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The consumer price index rose by 0.1% in May, bringing the annual rate of inflation to 2.4%. Excluding food and energy, the core CPI came in respectively at 0.1% and 2.8%. Energy prices fell 2% last month, with gasoline experiencing a 2.6% decline that marked nearly a 12% year-over-year decrease. Fuel oil is down 9.6% for the year, but rose slightly by 0.9% on the month. Energy services rose 0.7% MoM and 6.2% YoY. Electricity ticked up 0.9% for the month; 3.6% for the year. Utilities have been experiencing a notable downtick after declining 1% in May and 15.7% for...

I have been saying this for a while now, but I think the Federal Reserve is fighting a mythical “boogeyman” that doesn’t exist. According to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, the Fed wants “greater confidence” that inflation is cooling. And not just in headline numbers, but in core services and housing, where inflation has remained stubbornly sticky. So, the Fed’s decision to hold key interest rates steady last week was no surprise. And it wasn’t a shock either to learn that they are still in “wait-and-see” mode. But as I mentioned in a Market 360 article last week, I think they’re...

Before the presidential election, many Democrats were puzzled by the seeming disconnect between “economic reality” as reflected in various government statistics and the public’s perceptions of the economy on the ground. Many in Washington bristled at the public’s failure to register how strong the economy really was. They charged that right-wing echo chambers were conning voters into believing entirely preposterous narratives about America’s decline. What they rarely considered was whether something else might be responsible for the disconnect — whether, for instance, government statistics were fundamentally flawed. What if the numbers supporting the case for broad-based prosperity were themselves misrepresentations?...

We don’t like to be killjoys, but is anyone else paying attention to the huge spike in commodity prices over the past two months? The CPI is back at 3% according to the latest government report, and investors cheered that it wasn’t worse. But we feel confident in predicting it’s going to get worse quickly. In just the past two weeks, commodities like gold, silver, oil, and corn have spurted by more than 5% – coincident with the ongoing Biden spending spree in the first three months of fy2025. Oil hit $78 a barrel, which will mean $3 or $3.50...

It’s still the economy, stupid By now, we’ve all heard, said, or read one of several versions of the exact same hypothesis: President-elect Donald Trump romped to victory in the election because America had grown sick of feeling the painful pinch of inflation. Whether the tariff-heavy policies of the incoming administration will keep a lid on higher prices is unknown, but one thing that is inevitable is that inflation will be a hot-button issue for years to come. What we talk about when we talk about inflation Let’s start with some basics. Per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, inflation is...

Former Polish Deputy Minister Piotr Kulpa alleged that up to half of the U.S. aid money given to Ukraine was stolen by Ukrainian officials. He made the accusations on Thursday while speaking with Ukrainian journalist Lana Shevchuk, according to RT. Kulpa even claimed that Ukraine has been swindling some of that money back to the U.S. Democrat Party. “Everyone understands that war-related corruption is linked not only with Ukraine, but also the supplier nation,” he said, according to RT. “Who would ever believe that the US burned through $2 trillion in Afghanistan? It’s delusional!” The U.S. Democrat Party allegedly got...

The U.S. is entering an era of hyperinflation, warns Lynette Zang, Founder & CEO of Zang Enterprises, adding that the transition in the U.S. has already begun. "I believe with all my heart and everything that I know that we've already begun the transition to hyperinflation," Zang told Michelle Makori, Lead Anchor and Editor-in-Chief at Kitco News. "We're going to see more borrowing, more money printing, more inflation because they have not killed that beast that they created and continue to create. It'll become very obvious in 2025." Zang sees the economy holding up well through the U.S. elections on...

The Federal Reserve cut interest rates by 50 basis points Wednesday, the central bank’s first rate reduction following a two-and-a-half year crusade against inflation that raged in the wake of the pandemic. The new federal funds rate is 4.75 percent to 5 percent, a jumbo rate cut that signals the Fed’s confidence that its war against inflation is coming to an end. The pandemic hit the economy hard, scrambling supply chains, shuttering stores and leading to layoffs of millions of Americans. When the world started to reopen in the spring of 2021, however, the economy went into overdrive. The consumer...

Claim: Inflation was at 9% when U.S. President Joe Biden took office in January 2021.FALSE

The media’s umpteenth month of mishandling CPI data to protect the Biden White House comes as no surprise. Contrary to the corporate media cabal’s desperate attempt to paint the Consumer Price Index report for June 2024 as a sign that inflation “cooled” and will continue “cooling” and “slowing” the closer the nation gets to November’s presidential election, Americans are still paying higher prices on basic day-to-day goods and services than they did in the last four years. When the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its latest inflation index showing a 0.1 percent decrease in prices from May 2024 to...

Millionaire Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen appeared out of touch when asked about inflation under President Biden — insisting she goes to the grocery store “every week” and isn’t shocked by the skyrocketing prices. Yellen was quick to shoot down a question about grocery prices, which are up 20% from before the COVID-19 pandemic, during an interview with Yahoo Finance’s Jennifer Schonberger on Monday. “Have you been to the grocery store lately?” Schonberger asked Yellen in the interview. “I sure have — I go every week,” Yellen replied. “It’s sticker shock, isn’t it? Just when you look at shipping costs, those...

KEY POINTS The consumer price index held flat in May though it increased 3.3% from a year ago. Both numbers were 0.1 percentage point below market expectations. Excluding volatile food and energy prices, core CPI increased 0.2% on the month and 3.4% from a year ago, compared with respective estimates of 0.3% and 3.5%. Price increases were held in check by a 2% drop in the energy index and just a 0.1% increase in food. ***************************************************************** The consumer price index showed no increase in May as inflation slightly loosened its stubborn grip on the U.S. economy, the Labor Department reported...

The middle class and low wager workers are made for kicking. And that’s with Bidenomics did. The headline consumer price index was unchanged MoM in May – the smallest change since July 2022 – just less than the +0.1% MoM expected. On a YoY basis, headline CPI rose 3.3% (less than the 3.4% exp) – but very much stuck in a range well above the 2% target for over year now… Source: Bloomberg Energy was the biggest drag on the headline CPI MoM…(Gasoline prices tumbled 3.6% in May from April, one key reason why the headline CPI was flat on...

The consumer price index was expected to increase 0.1% on a month basis and 3.4% from a year ago, according to Dow Jones consensus estimates.

It’s becoming tougher and tougher for Americans to carry on with their spending spree. Years of elevated inflation and the highest interest rates in almost a quarter century are wearing out the US consumer. Savings accumulated during the Covid-19 pandemic are drying up, borrowers continue to rack up debt and delinquencies are marching higher. Retailers say shoppers are fed up with rising prices and are changing their purchasing behavior.

For the better part of two decades, a small group of us fiscally prudent types have been relegated to the wilderness for having the temerity to sound the alarm. Our warnings were bordering on heresy to many on Wall Street and in DC. But lately, more and more voices are joining the chorus that we are heading headlong toward a fiscal and monetary cliff. When the day of reckoning arrives, most people will be unprepared. That is a fact that has been proven throughout history. Just as fortune favours the prepared, financial ruin will befall the unprepared. Before you roll...

We are living through the most destructive bout of inflation in 45 years, one that threatens to become worse and perhaps just as ruinous in the long run as the last one.And yet daily and for years, we’ve been told it’s not so bad and that it’s nearly over anyway.How can we reconcile these two realities? They cannot both be true.An image of verified accuracy has been circulating all over social media lately: A list showing the price increases from the end of 2019 to now at major fast-food outlets. It fits with your own experience. It indicates that in...

I never imagined that we would ever see a time when it takes $177,798 for a family of four to live comfortably in the United States. Unfortunately, that day has arrived. Our leaders have been pursuing highly inflationary policies for many years, and now we have reached a point where inflation is wildly out of control. In fact, the latest wholesale inflation figure that was released on Tuesday came in much higher than expected. Sadly, this is just the beginning and we are in far more trouble than most people realize.According to an incredibly shocking new study, most Americans do...

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.3 percent in April on a seasonally adjusted basis, after rising 0.4 percent in March, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 3.4 percent before seasonal adjustment. Advertisement The index for shelter rose in April, as did the index for gasoline. Combined, these two indexes contributed over seventy percent of the monthly increase in the index for all items. The energy index rose 1.1 percent over the month. The food index was unchanged in April. The food at home...

Immigration won’t decide the election. Polls have not yet captured what will. This may come as a surprise, but the top issue housing. More explicitly, it’s shelter costs.The EconomyThe economy is a very broad category that encompasses inflation, jobs, unemployment, wages, rent, and housing.Other polls split the economy in various pieces, such as inflation and jobs. Not a single poll mentioned housing specifically.Q: What is it that young voters really have on their minds? A: RentThe CPI Rose Sharply in March Led by Shelter and GasolineThe CPI rose 0.4 percent in March. Rent was up another 0.4 percent with gasoline...