Mark Zandi

It affects everything that's delivered at your door.

You know, Amazon, UPS, FedEx, the U.S.

Postal Service now has a surcharge.

So you're going to be paying more for that.

And then every airline now is trying to figure out ways to raise prices for tickets and other ancillary services to compensate for their higher jet fuel costs.

So

the effects of the run-up in oil prices is going to be felt for quite some time.

The other thing, just as a point of interest, economists have this old adage, prices go up like a rocket, they come down like a feather.

Especially in the current context, I've been very surprised by how quickly the pass-through has occurred, particularly with gas prices.

It's very rapid, almost like

As soon as it went up a dollar a barrel, it showed up at our local gas station.

But they'll come down more slowly.

They'll come down because of competition, but the competition will take a while to kick in.

So they'll take a longer to come in.

So I think we should, you know, you mentioned, I think it was J.P.

Morgan, a B of A, 4% inflation in the current quarter, annualized.

That sounds about right.

That's what we're going to get, despite the ceasefire and despite the, you know, pullback in oil prices that we've seen over the last...

last day or so.

I mean, I think the Fed, for the foreseeable future, at least next couple, three meetings, is on hold, that they're just going to sit on their hands for two reasons.