... cause we sure got it on the inflation figure.

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.4 percent in March on a seasonally adjusted basis, the same increase as in February, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 3.5 percent before seasonal adjustment.

The index for shelter rose in March, as did the index for gasoline. Combined, these two indexes contributed over half of the monthly increase in the index for all items. The energy index rose 1.1 percent over the month. The food index rose 0.1 percent in March. The food at home index was unchanged, while the food away from home index rose 0.3 percent over the month.

Core, all items less food and energy, was also up 0.4, which annualizes to 4.91%.

Forget about rate cuts folks; I told you there was another impulse in the PPI and other data and here it is.

Gasoline, which I pointed out recently, was up unadjusted 6.4% last month and that was clearly going to happen as the sample week crossed a major price spike.  Incidentally just in the last few days there was a large spike and then decrease -- gee, there's no manipulation going on in front of the eclipse, right?  I found that particularly offensive and nobody would try something like that 40 or 50 years ago because people would go to prison for it, being that its actually illegal under 15 USC Chapter 1 to fix prices.  Not arresting anyone for decades in any industry, especially health care, tends to encourage this sort of thing -- and here it is.

Car insurance was up 2.6% on the month which annualizes to 36%.  Surprised?  I'm not, because I just got my renewal and despite having no claims, no accidents and no tickets for decades the double-digit increase -- and shopping it got me nowhere -- should have and did translate into the report.

What's equally-bad if not worse is that car repair and maintenance is up 8.2% over the last year as well -- and of course nobody needs that, right?

We were never trending toward 2% and there is no evidence in this report that inflation is "relaxing"; as I've pointed out all of this is being driven by Congress which refuses to stop spending 30% more money than it takes in via taxes.

Rates are going to continue to go higher in the economy until that stops, and this in turn is going to turn around and hammer corporate profitability while destroying anyone who is dependent on being able to borrow on an incremental, repeated basis in order to afford groceries.  NEITHER political party has been willing to do a thing about this, and until it stops neither will the inflation or higher rates.

Let me be clear as I have been now for more than a decade: The MTS (Treasury Statement) makes clear that the only possible way to resolve the problem is to actually enforce 15 USC Chapter 1 against every single medical provider and drug company, without exception.  This will collapse medical pricing by 80%.  It is not a question of whether you want to do this (yes, that will produce a huge number of layoffs and a nasty recession centered in and on those firms and employees) it is that this is the only place where enough funds are spent to resolve the issue, and further it is the place in the budget where the problem has always been which was clear all the way back to the 1990s and for that reason I've been raising a stink about it since.  This is not a matter of political preference it is one of mathematical fact.

In the meantime if you are dependent on debt, whether as a business or a consumer, or if you as an individual require said medical system as it exists today, you're in serious trouble.