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| Jay Powell |
Federal Reserve chairman Jay "I don't see any inflation threat" Powell mad money printing will result in his going down in history as the most irresponsible head of the Federal Reserve ever. Yes, Federal Reserve historians will view him as an even worse monetary policy man than G. William Miller.
There are signs that the food inflation that’s gripped the world over the past year, raising prices of everything from shredded cheese to peanut butter, is about to get worse, reports Bloomberg.
Now farmers -- especially ones raising cattle, hogs and poultry -- are getting squeezed by the highest corn and soybean prices in seven years. It’s lifted the costs of feeding their herds by 30% or more, according to Bloomberg. To stay profitable, producers including Tyson Foods Inc. are increasing prices, which will ripple through supply chains and show up in the coming months as higher price tags for beef, pork and chicken around the world.
The last time grains were this expensive was after the U.S. drought of 2012, and meat prices saw a dramatic run-up. Now, meat is again poised to become a driver of global food inflation, and part of the intensifying debate over the path of overall inflation and exactly what central banks and policymakers should do to aid economies still working to recover from the pandemic.
I expect grain prices will exceed the 2012 levels.
And this:
I wonder if the real purpose of the economic lockdowns was to significantly reduce the velocity of money and economic output, primarily via restrictions on low income wage earners and small biz self employed folks (tens of millions) so as to blunt the inflationary impact of the massive debt/money printing needed by TPTB to save the system that started to choke up in late 2019 (repo crisis?).
ReplyDeleteToday I'm seeing MSM financial propaganda poo-pooing widespread inflation expectations because of a lack of "wage growth." We won't see that if the ridiculously onerous "health measures" continue, particularly in blue states. Is it all part of the plan?
FWIW, I am hearing anecdotal reports of even non-libertarian types taking measures to protect against expected high inflation. For instance, an acquaintance who works in finance replaced his roof on his second home (which had 10 years left out of 25-30 life) last week instead of waiting into order to arbitrage building material prices between the area of this main home (VA) vs. his second home (NC). This is the unsolicited reason he gave me and he is the kind of guy who normally would tell you "a little" inflation is good.