In Europe, A Sight For Sore, Irrelevant Eyes
Rejoice! The rate of annual price growth in Europe decelerated this month by the most in more than two years.
That's the good news. The bad news is, headline inflation is still 10%.
The preliminary read on annual price growth for the euro area in November marked a reprieve from a long stretch of above-consensus prints. Economists expected 10.4% from the headline gauge, which came uncomfortably close to 11% in October.
In a testament to just how relative the term "relief" is in the context o
Mohamed El-Erian says that we are not just headed for another recession but a “profound economic and financial shift”. I think central banks are beginning to realize this too. Nothing they can do matters in the current economic climate but to assuage the users of their currencies they have to pretend that they think rate hiking is somehow going to ameliorate the inflation problem. What happens when everyone realizes the central banks no longer have the tools to solve global economic problems anymore?
Wha happens to the price of everything imported from China everywhere when either (1) they open up and covid kills and/or hospitalizes most people, or (2) people riot and a civil war breaks out?
You might have to change the title of your chart from “Mountaintop” to “False Peak”.
For anyone who has hiked the Rocky Mountains as much as I have, you will understand the mental and physical exhaustion experienced in that instantaneous moment of time when you realize that you thought you had reached the peak, but it turned out to be a “false peak”.