| OPEC+ oil, an economic hurricane and how to scrape by on $250,000 a year. President Joe Biden is likely to visit Saudi Arabia later this month as record-high US gas prices weigh on his party's political prospects. That would almost inevitably mean he'd meet its effective ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, whom the president blames for the 2018 murder of a US-based columnist. Meanwhile, there have been reports that Saudi Arabia may increase oil production. This comes just ahead of the OPEC+ meeting today. Jamie Dimon warned investors to prepare for an economic "hurricane" as the economy struggles against an unprecedented combination of challenges, including tightening monetary policy and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. "We don't know if it's a minor one or Superstorm Sandy. You better brace yourself," Dimon cautioned. But his comments appeared at odds with JPMorgan strategist Marko Kolanovic, who wrote on the same day that "there will be no recession." More than a third of Americans earning at least $250,000 annually say they are living paycheck to paycheck, with more than half of millennials earning four times the median US salary saying they have little left every month. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is about to start shrinking its $8.9 trillion balance sheet, deploying a second tool along side higher interest rates to curb inflation, though officials don't know just how effective it will be. Stocks in Europe and US futures climbed by 5:15 a.m. New York time as investors assessed attractive valuations and a drop in oil prices against hawkish messages from central bankers on reining in inflation. US manufacturing activity and job-openings data fueled concern the Federal Reserve will need to get more restrictive to slow runaway price gains. Treasuries held losses, with 10-year yields above 2.90%. The dollar slipped while gold edged higher and Bitcoin held below $30,000. It's the start of a busy run of US employment data, with weekly jobless figures and the ADP private payrolls numbers both due after 8 a.m., and Challenger job cuts due earlier. The OPEC+ meeting is scheduled to run through June 3, and the EIA's inventory report is also coming up. We're expecting comments from the Fed's Mester and in the UK, Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee runs through June 5. Earnings include Lululemon, CrowdStrike, Hormel Foods, Trip.com, Okta, Remy Cointreau. Here's what caught our eye over the weekend. The argument that aggressive fiscal expansion caused high inflation is pretty straightforward. The story goes that we put too much money into people's wallets, and demand boomed, and the supply side couldn't keep up so prices shot up. But at least in one key area this is obviously false. Gasoline prices have been soaring over the last year in the US, but consumption remains below 2019 levels. Here's a 10-year chart of weekly consumption based on DOE data: So while demand is flat-to-down, prices have obviously soared from pre-pandemic levels. Of course, there are all kinds of theories for what's going on. Some people blame the greedy oil companies. Some people blame ESG policies. Some people blame The White House's negative attitude toward the domestic industry. Others point to shareholders' decades of losses in energy, and the lack of inclination to aggressively ramp up production. Maybe it's a mix of all of these factors. But basically nobody is saying that the surging price of gasoline is a function of booming gasoline demand. And they're not saying it because it's provably false. So here's the pre-eminent example of inflation -- the category that carries the most political weight for sure -- which almost certainly has nothing to do with the stimulus or excess demand. There's no doubt that some categories of goods have seen a boom. We all know about the durable-goods boom, or various household appliances and stuff like that. Though even there, it seems plausible that a big chunk is a result of lifestyle adjustments from a 2+ year pandemic. Nonetheless, the story up top about too much money in people's pockets forcing up higher prices obviously can't explain the most important element of the inflation. Follow Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal on Twitter @TheStalwart | 
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