by Peter Schiff
Euro Pacific Capital
The inflation that we were emphatically told would be transitory and unmoored continues to persist and entrench. As the troubles gather momentum Washington is doing its best to ignore the problem or actively make it worse.
The latest batch of data shows that the Consumer Price Index rose 5.4% in September, the 5th consecutive month that year over year inflation came in at more than 5%. The figure rises to 6.5% if we project the inflation levels of the first 9 months of 2021 to the entire calendar year. The last time we had to contend with numbers like these, Jimmy Carter was telling us all to put on our sweaters.
Recent developments should be sounding the alarms. Whereas, earlier in the year inflation was largely driven by supercharged price increases in narrow sectors, such as used cars and hotel rooms, it’s now occurring in a much wider spectrum of goods and services.
In September, the cost of used autos fell month over month (but are still up 24% year over year), but that didn’t help the overall CPI, which saw increases just about everywhere else. Over the past 12 months: beef prices are up 17.6%, seafood prices up 10.6%, home appliances up 10.5%, furniture and bedding up 11.2%, and new cars up 8.7%.