What’s behind the numbers? The fourth CPI print of the year delivered exactly what Wall Street ordered: a beautifully airbrushed +0.6% MoM, while YoY inflation came in at +3.8% — just a tiny “unexpected” upgrade from last month’s +3.3%.
Apparently, inflation is only transitory when you zoom out far enough.
Underneath the soothing headline theatre, food inflation slowed from its fastest annual surge since September… only to remain the hottest since November — and that’s before fertilizer shortages begin turning grocery aisles into luxury boutiques.
Meanwhile, energy prices bounced back to their highest yearly increase since November 2022, because nothing says “price stability” quite like paying more for literally everything that moves.
Welcome to the opening act of Inflation Wave 2.
Once fertilizer shortages and energy shocks fully leak into the data, consensus economists may finally have to retire the word “temporary” for good.
Core CPI delivered another thrilling episode of “nothing to worry about”: +0.4% MoM and +2.8% YoY, conveniently landing just above forecasts and last month’s reading — because apparently inflation persistence is now considered a sign of economic resilience.
The real star of the performance was core services, the 76%-of-the-basket heavyweight that policymakers keep insisting is “normalizing.” Instead, it quietly accelerated to +2.48%, its highest level since last September.
But don’t worry, we’re assured this is all perfectly manageable as long as nobody looks at the trend.
Translation: inflation is behaving impeccably right before fertilizer shortages, energy spikes, and petrochemical supply-chain chaos arrive fashionably late to turn “soft landing” forecasts into collector’s items.
Enjoy this brief moment of statistical serenity before the second inflation wave starts surfing straight through the consensus narrative.
Cue the return of the party pooper for the “Inflation Is Dead” cheerleading squad: Owners’ Equivalent Rent — the CPI’s favourite zombie metric — reaccelerated to +3.3% YoY in April, up from March’s +3.1%, while proudly delivering its “coolest” reading since February 2020.
Congratulations everyone, the undead have officially shuffled back into the spotlight.
Sure, the metric is still elevated enough to quietly drain household purchasing power like a financial horror movie, but apparently, we’re supposed to celebrate because the zombie is limping instead of sprinting.
Naturally, this is being framed as proof that shelter inflation is “under control,” which in modern central-bank dialect simply means prices are still rising, just not fast enough to cause immediate panic on CNBC.
Adding to the “inflation is totally dead, trust us” propaganda tour: SuperCore CPI — core services ex-housing, or as the Fed prefers to call it, “the only inflation metric that matters whenever the headline looks inconvenient” — just reaccelerated to +3.38% YoY from March’s briefly reassuring +2.75%.
Congratulations, we’re back to October 2021 territory — that magical era when inflation was still “transitory,” supply chains were “normalizing,” and central bankers were confidently explaining why you absolutely shouldn’t worry about prices exploding everywhere at once.
Translation: that wasn’t “Mission Accomplished,” it was just a smoke break between inflation waves.
But by all means, keep repeating that inflation has been defeated.
Just ignore rent, food, goods, energy, insurance, and the radical extremism of basic arithmetic.
Refill the daily ‘hopium’ prescription, admire the emperor’s fabulous new clothes, and trust that this time the second wave will surely be different.
April’s CPI will undoubtedly be marketed as a minor inconvenience caused by the Empire’s “tiny and totally successful” Middle East excursion — you know, the one declared won sometime around Hour 1 of Day 1, yet somehow still managing to rattle global oil supply routes 73 days later and counting.
Victory has apparently become a subscription service.
For ordinary Americans not employed by the Malthusian Washington Swamp plutocracy, however, grocery prices will continue their inspiring journey upward,....
