While the US economy is showing signs of increasing inflation, at least temporarily, the past couple of years -- highlighted by economists predicting doom -- have actually seen a robust economy.
It's a boom economy, but as often happens, the prosperity isn't distributed evenly -- the higher-earning segments of the population are still spending like they did a year ago, but the middle and lower echelons are feeling the pain of higher prices for energy and food.
It's a "K-shaped" economy, Money Man Pat Shinn says, meaning some portions are thriving while others are sometimes struggling.
"So there's the folks living paycheck-to-paycheck, they're having a tough time, and yet Delta and United booked record revenues that are better than ever," he says, citing a mix of government policies, private sector initiatives and a stagnant but healthy employment market as the fuel keeping the economic train chugging along on-track.
"The White House is citing a tremendous amount of spending on artificial intelligence and all of the tax cuts under the One Big Beautiful Bill, and I can confirm we're seeing both," the longtime Newsradio 740 KTRH markets reporter says.
But there are some deep concerns about some underlying portions of the economy.
Just last week, White House National Economic Director Kevin Hassett said he expects the US economy to grow at a 4-percent rate this year, which sounded like a slightly optimistic prediction then -- but then came yesterday's report that consumer inflation (the Consumer Price Index or CPI) rose to 3.8-precent .
"Clearly, wealthy consumers are spending on luxuries, travel, staying in nice hotels, lower income consumers are spending on gasoline and credit card interest.