Your Weekend Reading: Climbing Inflation Puts More Pressure on Fed

High inflation is diminishing U.S. consumer purchasing power and may soon exact a cost from the nation’s strong economic rebound. New data this week added pressure on the Federal Reserve to move more quickly, and perhaps more forcefully than planned, to hike interest rates. Supply chain issues, a key part of the inflation conundrum, have one of Wall Street’s biggest names warning that the world is “out of everything.” The company that makes Dove soap and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream contends it faces a huge increase in the cost of raw materials. Andrea Felsted writes in Bloomberg Opinion that consumers are going to start trading down, shopping around—and cutting back.

After almost a year of isolating itself from the rest of the world, under-vaccinated Hong Kong is again mired in coronavirus misery. In Canada, protests by anti-vaccine truckers have gained adherents elsewhere, but authorities may be about to crack down. U.S. officials warn the protests are already hampering America’s automakers, and that copycats could show up outside the Super Bowl in Los Angeles on Sunday.