Tales of Inflation

Last week Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari said he’s confident the Fed can get inflation back down to their 2% target, but it will take longer than expected as their only tool is to lessen demand. The Fed can’t help increase supply of goods, products, and commodities. But, he was confident last year that inflation was transitory too. Will he be right this time?

The Consumer Price Index for April was released last week and the monthly increase was just 0.3% in April from March; but the annual increase was 8.3%, down from 8.5% in March. The Core CPI rose 0.6% last month and is up 6.2% year over year. Its expected inflation will peak at end of summer when last summer’s low inflation readings are replaced by expected higher readings this summer.