Inflation Is Heating Up — And Gas Prices Could Get Worse
(00:00.766)
Inflation is hot hot hot. Yeah for me to quote in my opinion one of the most annoying songs of all time Buster Poindexters hot hot hot. I actually looked up the lyrics to the song and they showed a picture of Buster Poindexter drinking a martini. The lyrics it’s just gobbledygook there’s nothing there so yeah he must have had about five martinis when he wrote that song but anyway yeah
That’s a theme music for inflation. At this point in time. 3.8 % driven by gasoline prices. Let me explain something else to you.
If those tariffs didn’t come off, it would have been much hotter than this. I think we’re just getting warm, just starting to get hot, hot, hot. I’m gonna go through some of the numbers here. Wow, this is, you know, taking a look at the prices here. This is year over year, fuel oil up.
54.3 % gasoline up 28.4 electricity up 6.1 transportation of 4.3 apparel up 4.2 food away from home up 3.6 shelter up 3.3 medical care 3.2 gas utilities up three food at home up three new cars up slightly less than 1 % use cars are actually down 2.7 % year over year and then you’re taking a look at some of the
the internals and some of these numbers, a pound of ground chuck has risen to $7.
(01:56.138)
seven dollars and I’ll go go way back machine because we’ll go back two terms we’ll go back to Donald Trump’s first term it’s up 91 percent ground beef is up 91 percent since 2016 you’re talking okay we got 10 years there but that’s a significant chunk of change you want to go back to 2020
cumulative inflation and I think this is this is using the government’s numbers. It’s not using my numbers. Government’s numbers, which is again, hell of a lot more conservative than mine 2020 29 % meaning something that cost 100 bucks in 2020 now costs 129 bucks. That’s overall inflation. want to look at it that way. Now, Donald Trump’s Donald Trump’s
poll numbers when it comes to the economy.
Approve 30 % disapproved 70%. These numbers are insane. Insane. We could go right into the heart of COVID and Trump’s numbers pretty much disapprove was around 48, 45, 44 during that period of time. It’s been going downhill since Liberation Day.
of last year. His approval rating back in. Yeah, you want to go back to March of 2025 was 44 % and then it just has fallen off a cliff. Since then disapproval going through the roof. These this is some of the realities of what’s going on right now that these things that they’re not talking about on the business networks. You have to take a look at
(04:00.162)
gasoline inventories here in the United States and they are getting very low. We have been helping out other countries. We’ve been exporting gasoline. Yeah, we have. We’ve been exporting gasoline because other countries are getting hit harder than we are. There’s going to come a point in time when you’re going to get to the bottom of the tank. If we don’t get
some sort of conclusion by the beginning of June. Things could get much, much higher. And then also, you’re going to be talking about extensive damage to many of the facilities in Iran and other places in the Middle East, which would, again, keep inflated energy prices on for an extended period of time.
We’ve got a new new regime coming in at the Federal Reserve. How in the world are they going to ever lower rates that the conversation right now again, you’re you’re 40.
You’re at 3.8 percent their target rate is 2
(05:22.374)
Their target rate is 2%. You are at 3.8 % and you still have sycophants saying that the Fed needs to lower rates. It’s not going to do a damn thing. The bond markets are going to dictate what the borrowing costs are going to be and we have a massive auction taking place later on this afternoon. I’m curious to see how that pans out.
I don’t know what’s going to happen. tie in what’s going on with Trump heading to Beijing with a bunch of big time CEOs going with him. Elon Musk, you’ve got Tim Cook, you’ve got myriad of big time business people going with him to China. What type of deal is going to be cut?
There is word right now and again you could just the you could find out what in essence the administration is floating Ideas that they’re floating out there based upon the various different numbskulls that they’ve got out there on social media Conversation about him taking in a trillion dollars and investment from China
and China wants to invest in the United States in tech.
How is that going to sit with everyone? Tech and also automobiles. Now don’t see how we’re going to allow that to fly. Let’s just, let’s understand something here. BYD automobiles come here to the United States, even if they started making them here in the United States, that’s checkmate, that’s game over for many of the American.
(07:25.408)
automakers. You can even have the executives at Ford. Jim Farley went over there and he admitted we are so far behind the technology and what’s in these cars. It’s unbelievable. Now China right now, and I’ve tried to explain this before, their growth numbers are nowhere near what everyone thought they were going to be. Again, they have not been successful.
and picking up their domestic consumption there, which is what they wanted to do. Because the government subsidizes a lot of their industry, they have a lot of stuff to sell at which are basically selling at a loss. That’s what’s known as dumping. And that’s problematic. I don’t know, I think it’s going to be a hard sell to the American people.
When you’re to say that China is going to start building data centers here in the United States, you would definitely have to change the the thinking of many of the people here. I don’t see that happening. I really don’t. Again, we’ll see. There’s going to be some sort of, you know, dealmaker in chief and oftentimes like Donald Trump has done this entire term.
He just makes stuff up when it comes to investment here in the United States Remember how many how many trillions of dollars was it was up 16 17 trillion dollars in? Investments that were coming into the United States for all these people because of his tariffs That was all complete utter bullshit But hey, hey it resonates in MAGA world kind of it’s like keeping them happy, you know
Santa Claus is real, tooth fairy’s real. It’s right up their alley. Okay, they’re gonna believe anything that Trump says. None of that happened. None of it came in patently absurd. I don’t know what they’re gonna come back with. We could get some success there, what I’d like to see. Opening up their banking system, which is cut off. I don’t know if that…
(09:49.664)
is going to happen. This is this is just on the economic front. I’m not even getting into the the social issues and Jimmy Lai and things like that. And for the time right now, we’ll just talk about economic issues. Yeah, to open up banking, we’re not really allowed to do much there at all when it comes to that. And obviously, as well, we’d like to see them buying more of our agricultural products.
which would be great because some of the tariffs, there some issues there and that never picked back up. And we’ve discussed the sheer volume of bankruptcies here in the United States. So again, we’ll see what happens. But as it stands right now, you wanna take it also, this is an economic, but it’s foreign policy issue as well. Maybe he can get China to force Iran’s hand and end this thing sooner rather than later.
I’ve listened to several generals as of late and their assessments in regards to what our options are at this point in time is.
you know, bad, little bit worse, terrible. That’s what I’m hearing. That’s the assessment. know, bad would be, and I’d be fine with bad. I would be fine. Bad is basically walking away. That’s it. We’re out. Goodbye. See you later. Why is that bad? Well, again, that would, you know, embolden Iran. They still have the straight, who knows? Maybe we can negotiate something. We get out.
and they give up that type of a situation. I don’t know.
(11:43.586)
more bad if you would be doing a massive, massive bombing campaign. And that would obviously also involve putting troops on the ground. Stavridis did an interview on this today and he talking about the cost involved, a bare minimum over a billion dollars a week and
that extending on it wouldn’t happen overnight. It would be something where we’d have to be involved with for years. This, you we can go on and on and on. was every option that he put out there was just not a very good one. We shall see, you know, maybe again, maybe just maybe China has got some sway with Iran.
you know, might push their hand to some degree. If Trump can get that out of his trip to China, we’ll be much happier because as it stands right now, as it stands right now, you’re gonna have elevated gasoline prices for an extended period of time. The longer this goes on, it’s not about flipping a switch, the longer these prices are going to be elevated. Watchdog on wallstreet.com.
