Timothy Sumer

How times have changed. It wasn’t many months ago that the entire financial world was singing the praises of inflation. The greatest fear among Wall Streeters and other financial lights was lower prices that might actually decline more and turn into that monster known as deflation. The thought conjured up nightmarish scenes of bread lines and bank runs. Ever since the global financial crisis of 2008 and especially since the Covid pandemic, central banks and governments around the world have pulled out all stops to prevent such an occurrence. And guess what? It finally worked. After declining since the early 1980s, inflation has roared back to life, recently hitting 40-year highs. But no one is celebrating. In fact, now central banks around the world have declared war on inflation, and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is leading the charge. The Fed has dramatically raised the federal funds rate several times this year, with more action to come. This week’s guest h...