Rising PCE price index is sitting at the highest level since 1982, which is 40 years ago.
Unless you are in your 60s or older, you have little memory of inflation at this severe a level. If this sustains for a few more years, the impact will be brutal.
Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) inflation index increased 0.6%, which follows 0.5% in January 2022 which was revised downward from 0.6%.
The core PCE inflation rate (without food and energy) was 0.4% in February, following 0.5% rise in January, matching the 0.5% increase for the previous three months. The October 2021 increase was revised up 0.1%.
The Securities and Exchange Commission issued proposed rules for emissions risk accounting and disclosures by public companies. After the 60 day comment window the SEC will work on final rules.
(Discussion from my other blog, Attestation Update, is posted here because of the impact these rules will have on economic freedom and prosperity. You can ponder the impact for yourself.)
The proposal creates three areas for measurement and disclosure. Scope 1 is emissions from a company’s own operations, whether it is manufacturing cars, producing coal, or running a bank. Scope 2 is emissions generated from the energy consumed by company as an input to their operations. This could be the electricity to operate the branches and computers of a bank or it could be all of the coal consumed to produce steel.
As if that does not stretch your brain far enough, there is Scope 3. Those are the missions of all of the vendors to a company and all the consumers of its products. This is not just immediate vendors and direct consumers. This includes the emissions of the vendors’ vendors and their vendors, all the way back to when raw materials were first pulled out of the ground.
This includes emissions generated by your customers as they use your products and also your customers’ customers’ emissions. This goes all the way to the end consumer. Furthermore, this is life cycle costs.
As a brain stretcher, for a utility providing natural gas to consumers Scope 3 would include the emissions generated as consumers heat their home. The lifecycle is very short since the gas will be used as soon as it arrives at the houses.
Counting Covid deaths using CDC methodology. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.
Now that Covid infection rates have collapsed in the United States, our political and public health ‘leaders’ are backtracking on the steps they took which caused so much damage.
Before they take credit for a virus variant running its course and fading away, we need to be pay attention to all those who caused trauma by their actions and who had their thumb on the scales when quantifying the impact of the virus.
Articles for your consideration today:
CDC “accidentally” overcounted Covid deaths.
Massachusetts overcounted Covid deaths by including deaths from any cause whatsoever if a person had an infection diagnosis within 60 days prior to death.
An incomplete list of people and organizations who owe us profuse apologies for the damage they have caused.
That is a 24% drop in the number of children they count as having died because of Covid. With the revised tally of 966,575 deaths in total that means they reduced the total count by 7.5%.
Minuteman II on static display at March Air Base Museum. Photo by James Ulvog.
On 3/10/22, Mr. Cole Smith attacked the integrity of U.S. Air Force officers pulling alert across the northern plain states as they monitor their ICBMs and maintain readiness to launch in the horrible event the President were to make the decision to do so.
He also attacked the safety and reliability of the missiles and warheads with an unsupported claim that
“…there have been more near-misses than the world knows.”
(Why is this discussion cross-posted from my other blog, Outrun Change? The only way we have so much political freedom, economic freedom, and religious freedom is that on the international stage, we have a powerful military to defend and protect those freedoms. This power pointedly relies heavily on nuclear weapons. On the national stage, our freedoms are defended and protected by the First and Second amendments to the Constitution. The Second Amendment is particularly relevant to guard the First.)
His support for attacking crew integrity is citation of a drug-incident involving 11 officers in 2013 and a test-cheating scandal involving 34 officers. Those are old reports (I won’t bother looking up date of the cheating incident) and well know to all.
Support for the more near-misses claim is an accident at Little Rock Air Force Base back in 1980.
Um, that was 42 years ago.
The incident involved a Titan II ICBM. The Titans were liquid fueled. They have long since been retired with the last one pulled off alert in 1987.
The Producer Price Index (PPI) rose 0.8% in February. The previously reported 1.0% rise in January was revised to 1.2%. So that is actually a cumulative increase of 1.0% in February
Keep in mind the prior monthly increases PPI are revised as needed. This is in contrast to CPI which is not revised.
In February, core PPI, without food, energy, & trade, was up 0.2% in February with January revised downward from 0.9% to 0.8%.
“The Producer Price Index (PPI) is a family of indexes that measures the average change over time in selling prices received by domestic producers of goods and services. PPIs measure price change from the perspective of the seller. This contrasts with other measures, such as the Consumer Price Index (CPI), that measure price change from the purchaser’s perspective. Sellers’ and purchasers’ prices may differ due to government subsidies, sales and excise taxes, and distribution costs.”
So the PPI measures prices received by producers for their goods and services. Those costs roll into the goods and services you and I buy as end consumers.
This means the increases in wholesale prices, which show a lot of inflation, are heading our way as those increases work themselves into the CPI.
Graph at the top of this post shows the monthly price change for total demand with separate line for total demand goods and total demand services.
With revisions, the year over year increase in PPI is 10.0% in February and January, which is only a slight increase from 9.9% in December and November and the increases were just under 9.0% for October back to August.
Take a look at the year over year change in final demand and core change which means without food, energy, and trade.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 0.8% in February 2022 after increasing 0.6% in January, 0.5% in December 2021, and 0.8% in November.
That is 1.9 % for the last three months.
Graph at top of this post shows the monthly increase in the all-items index along with the core change, which excludes food and energy. Graph also shows an average of the preceding 12 months for the all-items indicator.
The 12 month cumulative change continues to skyrocket. The monthly change in all items index and the cumulative change for 12 months looks as follows:
Accomplishments of our leaders during the pandemic. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.
With the speed at which restrictions are disappearing we will shortly see our alleged leaders claiming credit for their victory in defeating the pandemic.
In advance of those headlines, here are a number of reports to keep in mind: articles on adverse medical consequences, increasing supply chain disruption, and flaming hypocrisy from flagrant hypocrites:
Leaked information from military’s medical database shows severity of adverse effects from vaccinations.
In England, the vaccinated are getting sicker at higher rates than the unvaccinated.
In New York state the double jab is a mere 12% effective for young children.
Police officers moving to the Inland Empire area of California to escape vaccination dictats.
Train robberies are a thing in Los Angeles.
Weapon thefts are part of those train robberies.
Backups at US ports are spreading.
School board in New York blows off masks while schoolchildren suspended for doing the same.
Masks optional for SAG awards and mandatory for schoolchildren.
When you see the declarations of victory by our rulers in political office, overlords in the public health sector, and our betters in news media, remember what they did.
Remember what happened.
Remember who took away 18 months or 2 years of your child’s education.
Remember who cratered the economy and caused the supply shortage we see every day.
Remember who generated the Carter-era rate of inflation we see all around us.
