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We Warned You!!! It Is Happening!!
- marycoupland5
- Aug 20
- 4 min read
Updated: Aug 21
By Mike Adams
Since 2016 we have been warning about the return of inflation. We have been building the assets in client portfolios with superior performance. We believe our clients are ahead of the game. The best time to invest to grow faster than inflation was yesterday. The next best time is today!
We are still in the early stages of inflation. It is truly time to be prepared!By the end of the 1970s it took three times the number of dollars to purchase the same goods as it did in 1965. By 1992 it was probably six times. This time could be worse.
We don’t have specific government data showing the inflation due to tariffs. But there is plenty of allegorical data. The Business Insider reports this:“Walmart employees have been sharing photos recently on the Walmart subreddit showing sharp price increases of as much as 45% at the retail giant. Some of the items have also seen price increases at the rival retailer Target.“In one example, a Walmart label shows the price of a Jurassic World T. rex toy jumping from $39.92 on April 27 to $55 on May 21, an increase of nearly 38%.“A third-party website that tracks Walmart prices, AisleGopher, shows the price was $29.74 back in November.”1
If you have been to the grocery store you have seen the price of eggs up 40%, tomatoes up 21% and beef up 10%. That may just be the beginning. US farmers in Florida and California are plowing under tomatoes since there is a shortage of labor. The same is true of apples and cherries in the state of Washington.
It is probably just the beginning. While history does not repeat it often rhymes.
Looking back to the high inflation times of the 1960s and 1970s gives some insight into what maybe coming in the next decade.
Most people think of the oil crisis as what spurred inflation in that time period. But inflation began before that. Lynden Johnson’s administration poured government money into the economy to finance the Vietnam War and the Great Society (Medicare, Medicaid, Elementary and Secondary School Act and the Civil Rights Act). It was similar to the stimulus money pushed into the economy for the Great Recession and the pandemic.
That flood of money in the 1960s set the stage for inflation and recession at the same time: stagflation.
In early 1972 the grain crop in the bread basket of the Soviet Union, the Ukraine, failed. Faced with the prospect of mass starvation the Soviets sent an agent to buy grain in the United States. Negotiating with commodity traders the Soviets managed to buy contracts for 30% of the United States production. That meant the United States did not have enough grains to meet domestic consumption.
On July 3 the price of a bushel of wheat was $1.44. Within 10 weeks the price had increased 60% and by fall the prices had tripled. It was called the “Great Grain Robbery”.
By 1973 grain prices had fallen back, but the finished goods prices continued to rise. There was the joke that said this: The price of a bushel of wheat increased from $1.44 to $2.00 so the price of a loaf of bread increased from $1.00 to $1.50. When wheat went back down to $1.44, the price of a loaf of bread increased to $2.00.
Prices did go up like a rocket and they came down like a feather. The grain prices had increased but so did wages and transportation and butter and multiple other food stuffs. All of that almost independent of oil. Inflation was on it’s way and did not slow for almost two decades.
Inflation of the 1960s and 1970s - Ruining Purchasing Power | |||||
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| 1960 | 1980 | 1992 | 2025 | |
Postage Stamp | $ 0.04 | $ 0.15 | $ 0.29 | $ 0.78 | |
Coke | $ 0.10 | $ 0.35 | $ 0.87 | $ 1.17 | |
Gallon of Milk | $ 0.49 | $ 2.18 | $ 2.78 | $ 4.59 | |
Dozen Eggs | $ 0.57 | $ 0.91 | $ 2.78 | $ 3.87 |
Look at the table carefully. The biggest increases came in the 12 years (1980-1992) after economists said “inflation had been tamed”. Oil prices during that time period dropped from $35 to $17 a bbl. Housing prices from 1980 to 1990 fell 13%. Those declines led to the CPI showing inflation had tamed. That “taming” masked the real underlying inflation that continued through the early 1990s.
In 2025 inflation seems to have returned.
Like the 1960s the government added trillions of dollars to the economy, first for the Great Recession and then for the COVID pandemic. The impact of those stimulus packages has yet to be felt in full.
It is early in the surge upward. In addition to the stimulus packages now we have the tariffs. The full impact of tariffs has not been realized. The full impact of the deportation of immigrants has not been realized. The full impact other countries semi-boycotting American goods has not been realized. Taken together it seems like the probability of a serious bout of stagflation is on its way.
Can you imagine a dozen eggs at $28? A gallon of milk at $12? It is very possible.
For our clients we have been preparing since 2016 following the stimulus for the Great Recession. Income needs are probably going to triple or quadruple in the next several decades.
It is not too late to prepare. It would have been better to have started yesterday. But it is better to begin today than to wait until tomorrow.
Note:
“Walmart workers are sharing photos of price hikes of 38% or more — and some prices are up at Target too”, Business Insider, June 1, 2025
The World For Sale: Money, Power, and the Traders Who Barter the Earth’s Resources by Jack Farchy and Javier Blas, February 25, 2021
Every individual situation is unique. Sign up for a no-obligation 30 minute consultation with Mike Adams.
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Article Written By:
Mike Adams, President & Principal
Adams Financial Concepts LTD
1001 Fourth Ave, Suite 4330, Seattle WA 98011
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