7 articles
The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark rate a quarter point on September 16 to a range of 3.75% to 4%, its first increase since 2023, in a unanimous vote under the chair Trump chose to bring rates down. Credit cards and home equity lines reprice within a billing cycle. The Fed did it with core CPI at its lowest since 2021, and its own forecast pencils in one more hike this year.
The EIA's weekly survey put US diesel at $5.967 a gallon for the week of September 7, above the June 2022 record of $5.810. Regular gasoline is $4.157 and nowhere near its own record. Diesel moves nearly everything you buy, so the gap between the two fuels is the number to watch.
The April 2026 CPI hit 3.8% year-over-year, the hottest annual reading since May 2023. Core inflation doubled its monthly pace to 0.4%, and real average hourly wages fell 0.3% over the year, the first annual decline since the post-pandemic shock. The gasoline story is no longer just a gasoline story.
On April 10, the US printed its hottest monthly CPI since summer 2022 because gasoline jumped 21.2% in a single month, the largest monthly gas spike on record. In the background, an Oxford economist's paper quietly established that the average American already needs 63 minutes of life-time to earn one international dollar, more than twice the 26 minutes Germans need, and that the gap has been widening for 35 years. The March shock is that 35-year trend compressed into a 30-day window.
The January 2026 Consumer Price Index (CPI) reported inflation at 2.4%. But the number is a ghost. A 43-day government shutdown erased October data collection, forcing the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to use carry-forward estimates that create an artificial downward bias through April 2026. The Fed, bond markets, and mortgage rates are all calibrated to a broken gauge.
The DOJ's criminal investigation into Jerome Powell's renovation testimony isn't about marble floors or budget overruns. It is a calculated legal maneuver to bypass the Federal Reserve Act's firing protections and force interest rate cuts, threatening to replay the inflationary disaster of 1972.
The 10-year yield is hovering at 4.17%, and markets are betting on a soft landing. But the 'No Landing' economic data is setting a trap identical to the 1994 bond crash.