As if to emphasize the gravity of the economic troubles awaiting the attention of the new Ford Administration, the Bureau of Labor Statistics on the very day of Richard Nixon's resignation released a set of statistics that showed inflation to be accelerating at an even more explosive pace than had been supposed. The wholesale price index rose a seasonally adjusted 3.7% in July alone, amounting to a compound annual rate of 54.6%. The jump was the biggest for one month since August 1973, when prices leaped 6.2% after the lifting of the Nixon Administration's second price freeze.
The most ominous trend was...