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We previously noted that both beef and pork (courtesy of the affectionately named Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus) prices have been reaching new all time highs on an almost daily basis. It is time to update the chart. Below we show what a world in which the Fed is constantly lamenting the lack of inflation looks like for beef prices...

link only: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-11/nsa-said-to-have-used-heartbleed-bug-exposing-consumers.html

CORE INFLATION UNEXPECTEDLY RISES Matthew BoeslerApril 15, 2014, 8:30 AM      Inflation unexpectedly accelerated in March due to increased costs of food and shelter, according to just-released data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Both the headline consumer price index and the "core" price index (which excludes food and energy prices) advanced 0.2% in March from the previous month, ahead of consensus estimates for a 0.1% rise in both series, matching February's pace. The year-over-year change in the core index rose to 1.7% from 1.6%, while the year-over-year change in the headline index was boosted...

Friday, April 11, 2014 The Truth About Buying Gold And Silver Every day, the radio airways and cable news broadcasts are filled with advertising from "gold bug" companies who are trying to convince you to buy both gold and silver. There are dozens of them: Goldline, Lear Capital, Rosland, Merit, and so on. All of whom claim that, by holding these precious metals, you are being protected against inflation as a result of massive government spending and the devaluation of the dollar, or, protected against another recession, depression, or stock market crash. The problem is that all of those claims...

(Reuters) - U.S. producer prices recorded their largest increase in nine months in March, but that jump will probably not ignite inflation pressures as economic growth remains moderate. The Labor Department said on Friday its seasonally adjusted producer price index for final demand increased 0.5 percent last month, after slipping 0.1 percent in February. The increase last month, which was the largest since June last year, reflected a surge in the prices of food and trade services. "Will inflation accelerate? Probably, but not rapidly," said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pennsylvania. "Growing demand should stabilize...

The State Of The Big Four Recession Indicators Doug Short, Advisor Perspectives April 4, 2014, 6:25 PM Note from dshort: This commentary has been revised to include today's release of the March Nonfarm Employment data.Official recession calls are the responsibility of the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee, which is understandably vague about the specific indicators on which they base their decisions. This committee statement is about as close as they get to identifying their method. There is, however, a general belief that there are four big indicators that the committee weighs heavily in their cycle identification process. They are: Industrial...

The fear of deflation serves as the theoretical justification of every inflationary action taken by the Federal Reserve and central banks around the world. It is why the Federal Reserve targets a price inflation rate of 2 percent, and not 0 percent. It is in large part why the Federal Reserve has more than quadrupled the money supply since August 2008. And it is, remarkably, a great myth, for there is nothing inherently dangerous or damaging about deflation. Deflation is feared not only by the followers of Milton Friedman (those from the so-called Monetarist or Chicago School of economics), but...

Japanese Prepare For "Abenomics Failure", Scramble To Buy Physical Gold Tyler Durden 03/28/2014 10:42 -0400 As we reported yesterday, the world's most clueless prime minister, Japan's Shinzo Abe, has suddenly found himself in a "no way out" situation, with inflation for most items suddenly soaring (courtesy of exported deflation slamming Europe), without a matched increase in wages as reflected in the "surprising" tumble in household spending, which dropped 2.5% on expectations of a 0.1% increase in the month ahead of Japan's infamous sales tax hike. How does one explain this unwillingness by the public to buy worthless trinkets and non-durable...

The Census Bureau’s Philadelphia office wasn’t just corrupting the nation’s unemployment rate by fabricating data. It was also filing false information about inflation in this country. Just how large an effect this fraud was having on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) — and consequently the cost of living adjustments for Social Security recipients and others — is not yet known.

On March 17, a team of radio astronomers announced they discovered purportedly direct evidence for cosmic inflation—a critical component of the modern Big Bang model. To make this discovery, the researchers used a specialized telescope called BICEP2 located on the Antarctic plateau.1 Radiation that has its strongest intensity in the microwave portion of the electromagnetic spectrum comes to us from all directions in space. Secular researchers interpret this cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) as "relic radiation" from a time about 400,000 years after the alleged cosmic explosion. Now, a team of astronomers led by John M. Kovac of the Harvard-Smithsonian...

The Real Inflation Fear - US Food Prices Are Up 19% In 2014 Tyler Durden 03/26/2014 10:20 -0400We are sure the weather is to blame but what happens when pent-up demand (from a frosty east coast emerging from its hibernation) bumps up against a drought-stricken west coast unable to plant to meet that demand? The spot price (not futures speculation-driven) of US Foodstuffs is the best performing asset in 2014 - up a staggering 19%...(snip)We're not allowed to post charts from Bloomberg so you'll have to click to the site to see the chart.

Why Food Prices Are Surging Matthew Boesler Mar. 25, 2014, 12:06 PM Since the beginning of the year, food prices have been on a tear. In a new report, Morgan Stanley commodities analysts led by Adam Longson attribute the surge in prices to a number of factors, "from weather (in the case of sugar, soybeans and coffee) to disease (in the case of hogs) to geopolitics (wheat and corn)." The Morgan Stanley analysts don't believe this will continue. "To date, weather concerns in South America have proven overstated, as evidenced in the recent declines in sugar prices," they say. "Tensions...

A common argument for dumping the Euro is that it is overvalued, and that the ECB (European Central Bank) is unwilling to correct this so-called “problem.” This overvaluation is regularly cited as being over 10 percent against the dollar. The Swiss central bank surrendered control of its money supply by fixing its currency at 1.2 against the Euro essentially on the notion that its currency was “overvalued.” Advocates of a Euro breakup consider that a country with its own currency can then follow an independent monetary policy ensuring a competitive exchange rate. Never mind that neither the USA nor Great...

Harry Dent predicts mild inflation, then massive deflation, then mild inflation.

Just a month ago we warned that food inflation was on its way. Today we got the first confirmation that problems are on their way. While headline data washes away the nuance of what eating, sleeping, energy-using human-beings are paying month-in and month-out, the fact, as WSJ reports, that beef prices surged by almost 5% in February - the biggest change since Nov 2003 - means pinching consumers and companies pocketbooks that are still grappling with a sluggish economic recovery. "Things are definitely more expensive," exclaimed on mother of three, "I can't believe how much milk is. Chicken is crazy...

She’s been derided in academia for decades: Panels disparaging her works are not unusual at the Modern Language Association’s annual confab. Yet and still, her virulent atheism has made her controversial on the right, where, it would seem, she would find a more sympathetic audience. Nevertheless, when it came to worldly matters, she was uncommonly prescient. For one thing, the Russian-born novelist had a keener understanding of the U. S. Constitution than many American Constitutional law professors do today. “The Bill of Rights was not directed against private citizens, but against the government—as an explicit declaration that individual rights supersede...

U.S. producer prices fell in February, dragged down by falling costs for services and offering little sign of a pickup in inflation pressures. The Labor Department said on Friday its seasonally adjusted producer price index for final demand dropped 0.1 percent last month. U.S. inflation has held at a very low level in recent years because of a persistently high unemployment rate. This is expected to push the Federal Reserve to keep its benchmark interest rate near zero for many more months even as the central bank dials back its monetary stimulus. Prices received by the nation's factories, retailers and...

A record 9.63 million households had a net worth of $1 million or more last year, a 58 percent increase from 2008. The number of affluent households worth between $100,000 and $1 million also went up in 2013 There was a record 9.63 million households in the U.S. with a net worth of $1 million or more last year, according to new market research. The number of millionaire households surged 58 percent from a dip in 2008, when there were 6.7 million households worth $1 million or more (not including primary residences). In 2007, there were 9.2 million households worth...

Stock markets around the world fell today, led by the 246 point dive, or 1.5%, for the U.S. Dow Jones Industrial Average and the 1.9% drop for German stock market index.  Analysts generally pointed to worries about a shrinking Chinese lending and the potential trade war between Russia and the West, but I am more concerned that since the beginning of 2014 food prices have skyrocketed.  The Federal Reserve must be concerned that their international support for “cheap money policies” to stimulate economic growth may be funding commodity speculation that is driving prices higher and creating wide spread misery. If...

The Federal Reserve’s seemingly endless program of quantitative easing (QE) begun under Ben Bernanke, and continuing at a slightly slower pace under Janet Yellen, has some of the punditry and much of the electorate up in arms. With good reason. Implicit in quantitative easing is the horribly obtuse notion that central banks can produce real economic growth through their monetary machinations. If only life were so simple. Back in the world of the reasonable, the sole purpose of money is as a stable measure of value that facilitates the exchange of goods and investment. Quantitative easing, by its very name,...