Here's just a sampling of the price increases we've seen over the past few months.

Chipotle raised menu prices in June. Polaris, the company that makes Indian Chief motorcycles, snowmobiles and offroad vehicles, raised prices in May and is contemplating additional price hikes. Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, Kimberly-Clark, General Mills, Unilever, and other big companies have all raised prices.

Auto manufacturers are coping with skyrocketing costs another way. They are cutting back incentives, meaning the consumer ultimately pays more.

And then we have "shrinkflation" as companies sell smaller packages at the same price, or simply put less stuff in the same size box.

When Jerome Powell tells us these price increases are "transitory," it sounds like at some point prices will drop back to "normal." But that's not what Powell means. Prices are never coming back down. He admitted as much during the press conference after the July FOMC meeting. Powell admitted "transitory" means that recent large price increases will stick, but that future price increases will revert back to 2% per year at some unknown point in the future. In other words, when you hear the word "transitory," don't think that means you're going to get some price relief down the road. Prices will remain elevated. They'll just go back to rising 2% a year instead of the 6 percent-plus we're seeing today.