by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street

And that’s very disconcerting.

The Producer Price Index (PPI) for final demand jumped by 6.9% annualized in February from January, on top of the 3.9% jump in the prior month. The three-month rate jumped to 3.3% annualized, the highest since September.

Part of this was driven by a renewed surge in energy cost. But the other part was driven not only by surging costs in services – we knew that – but now also by surging costs in core goods, and that’s very disconcerting.

Continue Reading at WolfStreet.com…

Gen. Z keenly aware everything costing more under Joe Biden.

by Infowars.com
Info Wars

Fox News hit the beaches of Fort Lauderdale this week to informally poll Gen. Z Spring Break revelers, asking what they think of Joe Biden’s disastrous economy and the upcoming election.

While most Zoomers were more concerned with partying, some gave interesting takes on the state of the world, with many commenting on the cost of goods increasing as inflation soars under Biden.

Check out a short clip below, where one reveler lamented the price of a Big Mac meal from McDonald’s rising by $4, an increase of 50%.

Continue Reading at InfoWars.com…

from King World News

Another inflation wave is underway, and the Fed will have to decide whether to cut rates into inflation.

Sentiment In A Stock Market Mania

March 14 (King World News) – Peter Boockvar: When highlighting stock market sentiment data strictly to take the temperature of the room and watching out for extremes, both bullish and bearish, from a contrarian standpoint, I’ve mentioned that a 40 point spread between the Bulls and Bears in the Investors Intelligence survey should be considered extreme. Well, yesterday’s survey revealed an uber extreme read as Bulls got above 60 at 60.9 while Bears fell to just 14.5 from 16 last week where you now need a telescope to find a Bear.

Continue Reading at KingWorldNews.com…

from Kerry Lutz's Financial Survival Network

by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street

“It seems unlikely that yields are going to go back to being as low as they were before the pandemic”: Yellen.

By now everyone sort of knows that inflation has been re-heating in a very disconcerting way for months, and that the inflation saga is far from over. There are all kinds of discussions about the future of inflation in the US, and it seems there is a rough common denominator forming: The future of inflation in the US is more inflation – more than there was before the pandemic, when the “core PCE price index,” the Fed’s favored measure, rarely went above the 2% line, and then only briefly and by a hair.

Continue Reading at WolfStreet.com…

from Peter Schiff

by Karl Denninger
Market-Ticker.org

And here’s the latest…

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.4 percent in February on a seasonally adjusted basis, after rising 0.3 percent in January, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 3.2 percent before seasonal adjustment.

The index for shelter rose in February, as did the index for gasoline. Combined, these two indexes contributed over sixty percent of the monthly increase in the index for all items. The energy index rose 2.3 percent over the month, as all of its component indexes increased. The food index was unchanged in February, as was the food at home index. The food away from home index rose 0.1 percent over the month.

The index for all items less food and energy rose 0.4 percent in February, as it did in January. Indexes which increased in February include shelter, airline fares, motor vehicle insurance, apparel, and recreation. The index for personal care and the index for household furnishings and operations were among those that decreased over the month.

If you recall last month I noted that a serious ramp in gasoline prices started just after the survey week so it was definitely going to show up in the numbers this month. It did.

Continue Reading at Market-Ticker.org…

by Mike Maharrey
GoldSeek

Price inflation is like the gum on the bottom of your shoe that you just can’t scrape off. Or maybe it’s like a movie theater floor after a big premiere.

It’s sticky.

And that’s a problem.

The CPI data for February wasn’t anything to panic about. But nobody is throwing a party either. That’s because, like that gum adhering to your tennis shoe, it just won’t go away.

And that should come as no surprise given the amount of money the Federal Reserve and the U.S. government have injected into the economy since 2008.

Continue Reading at GoldSeek.com…

by Christian K. Caruzo
Breitbart.com

The National Institute of Statistics and Census of Argentina (INDEC) announced on Tuesday that Argentina registered a 13.2 percent inflation rate in February, marking the second month in a row where inflation has slowed down as a result of President Javier Milei’s austerity policies.

Upon taking office in December, Milei applied a series of “shock therapy” measures to avoid a total economic collapse in Argentina after nearly two decades of socialist governments left the country teetering on the brink of hyperinflation. Milei began by undoing as many of the hundreds of socialist regulations as possible and has turned his attention towards the near-depleted foreign reserves and a convoluted currency control system.

Continue Reading at Breitbart.com…

by Alexander W. Salter
The American Institute for Economic Research

There’s been another bump in the disinflationary road. The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced the Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 0.4 percent in February and 3.2 percent year-over-year, exceeding many economists’ predictions. That’s up slightly from January’s 0.3-percent monthly and 3.1-percent annualized increases.

Much of the increase is due to shelter and gasoline prices, which the BLS reports accounted for “over sixty percent of the monthly increase in the index for all items.” Shelter prices rose 0.4 percent last month. This is a major component of household budgets, which is why the BLS weights it at roughly 30 percent of the CPI. Gasoline gets about a 3.5 percent weight, but these prices rose 3.8 percent last month alone.

Continue Reading at AIER.org…

THREE YEARS after insisting inflation was transitory, Yellen finally admits she was wrong as inflation continues to persist.

by Jamie White
Info Wars

Biden Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen expressed regret for advancing the false talking point that inflation in the U.S. was “transitory.”

After first proclaiming in 2021 that inflation was a “transitory” phenomenon, Yellen finally admitted Wednesday on Fox Business that she was wrong about inflation as it continues to persist in America.

“I regret saying [inflation] was transitory,” Yellen said. “It has come down, but I think transitory means a few weeks to months to most people.”

Continue Reading at InfoWars.com…

from TODAY

Inflation came in hotter than expected and … stocks rose sharply? Yes, that’s right. Meanwhile, digging through the financial plumbing reveals that everything Susanne Trimbath said is openly admitted to on Nasdaq’s own website publications.

by Dr. Chris Martenson
Chris Martenson’s Peak Prosperity

Inflation came in hotter than expected and – guess what? – stocks screamed higher … which is the exact opposite of what “should” happen.

But we’ve long since given up on expecting what should happen to actually happen. Stocks have been screaming higher for months on the back of the Fed and US Treasury conspiring to make financial conditions as easy as they’ve been in years. Which runs counter to this whole idea that ‘the Fed is tightening’ that is 100% not true.

Here’s what you get during such periods of time:

My explanation for the extreme desperation on display by the Fed and US Treasury is that their interventions are having to be both larger and more frequent just to keep the whole thing stapled together. Their fear seems to be along the lines of “If we let this thing deflate even slightly, the whole mess might explode in our hands and on our watch.”

Continue Reading at PeakProsperity.com…

If you can’t even get close to balancing the budget when unemployment is low, tax revenues are near record highs, and the economy is booming, when can you do it?

by Eric Boehm
Reason.com

The budget plan President Joe Biden unveiled on Monday would hike taxes, increase federal spending to unprecedented levels, and lock in budget deficits that average nearly $2 trillion annually for the next decade.

But possibly the craziest detail is the fact that the White House is trying to frame all of that as being an exercise in fiscal restraint.

No, really. In a “fact sheet” released alongside the budget, the White House touted how the proposal would cut the deficit by $3 trillion over the next 10 years. “Strong and shared growth that benefits all Americans isn’t just good for working families and the economy; it will also lead to better fiscal outcomes,” the administration claims, adding that Biden believes “long-term investments in our nation and its people should be paid for.”

Continue Reading at Reason.com…

by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street

Core services CPI — 61% of total CPI and infamous for historic head fakes — is approaching 6% annualized six-month average.

The “core services” CPI (services minus energy services) is crucial. The majority of consumer spending goes to core services, and Powell keeps talking about it. Core services includes housing costs, expressed in rent factors. And people, including Powell, have been saying that rents will eventually come down, we know that, etc., etc., so we also look at core services without housing. And both measures have been re-heating for months – with both their six-month moving averages approaching 6% annualized!

Continue Reading at WolfStreet.com…

by Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse Blog

I used to really enjoy going to the grocery store. I would relentlessly hunt for deals, and I would show off what I was able to find when I got home. But now all of the bargains are gone. Instead, there are ridiculous prices and there are even more ridiculous prices. The prices for some of the things that I normally buy have doubled. In other cases, the prices have almost doubled. Of course the soaring cost of living is the direct result of decisions that our leaders have made. They just kept borrowing, spending and flooding the system with money, and now the cost of living is wildly out of control.

According to CBS News, on average U.S. households must now spend an extra $11,434 per year just to maintain the same standard of living that they were enjoying when Joe Biden first entered the White House…

Continue Reading at TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com…

by Gabriella Cruz-Martinez
Yahoo! Finance

Americans plagued by surging prices over the past 20 months continue to face strain as the cost of meeting everyday necessities remains stubbornly high.

The Labor Department said Tuesday that the Consumer Price Index (CPI), a broad measure of the price of everyday goods, including groceries, gasoline, and rent, rose 0.4% in February from the previous month. Consumer prices were 3.2% higher than a year earlier.

While that measure is under the 3.4% inflation reading in December, it remains above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.

Read more: What the Fed rate decision means for bank accounts, CDs, loans, and credit cards

Declining prices for many goods are helping slow inflation, but basics such as housing, food, gasoline, and energy continued to come in hotter than expected.

Continue Reading at Finance.Yahoo.com…

from Gregory Mannarino

by Peter C. Earle
The American Institute for Economic Research

In February 2024, the AIER Everyday Price Index (EPI) rose 0.73 percent to 286.9. This rise was the largest percentage increase in the index since August 2023 and the eighth largest going back to January 2022 (26 months).

[…] In February 2024, the largest monthly price increases among EPI constituents were seen in motor fuel, postage and delivery services, and internet services. The largest declines occurred in intracity transportation, fees for lessons and instructions, and pet products. Among the twenty-four index constituents five fell in price, two were unchanged, and seventeen rose.

On March 12, 2024, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for February 2024. The month-to-month headline CPI number rose 0.4 percent, meeting survey expectations. The core month-to-month CPI number increased by 0.4 percent, higher than the forecast of 0.3 percent.

Continue Reading at AIER.org…

from ABC News