John Rubino, Founder of The Dollar Collapse website, joins us to discuss the latest inflation reading, Fed policy concerns, trends in consumer spending, potential deflation, the US dollar, Gold, and Bitcoin. We start off with increased investor inflation expectations, with the CPI coming in at 8.3% for April. There are market concerns about the how far the Fed will get into the process of policy tightening and rate hikes, and whether it will have the desired effect of slowing inflation. We discuss the slowing growth, tapped out consumer increasing their buying on credit, how that may affect the demand side of the inflationary pressure and turn more deflationary. This is counterbalanced with high costs and global shortages of food and energy and supply chain issues keeping prices elevate.
Next we moved in the destabilizing forces of inflation being persistent, with a central bank far behind the curve on raising rates, while consumer spending has likely peaked and starting to wane, as the general markets, bonds, and commodities all sell off. The strong US dollar seems to be one of the few asset classes getting a bid from investors, relative to other fiat currencies, but the 2 safe haven alternatives to fiat, both gold and bitcoin, haven’t garnered as much of a bid. Most market commentators await the point where the market pain grows high enough to where the Fed will decide to reverse course and reliquify the markets.