The other day, a 73-year-old bottle of French Burgundy wine sold at an auction for $558,000. It was expected to go for “just” $32,000. A bottle of 1945 Romanee-Conti, another wine with an impressive French pedigree, sold for $496,000 a short while afterward. Why am I mentioning this? Because it goes a long way toward explaining why the Federal Reserve is worried about inflation and raising interest rates even though the cost of living for consumer goods seems to be under control. Back in the late 1990s, Fed chairman Alan Greenspan kept saying he was worried about inflation. But as I pointed out frequently then, it ... (full story)