Wells Fargo on inflation, some nice charts
https://wellsfargo.bluematrix.com/links2/html/45578027-d02a-4459-a8d5-3bc47d449cb1
This thread is not about inflation alone:
That Bloomberg piece carries today’s date.
Stagflation expectations jumped to 66%, the highest since 2008.
If you find inflation challenging, you don’t want to experience stagflation. Been there, done that. It sucks.
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The Big Guy sure doesn’t like to take responsibility.
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U.S. Producer Price Growth Accelerates To Record High In March
The Labor Department said its producer price index for final demand shot up by 1.4 percent in March after advancing by an upwardly revised 0.9 percent in February.
Economists had expected producer prices to jump by 1.1 percent compared to the 0.8 percent increase originally reported for the previous month.
With the bigger than expected monthly increase, the annual rate of producer price growth accelerated to a record high 11.2 percent in March from 10.3 percent in February
“With a new wave of lockdowns in China and the war in Ukraine raging on, however, risks to the inflation outlook remain firmly to the upside, reaffirming our view that the Fed must proceed with a faster pace of policy normalization in the months ahead.”
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/u.s.-producer-price-growth-accelerates-to-record-high-in-march
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Is the difference in food vs food (restaurants) only due to labor costs not keeping up with overall inflation?
I mean if restaurants pay more for ingredients, pay way more for energy/electricity required for food prep, what’s to explain that restaurant prices have not increased at least as much as food prices.
Restaurant proprietors struggling, accepting lower profit margins, in order to keep menu prices under some control so as to avoid losing customers.
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They dont necessarily have to even be struggling. If you make $1 off a $5 sale ($4 food cost), a 25% increase in food cost only requires a 20% increase in sale price for you to continue making that same $1.
Increasing sale price by the same percentage as food costs increase would actually net you a better bottom line, since your profit would also be increased by that same percentage.
Now, this is all academic, since we know that many restaurant proprietors struggle even in the best of times.
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Prior to covid, many restaurants will eat the price increase for a brief period, and only adjust their pricing / menus / ingredients when the increase seems permanent. There are also costs associated with increasing food prices, such as re-printing menus.
ETA: Nevermind. @shinobi already said it.
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Apparently, if the buck doesn’t stop in his family’s pockets, it stops at the Kremlin. 
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I keep waiting for, expecting, the price of natural gas to go down. That is what customarily happens at this time of year. It is spring, after all. But instead the price just continues to ascend . . . . and in a serious manner, too. Last print: $7.30
Probably of more interest to others, the price of crude is also, once again, on the rise.
Inflation here, inflation there, inflation everywhere!
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Would you like your summer with an extra helping of smog, illegal executive edicts, and perhaps a furthering of global food shortages? But hey, knock a few cents off the price at the pump until midterms, and Let’s Go Brandon.
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Guess we’ll have to start wasting less food. Win-win-win?
The inflation blame game
[from Real Clear Politics]
NBC: Americans Are Not Buying Biden’s “Putin Price Hike” Narrative, Only 6% Blame Putin While Most Blame Biden
My Easter/Passover contribution for 2022
Putin Price Hike < Bid-enflation
There’s no question that the sharp rise in gas/energy prices is due to Putin. 18 months gas prices chart
There will be other commodities affected such as the fertilizer prices or everything related to what Ukraine and Russia were exporting. Blaming Putin for these is only fair since none of that would have happened had he not invaded Ukraine.
But the rest of the inflation was already well under way before any of this happened. It did not suddenly appear at the end of February. Just look at the I-bond yield of 7.12% based on CPI for Apr-Sep 2021. Blaming it all that on Putin is absurd.
Some of that inflation is COVID supply chain disruption allowed by our long overlooking of geopolitical risk of global sourcing everything, the rest is of our own doing via counter-productive policies, some of which pre-date the Biden administration (years of increasingly large budget deficits, TCJA, Fed QE3 and unnecessarily low interest rates). The fact that we’ve suffered higher inflation than other Western countries does not reflect well on Biden’s administration and the Fed’s performances. Sucks for the midterms but you made your bed…
I dont know how fair it is - his actions didnt have to cause any prices to rise. It was our own reactions that shot ourselves in the foot. I understand the concept of taking a stand on principle, but we also need to be honest regarding the consequences of taking that stand. I know there are some direct, tangible logistical disruptions involved, but a lot of the consequences leading to higher costs are being self-imposed.
I mean, if your local Walmart pisses you off so that you refuse to shop there, do you then blame Walmart because your are now spending $3 on a loaf of bread at another store instead of the $1 you use to pay at Walmart? You have your reasons and may feel it’s worth it, but the additional cost is directly attributable to your own choices that you made. Most of the effects regarding Russia are no different.
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Agree. The world is too interconnected to exclude almost an entire continent from trade.
