US inflation is rising to staggering levels.
Goods and services cost 6.8 percent more in November than in the same month last year, as the Department of Labor announced in Washington on Friday.
That is the highest value since June 1982. Experts surveyed by Reuters had expected this increase after the inflation rate in October was 6.2 percent.
The drivers of inflation included higher energy prices, increased used car prices and also the imputed rent for self-used living space, explained Thomas Gitzel, chief economist at Liechtenstein’s VP Bank.
US President Joe Biden has already prepared the citizens for the bad news as a precautionary measure and at the same time warned against excessive fears.
The data would not yet show the expected price reductions in the coming weeks and months.
But the Fed no longer sees the inflation phenomenon as temporary.
It is increasingly being forced to abandon its loose monetary policy course earlier than initially planned.
For the interest rate meeting on Wednesday, a resolution is expected that the central bank could turn off the tap earlier: It should accelerate the pace of reducing its monthly purchases as part of its bond program.
These could then be completely discontinued in the spring, which would pave the way for an earlier rate hike.
"If an argument was needed to convince the US central bank of the necessity of a more rapid exit from the ultra-loose monetary policy, then this was provided by today's inflation data," said Elmar Völker from the Landesbank Baden-Württemberg.
The price increase is becoming more and more dizzying.