America’s inflation headache gets worse

universe, America clearly passed its a couple of months ago; the Federal Reserve is still talking tough but investors have started to expect less monetary tightening, a great relief for stockmarkets; and Joe Biden can at last sense victory over rising prices, arguably the greatest nemesis of his thus far. Until a few days ago many thought America would be inhabiting that other world. Alas, a brutal batch of data has awoken them to a more dispiriting reality. Inflation, far from peaking, seems to be gaining altitude, with potentially dramatic for the Fed, for investors and for American politics.