Wholedsale Prices Rose 4% in March

4%

“U.S. wholesale prices surged last month as the Iran war drove up the cost of energy,” the AP reports. “The Labor Department reported Tuesday that its producer price index — which measures inflation before it hits consumers — rose 0.5% from February and 4% from March 2025. The year-over-year gains was the biggest in more than three years. Energy prices surged 8.5% from February.”

Consumer Confidence Hits New Low

47.6

“Consumer confidence plunged to a record low in April as fears mounted over rising energy prices and the broader impact of the Iran war, according to a University of Michigan survey Friday,” CNBC reports.“The university’s headline index of consumer sentiment tumbled to 47.6, down 10.7% from March to its lowest on record. Current conditions and expectations indexes also saw double-digit monthly declines.”

We Lost the War

“So the world’s greatest military power went to war with a poor, medievalist theocracy. It was an incredibly uneven match … Yet Iran won. The Iranian regime has emerged far stronger than it was before, controlling the Strait of Hormuz and having demonstrated its ability to inflict damage on both its neighbors and the world economy. The U.S. has emerged far weaker, having demonstrated the limitations of its military technology, its strategic ineptitude and, when push comes to shove, its cowardice. … We’ve also destroyed our moral credibility: Trump may have TACOed at the last minute, but he threatened to commit gigantic war crimes — and for all practical purposes our political and civil institutions gave him permission to do so.”

Paul Krugman