inflation
49 briefs
Inflation Just Crossed Above the Fed's Policy Rate for the First Time in Three Years
April CPI at 3.78% now exceeds the 3.64% Fed funds rate, turning real policy rates negative -- and the Fed's incoming chair has signaled no urgency to respond.
The Inflation Number Lands Three Days Before the New Fed Chair Does
April CPI is expected at 3.8%, a 3-year high. Kevin Warsh takes over Friday. His first decision will be whether to pretend the last five years didn't happen.
Pump Relief as Political Triage
Gas hit $4.52. Trump wants to kill the gas tax. Congress needs to pass it. The Highway Trust Fund will pay.
China's Factory Prices Just Hit a 45-Month High. The Iran War Did It, and Beijing Cannot Undo It.
China's PPI jumped 2.8% in April, ending 41 months of factory deflation. Cost-push inflation from Iranian oil disruptions is pressuring manufacturer margins in an economy where domestic demand is still weak.
The Fed Is Stuck. Iran Is Why.
Oil at $104. Inflation at 3.3%. April CPI drops tomorrow. PIMCO warns that the war in Iran has made the Fed's next move a trap with no clean exit.
Powell's Last Days
The Fed chair's departure is essentially priced in at 95%. What comes next is the part that matters.
Trump Got His Fed Chair. He May Get Rate Hikes.
Kevin Warsh spent a year promising he would cut rates. Then the Iran war made that impossible. Now the only question is how high rates go.
Trump Installed a Fed Chair Who Wants to Cut Rates. The Economy Will Not Let Him.
Kevin Warsh arrives at the Federal Reserve next week having promised rate cuts. Inflation is at 3.3%, the April jobs report beat forecasts by nearly double, and Paul Tudor Jones says there is no chance Warsh can deliver. Someone is going to be wrong about this.
115,000 Jobs in April. The Iran War Hasn't Hit the Labor Market. Yet.
April payrolls nearly doubled economist forecasts despite $4.50 gas and the biggest oil shock since 2022. Either the economy is genuinely resilient, or the damage is still in transit.
Powell's Last Meeting. Four Dissents. And Warsh Waiting.
The Fed's most divided vote since 1992 revealed a central bank that no longer agrees on what it is supposed to do. The incoming chair inherits the contradiction.
Wall Street Stopped Betting on a Quick Iran Deal. Markets Are Priced for a Long War.
The TACO trade assumed Trump would fold on Iran. The NACHO trade assumes he won't. The switch reveals something markets are only now pricing honestly.
The Jobs Market Looks Fine. The Hiring Market Doesn't.
Tomorrow's April payrolls report will likely show near-zero job creation alongside a stable unemployment rate. This is not a healthy labor market. It is a frozen one, and the Iran oil shock is the reason it cannot thaw.
Trump Started a War That Is Preventing the Rate Cuts He Wants
The Iran war has created an oil-driven inflation shock that is pushing the Federal Reserve toward rate hikes, the opposite of everything Trump has demanded for two years.
Trump Is Getting the Fed He Wanted. The Question Is What He'll Do With It.
Kevin Warsh clears the Senate Banking Committee 13-11 and takes over from Powell on May 15. The Fed he inherits is more divided than it has been in decades, and the economy is the opposite of what Trump promised Warsh would fix.
Liberation Day Is One Year Old. Moody's Says It Did 'Significant Damage.' Courts Are About to Force Refunds.
Job growth stalled. Inflation stayed above target. The IEEPA tariffs were ruled illegal. Polymarket gives 81.5% odds the courts force refunds by June. The White House calls it a success.
The Bond Market Thinks Warsh Will Hike Before He Cuts
Trump wants cheaper money. His Fed pick may deliver the opposite. And neither man is fully wrong.
The IMF Says 2027 Could Be Much Worse. Nobody Is Planning for It.
IMF chief Georgieva warned that if the Iran war extends into 2027, global growth falls to 2.5% and inflation hits 5.4%. The adverse scenario is already partially in motion.
The Labor Market That Cannot Be Described in One Sentence
Jobless claims hit a 1969 low the same month Meta laid off 8,000 people and Amazon is cutting 16,000. The April payrolls report on Friday will not resolve this contradiction.
The Fed Has No Move. That Is Now the Official Position.
Four dissents, a lame-duck chair, and a war pushing oil prices up while jobs cool. The central bank that cannot cut is also the one that cannot raise.
The Dollar Is Down 10%. Nobody Agrees on What That Means.
A weaker dollar helps multinationals, hurts consumers, and is quietly accelerating a structural shift that America's foreign policy depends on stopping.
Four Fed Officials Broke With Powell at His Last Meeting. That's the Story.
The biggest FOMC dissent since 1992 wasn't about rates. It was about whether the Fed can still pretend the next move is obviously a cut.
The US Economy Grew 2% While Consumers Ran Out of Cushion
GDP beat the shutdown slump. Business investment in AI is surging. Inflation hit a three-year high. Real wages are flat. The Fed is frozen. These are not contradictions. They describe the same economy from different floors.
US Jobless Claims Hit a 57-Year Low. Economists Say the Real Pain Is Still Coming.
At 189,000, initial claims are the lowest since September 1969. Analysts say tariffs and Iran war costs haven't hit payrolls yet, but they will.
Inflation Hits a 3-Year High. The Fed Cannot Cut. The Strait Is Still Closed.
The PCE gauge jumped to 3.5% in March as the Iran war pushed gas prices to record highs. The Fed is trapped: it cannot cut into rising inflation and cannot raise into a 2% GDP economy.
Powell's Last Stand: The Fed Holds Rates and Its Ground
Jerome Powell holds rates steady in what is expected to be his final meeting as Fed chair, warning that legal attacks are 'battering' the institution.
Jerome Powell's Last Stand
The Fed is expected to hold rates steady at Powell's final scheduled meeting as chair. The real question is what happens to the institution after he is gone.
Powell's Last Stand: The Fed Chair Who Can't Cut Passes the Baton to Someone Who Won't
Jerome Powell presides over his final FOMC meeting this week as the man set to replace him promises a harder line on inflation. The regime change at the Fed is not about rates. It is about who controls the institution.
The Fed Gets a New Chair Who Promised 'Regime Change'
Kevin Warsh's path to the Federal Reserve clears after the DOJ drops its Powell probe, but his plan to cut rates collides directly with an oil shock he never accounted for.
One Year of Trump Tariffs: The Numbers Are In
The Budget Lab at Yale finds 460,000 jobs lost and $1,700 per household per year. The administration says this proves the policy is working.
The Man Trump Picked to Run the Fed Says He Won't Do What Trump Wants
Kevin Warsh's confirmation hearing produced the predictable pledges of independence. The predictable part is the problem: every Fed nominee says this, and the chair who actually defies a sitting president has not yet existed.
Consumer Confidence Just Hit Its Lowest Point Since Records Began
The University of Michigan index dropped to 49.8, breaking a 74-year-old floor. The war with Iran is the immediate cause. The structural damage started before the first missile was fired.
The Fed Chair Who Won't Say What He Thinks
Kevin Warsh's confirmation hearing confirmed one thing: he has no intention of telling Congress, or the markets, what he will actually do.
Business Is Growing. Prices Are Growing Faster.
April's flash PMI hit a 47-month high for manufacturing. It also logged the fastest input price inflation since 2022. Both facts are true. The Fed cannot act on either one.
Trump Wants Rate Cuts. His Own Nominee Says He Can't Have Them.
Kevin Warsh's Fed confirmation hearing exposed a trap: he was picked to cut rates into a war-driven inflation surge that makes cutting impossible.
The OECD Says Tariffs Pushed US Inflation to 4.2 Percent. The Market Does Not Believe a Recession Is Coming.
Every major forecasting institution is revising US growth down and inflation up, attributing both directly to tariffs. Polymarket still prices a recession at 24.5%. One of them is badly wrong.
The Fed's New Chair Will Inherit a Trap
Kevin Warsh faces his Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday as Trump demands rate cuts, oil spikes, and inflation shows no signs of cooperating.
The Fed Is in a Box It Has Not Been in Since 1979. This Time the Shocks Are Compounding.
War, tariffs, and an oil supply squeeze are hitting simultaneously. The Federal Reserve has a mandate to fight inflation and support employment. It cannot do both at once. Markets are pretending it can.
The Fed's War Hostage
Governor Waller said rate cuts are possible if the Iran war ends quickly. It may not end quickly. The Fed is now making monetary policy based on a military outcome it cannot predict or influence.
The Fed Nominee Who Owns What He Would Regulate
Kevin Warsh disclosed holdings in crypto and AI firms before his Senate hearing. The real question is not his investments. It is whether he will cut rates in a stagflation environment to satisfy the man who nominated him.
The IMF Abandoned Its Baseline
When the world's economic referee stops issuing forecasts and starts issuing warnings, that is the forecast.
Tariffs Struck Down, Tariffs Coming Back
The Supreme Court ruled Trump's emergency tariff powers unconstitutional. The administration is already routing around the ruling.
He Said It Was Defeated
In January, Trump told G7 leaders inflation was beaten. The IMF now projects the US will have the worst inflation of any G7 country in 2026.
The Fed Has No Good Options Left
A Federal Reserve study confirms tariffs drove 3.1% cumulative inflation. Consumer spending is holding. Growth is stalling. The Fed cannot cut rates into a supply shock without making it worse.
The Central Bank in the Box
With Brent crude at $118 and physical oil touching $149, the Fed faces the only scenario its playbook cannot handle: inflation it cannot fight and growth it cannot save.
War Tax at the Pump
The Iran war produced the largest single-month US price spike in four years. The Federal Reserve cannot fix a supply shock, and Polymarket is pricing April inflation at 3.5-3.7%. Nobody in Washington is explaining who actually pays.
Two Drug Prices at Once
Trump is simultaneously threatening 100% tariffs on brand-name drugs that do not cut prices and expanding Medicare's power to negotiate drug prices downward. These are opposite levers. One of them is a bluff.
China's Deflation Is Over. The Replacement Is Worse.
After 41 months of falling factory prices, China's PPI turned positive in March. The cause is not demand recovery. It is a war in Iran driving up energy costs that Chinese manufacturers cannot pass on to consumers who are not buying.
The Fed Is Trapped Between a War and the Economy It Has to Protect
March CPI hit 3.3% on an Iran-war energy shock that the Fed did not cause and cannot stop. Rate cuts are now off the table. Rate hikes would crush a fragile recovery. There is no good option.
The Ceasefire Did What the Fed Couldn't: Repriced the Entire Year
Oil crashed 18% overnight and Fed rate-cut odds doubled. But the Strait is still closed, March CPI is still coming, and nobody knows if this ceasefire holds.