Donald Trumps Chicken-and-Egg Inflation Problem

ImageJust in: Lawyers for Elon Musk said he’d withdraw his $97.4 billion bid for control of OpenAI if the company halted its efforts to become a for-profit enterprise.More below.Separately: You might recall that several years ago I wrote a series of columns, following a raft of mass shootings, that inspired the creation of a “merchant category code” for gun retailers so credit card companies could better identify suspicious activity the way they already did to help prevent money laundering and sex trafficking.Well, this week Representative Riley Moore, Republican of West Virginia, introduced a bill to make it illegal for credit card companies to require “merchant category codes that distinguish a firearms retailer from general-merchandise retailer.” That means gun retailers would be able to mask what they sell.

What do you think of what’s happening?Scrambling Trump’s economic plans President Trump inherited a strong economy with booming labor and stock markets.But one economic holdover could tie his hands: stubbornly strong inflation.Investors are already getting antsy, with stock markets briefly plunging and the bond market suffering its worst day of the year so far after unexpectedly worrying revelations in the latest Consumer Price Index report.

It raises questions about what options the White House and Fed would have to maneuver if prices continued to rise.The latest: The C.P.I.data showed headline prices over the past three months running at an annualized pace of 4.5 percent — well above the central bank’s 2 percent target.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

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