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Like the Steven Seagall flick “Hard To Kill,” inflation caused by rampant Federal spending is hard to kill. For the fourth straight month, the producer price index final demand has been increasing. It was 2.2% year-over-year. And INCREASING!!!! Here are the YoY changes in PPI Final Demand for 2023. After near zero growth in June, PPI Final Demand YoY has been steadily increasing … again. 2023-01-01 5.7 2023-02-01 4.8 2023-03-01 2.7 2023-04-01 2.3 2023-05-01 1.2 2023-06-01 0.3 2023-07-01 1.2 2023-08-01 1.9 2023-09-01 2.2 Yes, it is hard to get the proverbial horse back in the barn once inflation has been...

Britain’s AstraZeneca has agreed to pay $425 million to settle about 11,000 lawsuits in the United States that claimed its heartburn drugs Nexium and Prilosec caused chronic kidney disease. AstraZeneca did not admit wrongdoing under the settlement, part of broader litigation against makers of a class of heartburn drugs called proton pump inhibitors (PPIs). “Today’s settlements are a significant victory for the thousands of patients who suffered kidney injuries as a result of using” the drugs, the plaintiffs’ attorney Chris Seeger said in a statement. A single lawsuit is still scheduled to go to trial in April in Louisiana, according...

Jerome Powell is the God of Hellfire and he brought us …. FIRE! By rapildy raising The Fed’s target rate rapidly. And then sending mixed signals as inflation begins heating up … again. WTI crude just hit $90. Rising oil prices may be one of the reasons. After yesterday’s hotter than expected rebound in CPI, all eyes are on PPI for signs that the pipeline for inflation may be more dove-friendly. It wasn’t! Producer Prices rose 0.7% MoM in August (up from +0.3% in July and hotter than the +0.4% exp). That is the hottest PPI since June 2022, and...

People who take acid reflux medications called proton pump inhibitors for four-and-a-half years or more may have a higher risk of dementia compared to people who do not take these medications, according to research. This study does not prove that acid reflux drugs cause dementia; it only shows an association. "Proton pump inhibitors are a useful tool to help control acid reflux, however long-term use has been linked in previous studies to a higher risk of stroke, bone fractures and chronic kidney disease," said study author Kamakshi Lakshminarayan, MBBS, Ph.D. The study included 5,712 people, age 45 and older, who...

Is inflation gone in November? Nope. US producer prices rose in November by more than forecast, driven by services and underscoring the stickiness of inflationary pressures that supports Federal Reserve interest-rate increases into 2023. The producer price index for final demand climbed 0.3% for a third month and was up 7.4% from a year earlier, Labor Department data showed Friday. The monthly gains for October and September were revised higher. At the same time, the annual increase was the smallest in 18 months, extending a months-long easing and suggesting the central bank still has scope to pause its rate hikes...

WASHINGTON (AP) — More U.S. adults are now feeling financially vulnerable amid high inflation — a political risk for President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats one month before the midterm elections. Some 46% of people now call their personal financial situation poor, up from 37% in March, according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. That’s a notable downturn at a particularly inopportune moment for Biden, given that the share of Americans who felt positive about their finances had stayed rock steady over the last few years — even during the economic turmoil...

Food prices surged in September, propelling the producer price inflation gauge higher than expected. The Department of Labor said on Wednesday that its producer price index rose 0.4 percent compared with the prior month, twice what economists had expected. A big part of the gain stemmed from a rapid rise in food prices. Consumer food prices rose a seasonally adjusted 1.1 percent compared with the prior month. Compared with a year ago, consumer food prices are up 12.1 percent. Here are some of the biggest price jumps. Fresh and dried vegetables: up 15.7 percent for the month and 40.2 percent...

The Producer Price Index, which measures inflation upstream from consumers, registered another month of increased prices in September in what is more bad news for the Biden administration's attempt to get any modicum of positive economic news before November's midterms. Headline PPI inflation showed prices increasing 0.4 percent in September, double the 0.2 percent economists predicted for a 12-month increase of 8.5 percent, a rate that also surpassed Wall Street estimates. What's more, the month-over-month number shows that cost increases are accelerating for producers, with final demand services advancing 0.4 percent in September after increasing 0.3 percent in August.

A key barometer of inflation on Wednesday showed prices paid to U.S. businesses rose more than expected in September, dashing hopes that the Federal Reserve might be able to take a softer approach to restoring price stability. The producer price index, which tracks prices paid to U.S. businesses for the goods and services they produce, rose 0.4 percent in September, the Department of Labor said. That was twice the monthly gain expected by forecasters. On a 12-month basis, prices are up 8.5 percent. That’s one-tenth of a point more than what economists surveyed by Econoday expected. The index fell by...

Wholesale prices rose more than expected in September despite Federal Reserve efforts to control inflation, according to a report Wednesday from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The producer price index, a measure of prices that U.S. businesses get for the goods and services they produce, increased 0.4% for the month, compared to the Dow Jones estimate for a 0.2% gain. On a 12-month basis, PPI rose 8.5%, which was a slight deceleration from the 8.7% in August.

Face it. The Biden Administration has little interest in trying to increase the supply fossil fuel energy which would anger his “green” base (like building more refineries or allowing for more crude oil and natural gas exploration). So, the burden of “inflation fighting” falls on the frail shoulders of The Federal Reserve. Given today’s US Producer Price Index Final Demand prices rising +11.3% YoY in June, it seems that The Fed has not been able to extinguish the “Tower of Inflation.” But, Fed Funds Futures are pointing to a near 100 basis point (or 1%) increase in The Fed Funds...

PRODUCER PRICE INDEXES - JUNE 2022The Producer Price Index for final demand increased 1.1 percent in June, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This rise followed advances of 0.9 percent in May and 0.4 percent in April. (See table A.) On an unadjusted basis, final demand prices moved up 11.3 percent for the 12 months ended in June, the largest increase since a record 11.6-percent jump in March 2022.In June, three-fourths of the advance in the index for final demand was due to a 2.4-percent rise in prices for final demand goods. The index for final...

Fear of inflation continues to weigh on the markets. In an ideal world, inflation protection can do two things: 1) preserve wealth and 2) enhance wealth.In the middle of the 1970s, during the worst bouts of inflation, many investors had no choice but to pay a high premium for inflation protection or wealth preservation, with no expectation of wealth enhancement.You don’t have to settle for that dreary trade-off. Below, I’ll steer you towards a method of inflation protection that also conveys growth. In the meantime, the U.S. equities markets finished last week in the red, with the S&P 500 down...

Wholesale prices accelerated again in May as inflation tightened its stranglehold on the U.S. economy, adding to the financial pressure on millions of Americans. The Labor Department said Tuesday that its producer price index, which measures inflation at the wholesale level before it reaches consumers, climbed 10.8% in May from the previous year. On a monthly basis, prices grew by 0.8%. Although that was slightly lower than the 10.9% forecast from Refinitiv economists, the reading – near a record-high of 11.5% notched in March – suggests that inflationary pressures in the economy remain strong. Core inflation at the wholesale level,...

It’s just another day in the life of that lovable, laughable economic farce known as Erdoganomics (yes, it’s even more laughable and idiotic than MMT, if one can believe that), where cutting interest rates in the middle of hyperinflation is supposed to fix everything. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that, and the latest CPI and PPI data out of Turkey today confirmed as much. Turkey’s inflation soared in May to the fastest since 1998 as the continued surge in food and energy was not helped by the country’s ultra-loose monetary policy. Consumer prices rose an annual 73.5%, up from 70%...

Wholesale prices accelerated more than expected in April as inflation continued to hover near a 40-year high as a result of strong consumer demand, pandemic-related supply chain snarls and the Russian war in Ukraine. The Labor Department said Thursday that its producer price index, which measures inflation at the wholesale level before it reaches consumers, climbed 11% in April from the previous year. On a monthly basis, prices grew by 0.5%. Although that marks a slight moderation from March's reading of 11.2%, the gauge still came in higher than the 10.7% forecast from Refinitiv economists, suggesting inflationary pressures remain strong....

The news on the Bidenflation front continues to worsen. Not surprisingly, President Biden and his senior administration officials are in full spin mode. On April 12th, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 8.5% annually between March 2021 and March 2022 – the steepest increase since December 1981. The index for all items less food and energy - what is known as the core index – rose a hefty 6.5 percent during this same period, the largest 12-month change since the period ending August 1982. The shelter index alone rose 5.0 percent over...

The wholesale inflation report came out a day after the Labor Department reported that consumer prices last month jumped 8.5% from a year earlier — fastest annual clip since December 1981.

German producer prices rose in January at their fastest rate since modern records began, soaring 25% as energy costs spiraled and extending a run of sharp increases expected to keep consumer inflation at around 5% for several months more. The jump in PPI, considered a leading indicator for consumer prices, was the biggest since 1949, when West and East Germany were founded and the country’s post-war economic data series began. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected the figure, published on Monday by the Federal Statistics Office, to remain at December’s 24.2%. Sharp increases of 18.4% and 19.2% respectively were logged...

On March 15, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its latest report tracking the Producer Price Index (PPI), which “measures the average change over time in the selling prices received by domestic producers for their output.” According to the report, “Prices for final demand goods jumped 2.4% in February, the largest advance since data were first calculated in December 2009.” Moreover, as the report notes, “final demand prices moved up 10.0% for the 12 months ended in February.” Obviously, this is not good news for American consumers, who will inevitably bear the brunt of these price hikes. Just last week,...