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New Year, Same Problems
The calendar may say it is a new year, but U.S. consumers face the same problems: higher prices and a virus that just won’t go away. The PCE deflator is higher than it has been in almost 40 years; the median age in the United States is 38. For more than half of the country, this is the highest inflation they have seen in their lifetime, and that is having a predictable effect on consumer psyche. If that were not enough, the Omicron variant has led to yet another wave of new infections. People are longing for life before the virus, even as higher prices and rising case counts make that more difficult to achieve. In ... (full story)