Today's animal spirits is brought to you by white charts. Ben, Houston, we have a problem.

I mean, the problem is I'm looking at the US consumer price index, the official data, and

year-over-year, or up 6.8%, and if you look at a chart,

this is going to leave a permanent mark. My point is that when you're looking at this data series before this year,

it was pretty much like

1970, and then everything in comparison was a flat line. And for the first time in a long time,

you see inflation, not just in the grocery, you see it on the chart. Are you doing technical analysis of inflation right now?

That's a breakout. Are we having a breakout?

This is one of the charts that I've gone back to more than any other probably in the last 12 months.

But here's my other takeaway from this. Going back to the 1960s, it looks like. Just look at how volatile it is.

It's never just flat, and even in the last 20 or 30 years when it's been relatively low, it's still all over the place.

I feel like in our minds, we want inflation to be this flat thing where it's the same every year.

That's just never the case. If you look back historically, it's constantly moving.

For the last decade, it was a pretty tight band between 0 and 3%. But yes, you're right, of course.

It's a volatile data series.

Okay, if you want to look at this chart, with us, go to whitecharts.com, tell them animal spirits sent to you,

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Welcome to Animal Spirits, a show about markets, life, and investing.

Join Michael Batnik and Ben Carlson as they talk about what they're reading, writing, and watching.

Michael Batnik and Ben Carlson work for Ritholds Wealth Management.

All opinions expressed by Michael and Ben or any podcast guests are solely their own opinions,

and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholds Wealth Management.

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