Initial unemployment claims fell from fell to 376,000 from 385,000 last week, which is obviously good news, but year over year inflation jumped to 5%, which means the the usual suspects are going to start screaming for austerity.

As always, I’ll note that with 20+ states rolling back unemployment benefits, stimulus is going away sooner rather than later in those states, and in all 50 states at the end of September, so I will expect back-sliding when that happens.

As to the inflation, the core rate, which excludes food and energy is a lower at 3.8%, and it is dominated by a spike in used car prices, which are in turn driven by a massive shortage of new cars, which is in turn driven by an even more massive shortage of computer chips that go into new cars.

It’s a recovery, and inflation will spike, and quite honestly, with wages going up for people at the bottom end of the scale, it’s a good thing.

I’m waiting for the “Very Serious People” to try to start to screwing things up.