Inflation is really starting to bite.
The latest Consumer Price Index — or CPI — was released last week, coming out at 6.8%, the highest inflation rate the US has seen in 40 years.
Households pinched by these higher prices are asking: When will this stop?
Not anytime soon, says macro analyst Wolf Richter, who just issued a report warning that getting inflation under control from here will be a difficult and lengthy process — especially as the process is being managed by “the most reckless Fed ever”
The Federal Reserve, whose policies created today’s runaway prices, is now suddenly scrambling to put the inflation genie back into the bottle. It’s accelerating it taper plans and now loudly talking of hiking rates, perhaps as soon as summer 2022.
This kind of monetary tightening in today’s world, of course, threatens to crater asset prices and plunge the economy into recession.
Can the Fed somehow avoid that outcome?
Time will tell. But as Wolf predicts, the effort and complexity involved in trying to get today’s inflation under control will undoubtedly “be a b!#ch”.
