Consumer Prices Rose at Highest Levels Since 2008 Last Month—Again

FEE's Brad Polumbo writes, "Are rising consumer prices becoming part of the 'new normal?”

"We’re now on Day 500-and-something of '15 days to slow the spread,' and month four of the supposedly 'temporary' spike in consumer prices," Polumbo writes. "But the 'temporary' nature of this spike is becoming increasingly dubious. Indeed, newly released data confirm that just like politicians’ pandemic power grabs, price inflation from government meddling is becoming endemic in its own right."

The harmful upward trend in consumer prices is likely to continue until the politicians and bureaucrats finally admit their policy approach was wrong.

And don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen.@brad_polumbo explains: https://t.co/MFUP6amdBH — FEE (@feeonline) August 12, 2021

"The Labor Department just released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for July, an imperfect but still useful tool that measures price changes in a bundle of typical consumer goods," Polumbo notes.

"It shows that prices increased 0.5 percent from June to July, which is an annualized rate of consumer price inflation of 5.4 percent," Polumbo writes. "Some goods saw particularly acute price increases in July, such as energy, food, housing, used cars, and other essentials."