{"id":87550,"date":"2025-05-17T01:00:37","date_gmt":"2025-05-17T08:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/?p=87550"},"modified":"2025-05-20T08:58:42","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T15:58:42","slug":"black-coffee-17-may-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/id87550-black-coffee-17-may-2025.html","title":{"rendered":"Black Coffee: Up In Smoke"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"It’s time to sit back, relax and enjoy a little joe<\/em> …<\/p>\n

Welcome to another rousing edition of Black Coffee, your off-beat weekly round-up of what’s been going on in the world of money and personal finance.<\/p>\n

Well … another busy week is behind us. So with that in mind, let’s get this party started!<\/p>\n

Fire tests gold; suffering tests brave men.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

– Seneca<\/strong><\/p>\n

Credits and Debits<\/strong><\/p>\n

Debit:<\/strong><\/span> Did you see this? Each week, Publishers Clearing House (PCH) pays out approximately $30,000 to prize winners, with roughly $1.8 million owed to recent recipients. In fact, PCH currently owes past winners about $26 million over the next 60 years. Now for the punchline: The company filed for bankruptcy<\/a> last week, claiming to have only $490,000 in cash – but $40 million in outstanding debts. Even so, PCH says they still intend to continue its sweepstakes operations during the bankruptcy process. Maybe so – but will they actually be able to provide the payouts? Stay tuned.<\/p>\n

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Credit:<\/strong><\/span> In other news, we see that the consumer price index (CPI) rose a seasonally adjusted 0.2% for the month, putting the 12-month inflation rate at 2.3%; that is its lowest level since February 2021<\/a>. Hey … just don’t get too<\/strong><\/em> excited. All that means is that prices are still going up – just not as fast as before. At least for now. On a related note …<\/p>\n

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Credit:<\/strong><\/span> Digging a little deeper into the inflation data, there was a bit of bad news – it turns out that restaurant prices continued to climb, increasing 0.1% in April. The good news is that grocery prices decreased<\/a> 0.1% in April – that’s after a 0.4% jump in March. That<\/strong><\/em> suggests more people will continue to make and consume the majority of their meals at home. And that\u2019s not a bad thing. Especially with grilling season just getting started. Then again \u2026<\/p>\n

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Debit:<\/strong><\/span> In other news, a quick look at the US National Debt shows that it surged six-fold over the past 25 years, to a staggering $36.8 trillion<\/a>. Even worse, the debt is now growing by roughly $1 trillion every three months – and the pace of accumulation is accelerating as well. Yes; it’s an extremely alarming situation. That being said, you can bet these<\/strong><\/em> guys probably don’t care:<\/p>\n