I typically ignore most of the inflation numbers reported by the government, but I could not resist reading Calafia Beach Pundit’s latest piece titled “Consumer price inflation is heating up.” Calafia takes a look at the CPI from all angles, month-over-month, year-over-year, rate of change, and even non-seasonally adjusted (which is the basis for payments to TIPS). Calafia convincingly demonstrates that all arrows are pointing upward for inflation. He even concluded that China’s current struggles with inflation will be America’s future inflation problem:
“The ongoing rise in China’s inflation rate is making headlines today, but U.S. inflation is not too far behind, as this chart shows. It’s not surprising that inflation should be moving higher both in China and the U.S., since China has essentially outsourced its monetary policy to the U.S. Federal Reserve by pegging the yuan to the dollar. Chinese inflation is somewhat more volatile than ours, and that is also not surprising since its economy is smaller and less burdened by long-term supply and labor contracts. If China has an inflation problem, then so does the U.S. It will just take longer for the problem to become obvious in the U.S.”
This piece is a must-read.
Disclosure: author is long TIPS