And while there are those who are convinced the high price of oil is due to speculators, there are reasons to think the real culprit is still demand. Refiners are paying anywhere from $5-7 more per barrel than futures prices for “light sweet” crude (oil with low sulfur content) and $7 less for heavy sour crude. Much of the oil from the Middle East is of the latter variety, and supplies are increasing. There is not enough refinery capacity for heavy sour crude. That is why you see OPEC representatives say there is enough supply. For the crude they produce, there is. Spot prices are reacting to supply and demand and not speculative futures prices.

Over time, reducing demand should reduce price. I would expect to see oil get back to $120 or lower by the end of the year. But by year-over-year comparisons, inflation will still be ugly for some time. Oil prices have risen approximately 90% in the last 12 months (the actual percentage is highly dependent upon which measure you use). The bulk of that has been in the last four months. For energy inflation to go down on a year-over-year basis, we would need to see oil drop below $100. How likely is that in the next two quarters?

Where Can We Get Help on Inflation?

So, the two main sources of inflation are unlikely to drop in the next two quarters. If we want to get overall inflation down to 2%, we will need to look for help in other areas of the economy. How about medical care? Not likely. Education costs? Get real.

Housing costs make up 42% of the CPI, and thus are the biggest component. That is broken down into several categories: owners’ equivalent rent for those who own their homes (32%), actual rent for those who do not (around 6%), utilities, furnishings, etc.

Rents have been up by 3.5% over the last year and owners’ equivalent rent by 2.6%. If rent increases were to drop to zero, that would just about get us to 2% overall inflation. But let’s think about that. Such a low number would mean an economy on its heels and a lack of buying power on the part of consumers. The only way that happens is with serious unemployment.

You can go to http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.t01.htm and look at the various components of the CPI. Spend some time thinking about what costs are likely to drop. New and used vehicles are now dropping year over year, but only by a little, and that is only 7% of the index. Most items are rising at least a little.

Now, in a second thought exercise, think about what would happen if Bernanke decided to raise rates. A rising Fed funds rate is unlikely to have much effect on oil or food prices, unless he raises them enough to put the US and world economies in a serious recession.

How much would he have to raise rates to really slow the rest of the economy down? If you push up rates by 2% with the economy either in recession or close to it, you risk putting the economy into a much deeper recession.

Look at the yield curve below. This is exactly what the banks and financial services lend. They like to have a nice positive differential between the cost of their deposits and what they can charge for lending.

If you raise rates by 2%, you would more than likely invert the yield curve, making it that much more difficult for financial service companies to be able to recover. Given that they are already in trouble, and therefore less able to lend to businesses and consumers, do you really want to make things worse?

Look at the banking index below. This is an ugly chart. Another inverted yield curve would do serious damage to an industry already reeling. We are going to see more write-offs from banks. This chart will get uglier, but it will collapse without a positively sloped yield curve. (chart courtesy of www.fullermoney.com)

Further, raising rates would make it more difficult for consumers whose mortgage rates are tied to short-term rates. Is that what a housing industry needs right now?

Bottom line, Bernanke is in a very difficult position. Inflation by any standards is too high. But the cause of the inflation is not something in the Fed’s control. To bring inflation back to 2%, he would have to savage the economy, perhaps at least as much as Volker did. Do you want to see unemployment go to 8-10%?

Volker was dealing with wage inflation. Everything had cost of living adjustments (COLAs) back in the late ’70s and early ’80s. Spiraling wages were one of the primary causes of inflation, if not the most important. A higher Fed funds rate could do something about rising wages by increasing the unemployment rate. Tough love, but effective.

Volker had to kill inflation expectations. Today, that is not (so far) Bernanke’s problem. If you look at the implied inflation in the TIPS market, which is the difference between a ten-year treasury note and the ten-year TIP rate, it has only risen from a recent low of 226 bps on May 1 to 249 bps on June 10. Look at the following chart from Asha Bangalore of Northern Trust. Note that inflation expectations are not at recent highs.

Pages: 1 2 3 4

Pages: 1 2 3 4