Inflation Truth The U.S. Federal Reserve sent a strong signal today that inflation is endemic in the economy and that strong action is needed to bring it under control. It will speed up the reduction in its bond buying and projects three interest rate increases next year. This contrasts with President Biden’s depiction of inflation being caused by a few bad actors, or that it is coming under control in some sectors. What is notable is that not only did the Fed not buy the White House line but neither did the public. In a SurveyGoo survey of 1,000 consumers in the U.S. and UK, 79 percent pegged the blame on supply chain problems such as driver shortages. The good news for the White House is that the public did not blame government sti...
Key Market Insights The broad market is locked in on this week’s Trump-Xi meeting in Beijing, but this is no longer just a trade summit. Increasingly, the meeting is becoming tied directly to Iran, energy security, and the growing global economic fallout from disruptions through the Strai...
From WPI Consulting
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.