Tuesday’s CPI print, a fresh read on restaurant menus, a stressed growing season, and a war that refuses to stay resolved — put them side by side and they tell the same story.

It’s all about energy prices which fell 5.7% in June, more than offsetting increases everywhere else, including food. That’s a gasoline-price mirage, not a cooling economy, and it’s about to reverse.

Strip out the energy noise and the food story is unchanged from where it’s been all year: the food index rose 0.2% in June, with both food at home and food away from home also up 0.2%. READ The Lempert Report on Substack.