Inflation is it persistent?

The US consumer price index (CPI) jumped 0.9% in October, well above consensus expectations of around 0.6%. The increase brought the year-over-year CPI increase to 6.2%, the highest since December 1990. The U.S. Producer Price Index (PPI) also came in up 8.6%, year-over-year.

Outside the U.S., the latest inflation data paint a similar picture. Eurozone PPI inflation is running at 16%. Japan’s PPI clocked in at 8%, yet another 40-year high, and China’s at 13.5%, a level last seen in the mid-1990s. South Korea’s import prices are rising at 35.8%, the fastest rate since 2008.

In short, current inflation increasingly appears neither transitory nor local.