I recently looked around at VPS pricing on DigitialOcean, Linode and Vultr. Everything seems much higher than I'd expect - way over the inflation rate. It looks like a 2 core 8GB VPS is being priced between $45 and $60 per month. Maybe I don't remember correctly but I recall being able to get 2 core VMs around $20 a few years ago!

Everywhere I turn everything is more expensive.

I'm spending less and less every month on non-necessities, buying more basic foods, never eating out, spending less on entertainment, etc but everything else just keeps going up and up.

Electricity just went up 12%, my gas bill is up 20%, rent has gone up 10% year after year, water is somehow 30% more expensive than it used to be, my groceries are more expensive than ever even though I'm buying in bulk and not buying anything fancy, I've stopped eating luxuries I used to enjoy like steak and fancy cheese because they've just gotten outrageous.

I have a good job that pays decently but my raises have been less than 3% a year and I feel like I'm getting squeezed out of everything I once had. There's no light at the end of the tunnel is there?

I've started to notice this narrative in my news feeds. The argument is high wage growth is contributing to stubborn inflation. So cooling wage growth is seen as positive. It'll help central banks pause the hike cycle sooner.

My knee jerk reaction is if wage growth is contributing to inflation it's minuscule; just enough to print the headline. I can't help but feel this narrative is a way to distract from the earlier price gouging narrative and to help employers scapegoat out of raises.

But I'll admit, I haven't looked into this topic deeply. So I'm happy to be schooled.

Do you expect a Fed rate hike, pause, or rate cut on June 14?

I personally believe the Fed will surprise the market with another rate hike because although CPI has cooled, core PCE has remained sticky and the Fed doesn’t want inflation to rear its ugly head at all costs.

According to the CNN Fear & Greed Index we are at “extreme greed” levels not seen since February 3rd, which also coincided with a temporary market top.

This leads me to believe the market will begin to fall over the next few weeks until we hit “fear” or “extreme fear” levels again around July.

Archive: https://archive.ph/t0oH2

From the article:

UK inflation is on course to hit 18.6 per cent in January — the highest peak in almost half a century — because of soaring wholesale gas prices, according to a new forecast from Citigroup based on the latest market prices.

The investment bank predicted that the retail energy price cap would be raised to £4,567 in January and then £5,816 in April, compared with the current level of £1,971 a year — shifts it said would lead to inflation “entering the stratosphere”.

[...]

UK and European wholesale natural gas prices are already trading at close to 10 times normal levels and other forecasters have also raised their inflation predictions.

Goldman Sachs and EY said they expected an inflation rate of at least 15 per cent around the start of next year and the Bank of England said this month that inflation would exceed 13 per cent towards the end of the year.

The energy regulator Ofgem will on Friday announce the energy price cap for the period between October and January, which most analysts expect to rise to more than £3,500 for a household with average usage of energy — an increase of 75 per cent on current levels.