From a small northwestern observatory…

Those of us who lived through the 1970’s may think that 3% or 4% inflation is childsplay, but the FED doesn’t necessarily look at it that way.  Indeed, they’re an “inflation conservative” bunch, and don’t take too kindly to the CPI heading northward.

An article this morning in CNN Money offers two painful scenarios.  First, inflation is nudging up, in no small part from housing costs and health care costs.  Add to that the impending impact of the coming Trade War, and the news isn’t very good.

Graphic courtesy money.cnn.com

Second – and we’ve been predicting this – consumer prices are rising higher than wages.  The difference isn’t very big at the median, only 0.2 percentage points, but given the disparate increases in incomes in America of late, and the disparate consumptions patterns, this means that the burdens of cost inflation are being disproportionately felt by working families.

More to come….