First I’d like to apologize for the lack of a post. It is extraordinarily rare that I go this long (sixteen hours, for God’s sake) without a new post, but two things contributed to it. One was catching up on my energy from my recent travels. And two was a dinner date with a dear lifelong friend (who is a celebrated author and tech investor) at his club. The prospect of endless cocktails and scintillating conversation was irresistible, and he and I stayed out until quite late. I was found, I am told, roaming the Castro district wearing high heels and a revealing nightgown.

But I’m back, ready to talk about the markets, and the big news this morning was the red-hot inflation numbers that came out. My hunch is that this is merely the beginning of a steady string of inflation shockers, and the self-serving government employee Jerome Powell and his 20,000 underlings (that’s a true number) will be revealed for the shameless hucksters they truly are. It’s going to show up in our lives every day, just like the $92 bill I paid for a small single bag of groceries at Whole Foods yesterday afternoon.