Category: More

I have been talking and writing about the inflation rate in the U.S. (and around the world) for a year now and I am worried about it. That makes me a little different than say Jay Powell over at the Fed who keeps saying that inflation isn’t quite a “real thing” and it’s “transitory”. If you don’t know what that means, it means that it’s just a fad and isn’t going to last. If you believe that one, well there’s that proverbial swamp land in Florida that I’d like to sell you.

The inflation rate has been climbing at the fastest pace in over a decade, as Americans pay more for gas, groceries, and many other items. The rate of inflation has slowed over the past few weeks, but don’t get too excited by that news. Inflation will be hanging around at high levels for quite a while longer: this year, next year, and even beyond that. If inflation were a stock, I’d say invest in it. It’s guaranteed to be going up!

Every once in a while, I stumble upon a word describing something that is stuck in my head. You may not have heard of it, but I swear it’s a real thing and this time you not only are going to hear me say it, you are going to be living it! The word is “panflation”!

What is it? Panflation was a term first coined in 2012 by The Economist, an international weekly newspaper printed in London, England, and originally it referred to the inflation of everything. That was before the COVID-19 pandemic.

If you didn’t believe me or you didn’t want to believe me, then perhaps you will believe Warren Buffett about rising inflation. It really was inevitable and although I’d like to take credit for being one of the very first and only ones talking about the danger of inflation returning to the world economy, the truth is that it had to happen.

With the economy suffering so much and so many businesses going down and under, there was only one way to see the course that would come when things started to open up and return to normal: Inflation from new higher wholesale and retail prices!