After a single Federal Reserve rate hike of 75bps, I am noticing a trend among mainstream economists whipping out their crystal balls and predicting an almost immediate reversion to deflationary conditions. For most of these people, I would suggest that they keep their crystal balls in their pants; they have been consistently wrong and it's time for them to shut up. If you were predicting that inflation would be "t***sitory" a couple of years ago, then you have no right to act like you are an economist today.
It's going to take a lot more than one semi-aggressive rate hike from the central bank to stop the inflation problem, and when I say "inflation" I am talking about price inflation, not the mere increase in money supply or a bubble in stock markets. There are far too many economists out there that don't even grasp what true inflation really entails.
There are certain sectors of the economy that will indeed see deflationary pressures. Real GDP, for example, is witnessing a decline. U.S. wages are stagnant in comparison to prices. Housing sales are now falling rapidly. Clearly, there is a mix of inflationary and deflationary elements within the same economic crisis. In other words, it's a stagflation event.
An area in which prices continue to rise without much relent is energy. The mainstream blames this almost entirely on Russia's conflict with Ukraine and the evolving sanctions against Russian oil and natural gas. However, gas prices were spiking well before Russia ever invaded Ukraine. Inflation in the overall economy hit 40-year highs long before Ukraine became an issue.
Let's not pretend like we don't know the cause of all of this. It is caused by fiat money printing by the Federal Reserve since 2008, and central banks, in general, are the culprits. The bankers can fund or refuse to fund wh**ever they wish. Government politicians play their role in creating inflation by asking for the money, but it is the Fed that decides if they create the money. The government has zero power to dictate policy to the Fed. The central bank could print us into oblivion if they wished, which is essentially what they have done.
In the early 1970s, Richard Nixon, at the request of central bankers, removed the dollar from the last vestiges of the gold standard. Central banks shifted away from gold as the primary trade mechanism between governments and started switching over to Special Drawing Rights; the IMF's basket currency system. Not surprisingly, the dollar began an immediate spiral and its buying power began to crash. Stagflation became a household concern throughout the 70s.
This problem was mitigated eventually as the dollar's world reserve status grew. Basically, we exported many of our dollars overseas for use in global trade, and, by extension, we also exported a lot of our inflation/stagflation. As long as the dollar remained the premier reserve currency, most of the consequences of central bank fiat printing would not be felt by the general populace. In terms of gasoline, the dollar has been the petro-currency for decades which allowed us to keep prices in the U.S. lower than in many countries.
But things are changing. The dollar's portion of global trade has been in decline for the past several years, and the Fed just keeps creating more greenbacks from nothing. In 2020 alone, the Fed conjured $6 trillion to fuel the C***D stimulus response, pumping all that money directly into the system through C***D checks and PPP loans. In order for this process to continue, the dollar's global percentage of trade would have to keep growing in order to export U.S. inflation overseas. This is not happening. The dollar's percentage of global trade is in reversion.
We are dealing with the end of a cycle that started in the 1970s. We are going back to the beginning.
Furthermore, the gas crisis in the late 70s and early 80s was also driven by the Iranian revolution and the removal of Iranian oil supplies from the global market. This created a loss of around 7 percent of total oil from markets, but it resulted in gas prices exploding from 65 cents in 1978 to $1.35 in 1981. Prices more than doubled in the span of three years and never went back to where they were before the crisis.
As in the late 1970s, we also have a supply chain issue with an OPEC nation. The Russian portion of the global oil export market was around 10 percent in 2020, but Europe relies on Russia for around 25 percent of its total oil consumption. With the EU now cutting off that supply of oil, they will have to go to other exporters to get what they need, and this is reducing the amount of supply available to western countries. The Russians simply adapted and are now selling more oil at a discount to major eastern markets like China and India. But for the rest of us, Europe's thirst for oil is going to continue to cause price expansion as supplies falter.
So where does this leave us? Our situation is measurably worse than the 1970s for a few reasons, notably the fact that our country is in far more debt, foreign treasury and dollar holdings are in decline, and the economic conflict with Russia is far more egregious than our troubles with Iran in the 70s. I suspect we will see at least a 300 percent markup in gas prices from pre-p******c lows, which were around $2.60 per gallon for regular. Meaning, prices will continue to climb over the course of this year and level out around $7.50 per gallon by the beginning of 2023.
Some people will argue that declining demand will stop rising prices and might even cut prices back to $3 per gallon in the near term. I am doubtful. The stagflation problem does not only revolve around demand, there are many other factors at play. Unless we see a drop in demand similar to what we saw at the beginning of the p******c lockdowns, there is little chance there will be a reversal of that size or any reversal in prices for that matter.
Also, for anyone hoping that U.S. shale or OPEC will pick up the slack from Russia, this is also not going to happen. Oil industry experts have already noted that because of inflation and lack of manpower there will not be a major uptick in oil pumping and so shortages will continue for some time.
What does this mean for the wider economy? Inflation in necessities means an implosion in retail. People will divert funds away from other purchases to cover gas and energy costs. Expensive gas also means expensive freight rates, which means higher prices for everything else on the store shelves. Expensive gas will also cause smaller freight companies to go bankrupt or close up shop, along with higher interest rates being instituted by the Fed. My own grandfather lost his trucking and freight company in the 1970s for this exact reason.
In turn, less freight means less supply, which in turn means higher prices on everything. It's a terrible cycle. The point is, you should expect gas prices to remain very high if not go higher over the course of this year, and this will affect everything else in terms of your pocketbook and your life. Don't put too much stock in the people claiming deflation is on the way; not in prices of necessities, it's not.
Eventually, lack of demand will slow price increases but not until we are much higher than the current national average of $5 a gallon. And, if you live in a state with high gas taxes like California, then be prepared for double-digit costs at the pump.
After a single Federal Reserve rate hike of 75bps,... (
show quote)