The original title: high oil prices cause unease, US inflation may soar to 5%!

With oil prices rising this week and fears of a winter energy crisis, the prospect of slowing economic growth and currency is reminiscent of a difficult period of stagflation nearly 50 years ago. Concerns about stagflation have persisted since soaring inflation, including crude oil prices, became a topic of recovery during the epidemic, especially after the once-hot economic recovery slowed down.

The prospect of winter energy crisis drives oil prices higher and higher.

Now, with extreme weather events such as Hurricane Ida affecting energy supplies and cold weather approaching the northeastern United States, the price of Brent crude has soared to $80 a barrel, coupled with soaring yields. It also prompted several Wall Street banks to make fairly aggressive forecasts for oil prices by the end of the year.

This week, Goldman Sachs Group (Goldman Sachs) shifted from a "cyclical bullish view on oil to a structural bullish view on oil", prompting analysts to raise their year-end forecast to $90 a barrel.

Bob Iaccino, co-founder of Path Trading Partners, said on Wednesday: "supply simply cannot meet demand and there are fears that oil prices will soar if winter comes." Mr Iacino added: natural gas inventories are already relatively low and natural gas prices have soared in tandem with crude oil prices, which has also put upward pressure on gas prices at gas stations. "the government can only relieve the pressure on individual families to a certain extent."

However, the price of crude oil is close to $80 a barrel, a reminder that soaring energy prices could soon be the last straw to crush consumers at a time when the cost of living is rising.

High oil prices may push inflation up, economic recovery slows and worries rise

To be sure, although economic growth is undoubtedly slowing, it is far from reaching a level consistent with economic stagnation. The strong demand leading to labour and supply shortages shows no sign of slowing down in the short term.

In an analysis this week, Capital Economics's John Higgins wrote that the company believes that "future inflation in the US will be significantly higher than in the past decade, but still only slightly above target; economic growth will remain healthy as supply constraints ease. The Fed didn't hit the brakes very hard. "

However, economists have long warned that

Rising commodity prices are tantamount to taxing consumers, who are currently spending extremely high levels. If they decide to tighten spending, it could have serious consequences for economic growth prospects.

"while our basic view is that inflation in most advanced economies is expected to remain below 5 per cent, we believe that inflation is more likely to exceed this expectation than less than expected," Mr Higgins said.

If inflation does rise sharply beyond this level, we think it will begin to endanger the economic growth outlook and may lead to a rise in real interest rates, hurting the prospects of many assets. "

Us crude fell from a more than two-month high on Thursday as EIA unexpectedly increased US crude inventories and is still trading above $74 a barrel. Us crude oil has risen more than 8 per cent this month.

(daily Line Chart of US crude Oil Futures)

At 20:32 on September 30th, Beijing time, the futures price of US crude oil was at 74 US dollars per barrel.