BECKLEY — Today the Federal Reserve stated, ”Long-term inflation expectations have remained stable, and measures of underlying inflation have been subdued.” I define inflation as a general and progressive increase in prices. I’m not sure what the Fed’s definition of inflation is but let me share a couple of charts:
Corn
Sugar
Live Cattle
Cotton
Oil
Notice a familiar trend with those charts? I would call that a general and progressive increase in prices. Our overlords at the Federal Reserve call that “stable and subdued”. Of course I could have gone on with all the commodities I actually track and invest in like corn, wheat, soybean, live cattle, lean hogs, coffee, cocoa, sugar, cotton, orange juice, platinum, gold, silver, copper, natural gas, oil, and heating oil. Guess what they all have similar charts – take gold and silver for example – through the roof. Silver is up over 70%+ this year alone! This is stable and subdued, it’ll be interesting when it gets out of hand. I can see it now, “Silver up over 700% in the year alone!” I guess then the Fed might consider cutting quantitative easing. I was reading how our interest payments on our government debt were up over 12% in the first quarter of this year to over $100 billion. I wonder what our interest payments will look like then?
TennesseePaul
Stephen VanNuys
Brooklyn Daniel
The Freedom Thinker
Every time that oil prices increase there is a corresponding rise in the cost of food and other commodities that are shipped by truck and of course production costs also increase. Perhaps the Ruling Class has decided that a rise in the cost of living is no longer an indication of inflation. Who can believe anything anymore that is connected with the government in any way?
I know the Fed has to be very careful with what they say. If they come out saying, “The ship is sinking!” Then the ship will surely sink. I understand they have to be careful with their words, but it is the actions I have issue with why continue to do QE and why continue to force interest rates low.
What worries me is that their actions match their words. Normally one would expect them to say “Stable and Subdued.” Then take action on the exploding prices by doing something to resolve it.
Inflation is a result of weaker more abundant currency. The more we print and circulate, the less it is worth. The only thing that has saved us from double digit inflation to date is the fact that the banks are not lending any funds to the public. They are simply borrowing it from the government and lending it to each other for a profit.
God help us when the dam breaks….
By extracting food and fuel the analysis can ascertain a different view of the increase cost of goods and services. There are many examples of doing similar views. The one that gets reported and discussed the most may not be the one you are seeking for your purposes, but it does not preclude the initial reading as irrelevant. It would be beneficial to view all indicators, not simply one. I’m fairly certain the Fed has their eyes one more than just one set of data points.
There’s no inflation as long as you exclude from your index those assets the prices of which have gone up.
There is also the fact that we’re living in an age of technological innovation that continues to reduce the real price of technology. That is used as cover for the currency devaluation.
So where is everybody? This used to be a pretty interesting place.