![Warning Sign: Inflation Near 40-Year High Shocks Americans, Spooks Washington](https://mgi.usgoldbureau.com/media/amasty/blog/cache/W/a/500/333/Warning_Sign_Inflation_Near_40-Year_High_Shocks_Americans_Spooks_Washington.jpg?width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&format=pjpg)
![Warning Sign: Inflation Near 40-Year High Shocks Americans, Spooks Washington](https://mgi.usgoldbureau.com/media/amasty/blog/cache/W/a/500/333/Warning_Sign_Inflation_Near_40-Year_High_Shocks_Americans_Spooks_Washington.jpg?width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&format=pjpg)
The U.S. is poised to enter Year Three of the pandemic with both a booming economy and a still-mutating virus. But for Washington and Wall Street, one Covid aftershock is starting to eclipse almost everything else.
Already-hot inflation is forecast to climb even further when November data comes out on Friday, to 6.8%. That would be the highest rate since Ronald Reagan was president in the early 1980s -- and in the lifetimes of most Americans.
Higher prices helped deliver a banner year for U.S. business, which is posting its fattest profit margins since the 1950s. But for Joe Biden’s administration and Jerome Powell’s Federal Reserve -– which didn’t see it coming -- the sudden return of inflation, largely dormant for decades before 2021, is looking increasingly traumatic.
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