Ben S. Bernanke, the federal reserve chairman, worries about deflation. Vincent Hartnett Jr. does not. The president of Penske Logistics in Reading, Pa., he oversees a fleet of 3,000 trucks and drivers, and wherever he looks, Hartnett sees higher costs creeping into the picture.

New federal safety regulations kicking in later this year will load expensive recordkeeping tasks on companies like Penske--at the same time as tougher pollution regs require them to replace retiring four- to six-year-old trucks with units that cost 10% to 15% more. The driver pool is also shrinking as the feds crack down on unsafe drivers and illegal aliens. Consultant FTR Associates in Nashville, Ind. estimates that the industry could be short 400,000 drivers by the end of next year.

"There has been no pressure on driver wages at all this year, but remember, we took a lot of capacity out of the system," says Hartnett. "As the economy comes up and we're competing for people, there's going to be a constraint." Read: higher wages.

While the Fed keeps the yield on overnight loans at 0% and investors price ten-year Treasury bonds as if prices will barely budge over the coming decade, inflation is lurking in many corners of the economy--like shipping, which accounts for 7% of gross domestic product.  More from Forbes here.