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CEOs are speaking up about what we’ve seen in the government data: inflation. And some of them warn elevated levels of inflation could persist.

Why it matters: Prices for goods and services have been rising at a historic pace, a phenomenon that many economists have characterized as transitory.

  • Business executives offer unique perspectives on the matter as they are directly exposed to rising raw materials and labor costs.
  • Furthermore, they’re the ones setting prices on what their businesses sell.

What they’re saying: Inflation may be more than a temporary phenomenon.

  • "The inflation could be worse than people think," JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said on an earnings call Tuesday. “I think it'll be a little bit worse than what the Fed thinks. I don't think it's only temporary."
  • "[Policymakers] are saying jobs are more important than consumerism," BlackRock CEO Larry Fink told CNBC on Wednesday. "That is going to probably lead to systematically more inflation."

State of play: Executives are explicitly saying that they're raising the prices they charge customers.

  • "Is there somewhat more inflation out there? There is," PepsiCo CFO Hugh Johnston said on an earnings call Tuesday. "Are we going to be pricing to deal with it? We certainly are."
  • "Will Conagra take list pricing increases? The short answer is, yes," Conagra CEO Sean Connolly said. "And we have more pricing coming."
  • "[We’ve] done at least one large [price] increase earlier in the second quarter, and that was received fairly well," Fastenal CFO Holden Lewis said on an earnings call Tuesday. "But based on what cost is doing, we'll have to go to the market with some additional ones."

Yes, but: Not all companies are raising prices. Here’s what FreshDirect interim CEO Farhan Siddiqi told Bloomberg about how he was addressing customers’ concerns about inflation.

  • "We're lowering prices on fresh items like berries, salmon and ground beef," he said. "Right now we're also are absorbing inflation and not passing it along."
  • Lowering prices can be a smart strategy amid rising costs if FreshDirect is able to win more business.

The bottom line: While it's possible executives could be exaggerating risks affecting their business, they should still be taken seriously. During the previous earnings season, execs were unusually vocal about inflation at that time too. And their alarms showed up in the inflation reports that followed.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.