It was last August when Jerome Powell began to admit that inflation just might be a problem. But even then, he was only willing to say that inflation would likely be “moderately” above the arbitrary 2 percent inflation standard. Back in August, low inflation—not high inflation—was still perceived to be the “problem.” But things had certainly changed by late November when Powell was forced by reality to retire “transitory” as the preferred adjective to describe price inflation.

Inflation in the US is at forty-year highs, while interest rates on ten-year Treasury notes just hit 3 percent—signaling trouble for home buyers. Truck drivers pay more than $1,000 to fill their rigs with $5 per gallon diesel to deliver your increasingly expensive groceries and Amazon packages. Crime and homelessness skyrocket in large cities, exacerbated by virulent opioids like fentanyl and krokodil. And America’s proxy war with Russia in Ukraine gives rise to the most serious threats of nuclear strikes against the West since the 1960s.

On Monday the White House again was forced to “calm fears” that the United States is engaging in nuclear brinkmanship. That is, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki was forced to deny Moscow’s claim that the United States and Russia are increasingly engaged in a proxy war in Ukraine and that this could ultimately escalate in unpredictable ways.

Tomorrow the Federal Reserve’s two-week blackout period will be lifted and Chair Jerome Powell is set to address the world. Strangely enough, yet not surprisingly, some mainstream economists and Wall Street analysts agree with the Fed that everything will be fine and a recession in the near future will be avoided.

To recap, CNBC notes that:

The go-to bullish indicators highlighted by pundits these days are the high levels of sidelined mutual fund cash and the AAII investor sentiment survey hitting its highest bearish reading since 2009:

One of the stranger narratives coming out of the controversy over Disney’s “special district” in Florida is the notion that Disney’s Florida property is some sort of truly independent self-governing entity operating without government oversight.

Too much government spending and loose monetary policy lead to rising prices combined with falling economic growth rates. All Keynesian roads lead to stagflation. It is the result of economic mismanagement. Again and again, the belief has been proven wrong that central bankers could guarantee the so-called price stability and that fiscal policy could prevent economic downturns. The present crisis is one more piece of evidence that interventionist monetary and fiscal policies are disruptive. Instead of a permanent boom, the result is stagflation.