Inflation 📍

📽️ Videos

NPR

|

Inflation is high. Here’s how it’s hurt past presidents : NPR

Economists may know (and even agree) that the current inflation is attributable to the pandemic and its aftermath: sluggish supply chains, reluctant workers, shortages and interrupted energy deliveries. We also know the government has mainlined trillions of dollars in buying power to consumers since the spring of 2020. Price hikes might be considered all but inevitable.

But one of the lessons from inflationary eras past is that voters are less interested in causal responsibility than in forcing a change. In other words, if you are in office now, you are holding the bag.

Inflation Is Painful, But the Fed Shouldn’t Overreact – Discourse

|

Inflation Is Painful, But the Fed Shouldn’t Overreact – Discourse

For the past several months, Americans have felt the pain of higher inflation as they spend more on items ranging from food to gasoline to used cars to housing. Many observers wonder whether the inflation is being caused by the Federal Reserve keeping interest rates low and buying up lots of government debt or by supply chain disruptions and other production bottlenecks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. If it’s the former, then the Fed will need to tighten monetary policy to get inflation under control. If it’s the latter, though, the recent uptick in prices will dissipate on its o

NPR

|

How a shortage of glass is helping drive inflation higher : NPR

Here's another unexpected example of how supply chains have been upended by the pandemic: Glass bottles used for everything from vinegar to pasta sauces are getting tied up in their own bottlenecks. That's driving prices higher, when you can get the bottles at all.

Just like many other industries struggling to secure supplies, producers of pasta sauce and high-end spirits are seeing the glass used in their humble containers tied up in massive cargo jams, and that's forcing them to either absorb the higher costs or pass them on to consumers.

I am no fan of glass, usually because it's heavy and I'm prone to break it. I try to get everything in paper or plastic (which I can burn), or at least metal cans that can be flattened and saved for the yearly trip to the recycling center. But it's just another problem with inflation that we are facing.

Another jump in prices tightens the squeeze on US consumers – syracuse.com

|

Another jump in prices tightens the squeeze on US consumers – syracuse.com

Washington — American consumers absorbed another surge in prices in May — a 0.6% increase over April and 5% over the past year, the biggest 12-month inflation spike since 2008.

The May rise in consumer prices that the Labor Department reported Thursday reflected a range of goods and services now in growing demand as people increasingly shop, travel, dine out and attend entertainment events in a rapidly reopening economy.