Another day, another drop of alarming data for the American economy.
The Producer Price Index (PPI), which measures costs paid by wholesalers, surged a record 11.2 percent last month from what it was a year ago. This year-over-year increase significantly outpaced the already bleak forecasts. The sharp rise is yet another piece of data suggesting that inflation will be with us for some time.
The so-called core wholesale prices, which the Fed views as a reliable predictor of inflation, also rose far more than expected.
The media and Biden administration narrative is to blame the war in Ukraine (i.e., Vladimir Putin) for the latest round of scary data. But this is simply spin. Though the inflation rate popped to 8.5 percent earlier this week, it was already at 7.9 percent when Putin invaded. That is up from 1.7 percent in February of 2021.
One additional news item that will not help the Biden economy is that the Big Joey administration extended federal mask mandates on planes. Even though we learned early on in the pandemic that planes are relatively safe places to be due to their state-of-the-art ventilation systems, we will continue to don the face diaper for at least another two weeks. The Bummer Virus endures and will continue to hinder the economy. Not so coincidentally, Delta reported a $940 million loss in the first quarter.