Walmart CEO predicts serious inflation by June

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Walmart CEO predicts serious inflation starting in June.

Quote:

Still, inflation is "going to be serious," Wal-Mart U.S. CEO Bill Simon said during a meeting with USA TODAY's editorial board. "We're seeing cost increases starting to come through at a pretty rapid rate."

Along with steep increases in raw material costs, Long, a retail strategist at Kurt Salmon, says labor costs in China and fuel costs for transportation are weighing heavily on retailers. He predicts prices will start increasing at all retailers in June.

"Every single retailer has and is paying more for the items they sell, and retailers will be passing some of these costs along," Long says. "Except for fuel costs, U.S. consumers haven't seen much in the way of inflation for almost a decade, so a broad-based increase in prices will be unprecedented in recent memory."

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http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/2011-03-30-wal-mart-ceo-expects-inflation_N.htm

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Walmart announced a few months ago that it had its own measure of inflation and from what I saw of it then it was more accurate than that of the government. Of course, the government has a vested interest in hiding inflation to keep the debt ridden consumers passive. Soon they won't be able to hide it anymore. It will be interesting to see if, once it really kicks in, what kind of reception those howling unionists get then, especially the public ones. I wonder also what the people will think when public employees get cost of living adjustments, as maybe to welfare recipients, while everyone else is getting squeezed.