Via Birch Gold Group,

A recent example of the Fed's "inflation blindness" comes from a speech Chairman Jerome Powell gave to the Economic Club of New York. According to a MarketWatch piece that reported on that speech:

Powell said he doesn't expect "a large nor sustained" increase in inflation right now. Price rises from the "burst of spending" as the economy reopens are not likely to be sustained.

It's odd that Powell would say he doesn't expect a sustained increase in inflation, because food price inflation has consistently run 3.5 to 4.5 percent since April last year. That sure seems like a sustained increase in food prices.

What Powell seems to have "forgotten" is that some of the overall inflation includes negative energy price inflation (as low as negative 9 percent at one point). But now that the demand for fuel is returning, the official gasoline index rose 7.4 percent in January.