Anybody else seeing clear signs of inflation?

OK I just wanted to get the input of as many members as possible on this. Is anybody else seeing clear signs of inflation starting to rear its head in the US? Besides the obvious higher gas prices anybody starting to notice other things such as:

Higher prices at the supermarket?
Anybody getting raises at work?
Higher insurance premiums?
Your business passing on increased costs in the form of higher prices or are you absorbing them?
Anybody starting to notice a trend of higher bids on eBay for their items?

I myself am noticing higher cost for dairy items, restaurants raising menu prices and alot of friends demanding and receiving pay increases at work. We own a few small businesses and we know all our costs are slowly but surely starting to rise as and we are thinking about raising our own prices for the first time in a long time as well.

It just seems to me we are going to see a spike in prices across the board before too long. No doubt Greenspan will have to start hiking interest rates at a faster pace if this occurs. Can you just feel it or is it just me??

[edit on 6-4-2005 by mrdependable]

Greenspan’s irrational exuberance in raising interest rates seven times already is causing most of the inflation.

Higher interest rates make everything more expensive.

Raising rates will put people out of work not tame inflation.

Lol,.... yup.


I suspected such first when gold spiked,.. and then when oil spiked,... and now everything else will spike. It's following a well-beaten path.

But Greenspan is 'reactive' not 'pro-active'.

I have only noticed the spike in gold and huge jump in gasoline prices. I haven't really noticed any huge jumps in price in the super market or in resturaunts. I want to know why oil prices have jumped so freakin high if we (the US) invaded Iraq for the oil. I figure if we went over there for oil We'd have it on a huge pipeline back to the good ole USofA and fall back to the days of $.75/gallon of gas. I don't think its Greenspans fault. His job is to react to what happens and hopefully his analysts are getting him the info he needs to forecast what is expected to happen in the near future. The biggest thing I have noticed by way of rising prices is the Housing Boom in the south west Cali, Nevada, etc. Houses have doubled in value in the past 5 years. If we were all smart we'd cash in on this time of super inflation before the RE boom ended.

No kidding man the housing market is brutal right now... In my area a starter home that was going for $170k 2 months ago is going for almost 190 now... the newspaper was saying that on average prices for new houses in the area are rising by about 2000 dollars a week.
As far as other stuff getting more expensive, yes it is happening here albeit at a much slower rate than gas though.
However wages in my area are not going up at all... I have actually seen a drop in offered wages on the same job in the last 6 months. That is what I get for living in AZ though

The rule of thumb for inflation seems to be Greenspan and oil. Nothing more like a man who can turn Wall Street on and off like a water spidget and our nation's most valueable resource and commodity to evaluate inflation if you ask me.