Let's talk about Trump's inflation coming in hot and more economic news.... - Belle of the Ranch

[TexasTowelie]

Well, howdy there Internet people. It's Belle again. So, today we're going to talk about Trump's inflation soaring again.

Okay, so the producer price index, that's wholesale inflation, came in hot in February, really hot. It increased at a seasonally adjusted 0.7% for the month. Expectations were an increase of 0.3%. So an easier way to say that is that producer inflation came in at more than double what was expected. PPI inflation is at 3.4% for the year.

Core PPI, which excludes volatile food and energy costs, was even worse. It's up 3.9% for the year. The PPI, wholesale inflation, is generally seen as a leading indicator of the CPI, our inflation. Think of PPI as the increase the grocery store pays, and CPI is the increase that you pay. The grocery store pays it first before you see it reflected in the prices on the shelves. So, this reading says that you can expect more inflation headed your way. I'm sure that's what you wanted to hear. It turns out that slapping massive taxes on everything imported raised prices. Who knew?

And while I'm handing out good news, I'll go ahead and get this out of the way. This is for February. Trump's Operation Epstein Fury didn't start until the last day of the month. All of the inflationary pressure Trump added by going after Iran isn't in this report. That will be filtering in through the March and April reports which means even once February's inflation is absorbed by the consumer, there's a whole new batch coming in from the rising fuel costs, which tends to drive up the cost of well, pretty much everything.

So, when we already have rising wholesale inflation in February, then fuel costs kicking drastically up in March, it's safe to say that Trump's promises of lower inflation are not going to happen anytime soon and that they're incredibly likely to be headed the other way.

Still, another issue is that this was unexpected. This totally blew past the forecast. When the monthly PPI comes in more than twice as high as the Dow Jones Survey of Economists estimated, it's likely to rattle the markets, even more than if the estimates had seen it coming. Missing the mark by this much means there's a big piece of the economic puzzle that's missing.

On top of that, there is growing evidence that both goods and services are seeing more inflation. People expected the goods inflation because the whole job of a tariff is to raise prices, but the service increase signals even wider trouble.

If there's any good news to this, it's that Trump and his administration tend to watch the inflation news pretty closely. This might push Trump to simply declare victory in Iran and walk away before even more people get hurt.

Expect Trump to lash out at the numbers caused by his economic policies on social media if he hasn't already by the time this goes out.

Anyway, it's just a thought. Y'all have a good day.