By host Tom Ashbrook:

Here’s the word on the street — Wall Street, Main street, maybe your street: the honeymoon is over for Federal Reserve Chief Ben Bernanke, and the wedding crasher is inflation. Consumers prices for the first five months of this year are pumping ahead at a 5.2 percent annual rate, compared to 3.4 for all of last year.

Inflation-phobics are raising alarm bells, pointing back to the inflation-plagued 1970s, when consumer prices spiked by more than 13 percent in a single year and mortgages were in the high teens. Now, some are calling the fear “unhinged” but consumers — looking at flat wages and spiking prices — are worried.

Hear about the inflation threat, and what it means for you and your finances.

Guests:

Christopher Swann, US Economics Correspondent for the Financial Times

Allen Sinai, Chief Global Economist and Strategist at Decision Economics, a finance and economics advisory firm

Ian Morris, Chief US Economist, HSBC