Our current bout of inflation was initially attributed to supply chain shocks, the war in Ukraine, and other “transitory” issues. These problems seem to be abating and the reported rate of inflation has now declined for ten consecutive months. However, the Federal Reserve...
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- Tag: inflation
I often hear complaints like, “the inflation rate as reported by the U.S. Government drastically understates the increase in my cost of living.” Well, the CPI is a blend of price changes for more than 80,000 items weighted by the actual expenditures of...
A key element in our recent economic discussions has been the mechanism by which the FED’s interest rate increases are expected to slow the economy, and ultimately, inflation. This process is best described by the acronym HOPE. The first sector of the economy...
After falling for the prior six months, GDP rebounded in the most recent quarter increasing 2.9%. This strength is largely attributable to consumer spending which represents 68% of the overall economy. Despite high rates of inflation, higher mortgage rates, and a drop in...
The following chart provides a breakdown of consumer spending by category for 2019. Spending patterns changed significantly during the pandemic due to the lack of accessibility to many types of services, but this depiction is probably fairly representative of our post-pandemic behavior. (This...
An important economic statistic is the Personal Savings Rate which is defined as Savings divided by Disposable Personal Income. From the 1960’s through 1982, relatively thrifty Americans consistently saved between 10% and 15% of their incomes. Given a generally strong economy and rising...