Saturday, July 13, 2024

The rarely uttered but all-important truth: Energy prices lie at the root of all price pressures

Energy-heavy transportation and warehousing operations saw prices fall in the early and final purchasing stages of their business, PPI data showed. That indicates that supply-side pressures are easing, Kurt Rankin, senior economist with PNC Financial Services, wrote Thursday.

“The downward-trending energy PPI pace, which lies at the root of all price pressures in the US economy, implies that the second half of 2024 will see diminishing cost pressures from producers’ own energy bills, as well as the cost of shipping goods to retailers,” Rankin wrote. 

The final two paragraphs, here.

Don't be fooled. High energy prices remain the main drag on the economy.

A presidential administration biased against fossil fuels, which still accounted for 81% of primary energy production in the US in 2022, is shooting itself in the foot when trying to fight inflation and explains the persistence of the problem which most elites predicted would only be transitory.


Gasoline prices remain Obama-like, not Trump-like in the first half of 2024

Natural gas prices remain highly elevated in the first half of 2024 and ticked up again

Electricity in the US has never cost more than under the recent, lunatic Biden administration