The Iran war is hammering American wallets hard. —Gas gas prices shot up 21.2% in a single month, the biggest spike since records began in 1967, and overall inflation hit 3.3% annually. Consumer confidence has cratered to its lowest level ever recorded, worse than the Great Recession or the pandemic. This economic pain is a direct consequence of the conflict, and the next CPI report is only going to look uglier.
Underlying inflation was already tame before Gulf hostilities began. —The the big tariff shock of the past year never caused runaway prices, proving the economy's inflation foundation is solid. Start-of-year seasonal quirks are making numbers look scarier than reality, and core services inflation remains genuinely subdued. There's simply no compelling evidence that inflation is about to spiral out of control.
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