursts? Will it be a new dark age? Quite possibly, which is why I desperately want to warn people so they can become more resilient and prepared.

Continue Reading at PeakProsperity.com…

$1 Trillion in 100 Days!

by Brian Maher
Daily Reckoning

How does a man descend into bankruptcy?

Gradually — then suddenly — in Mr. Hemingway’s famous telling.

The United States government has passed beyond bankruptcy’s gradual phase.

It has entered bankruptcy’s sudden phase.

Mr. Michael Hartnett, Bank of America’s chief strategist:

“The U.S. national debt is rising by $1 trillion every 100 days.”

United States debt first scaled $1 trillion 205 years after its inception. And today?

Continue Reading at DailyReckoning.com…

High Costs, Greenlash Hit Europe

by Nikolai G. Wenzel
The American Institute for Economic Research

The eyes of the world may be on the US presidential election. But another, usually sleepy campaign is underway: European Parliament elections in June 2024. Most of the action takes place in the executive and bureaucracy (the European Commission). But Parliament must approve laws. This could have interesting results for the European Union (EU) Green Deal.

The Green Deal was first implemented in 2019, with a series of environmental measures. Most notably, the EU committed to cutting CO2 emissions by 55 percent by 2030. The EU is set to push for carbon neutrality by 2050, a measure that will require approval from the newly installed parliament. But, since the summer of 2023, the Green Deal has been on regulatory pause, as the EU faces a “greenlash” against environmental policies. In the face of inflation, consumers and trade groups are starting to resent the cost of environmental regulation. Over the past few months, proposals on industrial pollution, pesticide restrictions, and conservation have all been tabled at the EU level. A ban on new combustion engines, effective 2035, still stands, but it is facing increasing resistance.

Continue Reading at AIER.org…

The Sindex: Cigarette Prices Outpacing Inflation

The Reason Sindex tracks the price of vice: smoking, drinking, snacking, traveling, and more.

by Jason Russell
Reason.com

Inflation stressing you out? Making you wish you had just a touch of nicotine in your system? Unfortunately, that’ll cost a lot. While prices economywide have risen 3.1 percent in the last year, cigarette prices have jumped 8 percent. On top of federal and state taxes that often make up half the price of a pack, tobacco companies tend to raise their prices faster than inflation to make up for declining sales volume. These and the rest of the numbers in the Reason Sindex use data from November 2023.

Continue Reading at Reason.com…

Axelrod: Messaging About Democracy is for Those with ‘Privilege’ to Not Worry About Inflation

by Ian Hanchett
Breitbart.com

On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Source” CNN Senior Political Commentator and former Obama Adviser David Axelrod stated that while he thinks President Joe Biden is doing a good job as President and that he’s concerned about the democracy issue in the 2024 election, people who are “are people who aren’t concerned about what they paid for their groceries that are on the kitchen table,” and that “if you don’t have the privilege not to” avoid “living with the concerns about inflation and sort of the day-to-day concerns of life,” “you’re probably not talking about that.”

Axelrod said, “I feel desperately concerned about this issue…I think Trump 2.0 will be the delta variant of democracy.

Continue Reading at Breitbart.com…

Inflation Soars, Powell’s Plane Dives

by David Haggith
GoldSeek

If inflation screams and no one hears it, does an airplane fall in the forest? That’s a good question for today. Inflation ripped upward, and the stock market shrugged it off as if it heard nothing, while a good part of the media reported satisfactory results … but not everyone because some saw it as horrible. So, let’s start with the really bad news that almost everyone ignored and then end at the really mundane and predictable news that almost everyone on Wall Street focused on.

To start off with, a few mainstream stories did hit the bad news right up front. Yahoo! reported,

Fed’s Preferred Inflation Metric Increases by Most in a Year

One would think that’s not good news about inflation. First, let’s note the title tells us this is THE measure of inflation the Fed looks at most intently when setting monetary policy.

Continue Reading at GoldSeek.com…

Worst Monthly Spike of “Core Services” PCE Inflation in 22 Years, and Not Just Housing: Powell’s Gonna Have Another Cow

by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street

Core services inflation dished up bad head fakes last time we had this mess in 1966-1982. Mention of a rate hike crops up in a Fed speech.

Over the past year or so, the Fed has been intensely discussing inflation in “core services,” which is where inflation had shifted to in 2022, from goods inflation which had spiked into mid-2022 but then cooled dramatically. So “core services” is where it’s at. Core services is where consumers spend the majority of their money. Core services are all services except energy services. Core services inflation has been behaving badly for months, and in January, it spiked out the wazoo.

Continue Reading at WolfStreet.com…

White House: Inflation ‘Very Close to Normal’ and Prices ‘Moving in the Right Direction’, but They’ll Go Up

by Ian Hanchett
Breitbart.com

During an interview with ABC News on Thursday, White House Senior Adviser Gene Sperling stated that “people have been through a tough few years” but the PCE (Personal Consumption Expenditures) price index reading is “very close to normal” and “prices are moving in the right direction” and “moderating.” But you can’t expect them to not go up.

Sperling said, “It’s been a tough few years since the pandemic,” but “inflation is coming down. In fact, it was really 2.4% in this measure, 2.8% if you don’t include food and gas. And that’s not good enough, but it is very close to normal. And there are a lot of different areas where you have seen prices come down.”

He added, “I think people have been through a tough few years and they went through 2022 when you had the variants and the global economy was getting back and you had supply chain issues and they saw prices come up.

Continue Reading at Breitbart.com…