A few months ago, IIT listed our favorite web sites for staying abreast of US inflation news. More recently, IIT has learnt of another source of inflation web sites: FeedSpot's list. IIT believes that FeedSpot's list is excellent, and has begun reading some of the Web sites described there in order to stay abreast of inflation news.
A few weeks ago, IIT reported that the USA's oil stockpile, known as the SPR, was becoming seriously depleted due to the Biden administration's decision to sell that oil in order to lower oil's price just ahead of the Congressional mid-term elections.
Now, several petroleum market observers have begun to opine on the wisdom of this rapid depletion of the nation's oil stockpile, and this issue was actively discussed on Twitter in late October, 2022. For example, this tweet (from John Arnold) received 880 likes and about 140 re-tweets:
There is a simple reason as to why US inflation is likely NOT transitory: The American public's demand for ever greater amounts of money-printing to offset the recent price increases. This demand manifested itself in late October, 2022, just before the mid-term Congressional elections.
Newsweek claims that a majority of the American people now want the Federal government to issue more stimulus checks in order to offset inflation. Newsweek surveyed more than a thousand "likely voters" and claims that its survey
In recent days, observers have begun to opine that another economic recession is imminent.
For example, Elon Musk not only claimed that a recession draws near, but, ominously, thinks that it will likely be protracted, lasting until the Spring of 2024. Musk offered very little rationale to support his conclusion because his remark was but a tweet.
Famed economist Nouriel Roubini then added his two cents.
A few days ago, IIT reported that the USA suffered from low inventories of petroleum distillates, especially diesel fuel. More recent days have brought further news of shortages of diesel fuel and predictions that the price of diesel fuel is likely to climb much higher soon.
Bloomberg reports that at least one fuel supply company, Mansfield Energy, is experiencing a diesel shortage, and, relatedly, higher diesel prices. The company depicts a dire situation:
The petroleum-watching commentariat (PetWatCom) continues to forsee nothing but price increases in the near-term. Eric Nutall's tweet had received nearly 700 "likes" as of 8 Nov. 2022, and it had received very little disagreement, at least on Twitter. Others offered similar reasons for a likely price increase.
Economist Stephen Moore recently posted this chart to Twitter. Here is the hyperlink thereto:
In recent months, Federal Reserve officials have made many predictions regarding inflation that have proved to be wildly erroneous (e.g., "inflation is likely transitory"). Well, this trend continues today, when Richmond Federal Reserve president Thomas Barkin stated that inflation was likely "on the back end," implying that, in the USA, the rate of inflation has peaked and is likely to decline in the future. Barkin added that it remained unclear how long it may take the inflation...
The federal government has released its Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for the month of October, 2022, drawing comments from economic observers. The CPI for October declined somewhat, but not by much. According to Mike "Inflation Trader" Ashton, the "chance of more-lasting inflation just went up a lot."
Many countries are experiencing heightened levels of inflation.
There are many sources of news about US inflation, but I ignore most of them and instead cull and curate content solely from the best of them.
Here they are:
Since 2008, a comparatively small set of smart observers have predicted that the combination of the Federal Reserve Bank's monetary policy and the Federal government's fiscal policy was putting the USA on the path to economic disaster. Today, I add Sheila Bair's name to the list of those prescient observers. Here is an excerpt of Bair's predictions from years ago (2012):
In the past two days, the Federal government (of the USA) has released the CPI (Consumer Price Index) and PPI (Producer Price Index) data for September, 2022. Economists noted that the data were significantly worse than most of them had foretold. I list some of the best commentary hereinbelow.
ZeroHedge (ZH) is one of IIT's favorite websites even though it occasionally publishes articles that are recondite and abstruse. Here is an example of such. Experts have long known that bear, stock markets occasionally experience sharp rallies before resuming their slide downwards. Apparently, ZH is simply pointing out that the possibility that the stock market is on the cusp of such a rally.
