Inflation Scare Doesn’t Match Reality

In the last few months, inflation has been a hot topic, especially as Americans can’t escape rising prices. Go to the grocery store for some pork, and you’ll pay nearly 5 percent more than you did last spring. Go to the gas pump, and filling your tank may very well empty your wallet. Check out that open house in the neighborhood, and you’re liable to see an asking price 15 percent higher than you thought it would be.

For consumers and policy-makers alike, a defining question of our economic moment is this: Are today’s price rises the start of a lasting trend that will lower living standards and derail the economy, or merely just the result of the post-COVID recovery?

No one can answer that question with certainty, but the available evidence does tilt in one direction. For this week’s podcast, Jeff Powell and Jeremy Witbeck discuss a number of reasons why investors should use caution when interpreting the data.