PRODUCER PRICES RAN 5.4% IN AUGUST — DIESEL JUMPED 24% IN ONE MONTH

5.4%. That is how much more producers charged for what they make and sell in August 2026 than a year earlier, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Thursday, September 10. The month alone was 0.4%, the number the street expected. The year was not: July ran 4.8%. Core, the measure that leaves out food and energy, was 0.2% on the month and 4.6% on the year, right where the street had it. Nothing in the core did this. Fuel did.

The push is fuel. Diesel jumped 24.1% in one month. Energy at the factory gate rose 4.2%, and that one line is three-quarters of the rise in goods prices. Go a step back up the chain and it is worse: the processed goods factories buy are up 11.5% on the year, raw materials 12.8%. Those numbers reach the shelf later, not never.

The Fed meets September 15 and 16 with a hike on the table for the first time since 2023. The same morning this printed, Treasury was five hours from spending $6 billion buying back its own long bonds to hold the price up. Higher rates to fight the inflation, buybacks to hide what higher rates do to the debt. Both hands at once.

A dollar bought 5.4% less from a producer than it did a year ago. Nobody voted on that. Bitcoin’s supply schedule was set in 2008 and has not moved. The dollar’s is whatever the 8:30 print says it is.

At the time of this writing, bitcoin was $77,045 at 9:01 AM ET on Crypto.com.