Mauldin echoes recent household conversations, only with hard data:

Few people I know slice and dice the details in the data better than good friend Greg Weldon (http://www.weldononline.com). Let's look at some of the tidbits he found buried in the CPI data.

Food at home prices (different than restaurants) are rising at a three-month rate of over 8.6%, up from only 0.8% in January. Alcoholic beverages (!) are up 7.1% on a three-month basis versus 2% in January (bad news for bud Art Cashin and the Friends of Fermentation at the NYSE). Ditto for meat, poultry, fish, and eggs at 10.1%! Overall, the three-month rate for CPI food has spiked to 6.4% since being at 2.1% in January.

If inflation seems worse than the numbers, this is why.