Bidenflation Calamity: Sticky Price and Average Inflation Soar to Record HighsJohn Carney 11 Feb 2022
Forget the idea that inflation is confined to a handful of things experiencing supply chain bottlenecks or only moving volatile prices. Inflation is now widespread, penetrating deep into the economy, and extremely high.
The Consumer Price Index is up 7.5 percent compared with 12-months ago, the biggest jump in prices in 40 years, according to data released Thursday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And the evidence suggests that it will be much harder to overcome than previously thought.
When inflation began to roar last spring and summer, Fed officials and many analysts were quick to point out that big moves in just a handful of items were responsible for a big part of the increase. This was the core of the argument that inflation was due to “transitory” factors rather than a generalized rise in price level.
There was some evidence for this view, even if it ultimately proved wrong. If you stripped away the outliers related to reopening pressure or bottlenecks–such as used cars, rental cars, lodging, airfares, and food away from home–inflation looked milder. Back in August of 2021, for example, when CPI was up 5,2 percent from 12-months prior, the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland’s measure of median inflation was showing just a 2.4 percent increase.
Similarly, the Cleveland Fed’s so called “trimmed mean” inflation measure–which strips out the categories with the biggest price jumps or drops in each month–was up 3.2 percent. The Atlanta Fed’s “sticky price” CPI, which tracks prices that rarely change by much, showed just a 2.6 annual gain. Those were elevated but, in the view of inflation doves at the Fed and in the Biden administration, nothing to be alarmed about.
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https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2022/02/11/sticky-price-and-average-inflation-soar-to-record-highs/
