Stuff that I've noticed ...
Reg gas ranges from $4 to $4.10, up from $3.20'ish. Not too price sensitive as I work from home and wife only has a short drive to school.
Seems the fast food joints' specials have gone up $1 to $2.
My favorite Vietnamese pho place is $14 up from $12. Sushi chirashi that was once about $18-$19 are about $22.
Toyota Corolla barebones is $1,000 above MSRP (when got daughter a Corolla 3 years ago, bought it for about $2,500 under MSRP).
Checked Zillow today and house price has increased again. It feels its increasing at a faster clip in past 3-4 months than last year. I know to take it with a grain of salt but it is indicative of upward swing.
Biggest impact to us is not so much the day-to-day but the angst its causing in the markets and impact to our portfolio.
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Increasing rates should theoretically tame inflation. But Powell was wrong before on "transitory" inflation so I'm not having a lot of confidence that he'll get the "pace" of rate increase right. We also have Ukraine war hurt oil prices. And of course, Covid which is adversely impacting the supply chain (especially the stuff from China).
Basically prices will continue upward in the short term (6 months). Below pundit says this will cause a recession. I think I'm okay with that. Better recession than the 80's inflation.
U.S. economy will fall into a recession this summer, as inflation eats into consumer spending, former Fed official warns - MarketWatch
Quote:
Higher inflation will force consumers to limit their spending by so much that the economy will slump into a recession by the July-September quarter, former Federal Reserve Governor Lawrence Lindsey said on Monday.
“I do think we’re going to have a recession, probably in the next quarter,” Lindsey said, in an interview on CNBC.
“Inflation is eating into consumer spending power, they’re going to have to cut back,” he said.
The former Fed governor also said the U.S. central bank was “nowhere close” on being able to control inflation.
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