May CPI: Do We Have Inflation Yet?

The two charts below graph the CPI for Wednesday and 1929-30. I have only non-seasonally adjusted for 1929-30; the first (second) of the two charts uses NSA (SA) for today.

Click to enlarge:





Do we have inflation yet? It depends how seriously you take the seasonal adjustments. But at least we do not (yet) appear to be headed down the CPI plunge that began May 1930.

Comments

[ain't no fo...:]

We ALWAYS have inflation. Just go to a supermarket over a 5 year period and see how it works... its called SHRINKAGE and its insidious and egregious and despicable... American marketing ingenuity at its finest.

2004 - 64 oz. tub of national name brand ice cream (same scam works for MANY items like cereal, etc etc etc etc etc) - cost $4.99

2007 - now its a 56 oz. tub of the identical ice cream and it costs $5.29

2009 - currently its a 48 oz. tub of the identical ice cream and it goes for $5.99

Most people gripe about the 20% price increase from 4.99 to 5.99 over 5 years - but they don't even figure in the 25% size decrease that the American consumer products companies are sneaking in to thousands of everyday products that Americans use.

Nevertheless, I still vote for DEFLATION - because these myriad pathetic games that have been run on consumers, plus unemployment, plus the ONGOING housing meltdown, plus imminent meltdowns in other asset classes such as commercial real estate have broken the bank and the consumer is done for a long time to come, so if they ain't buying it doesn't matter what the consumer products companies are charging.

Jun 18 12:41 PM

[Moon Kil Woong:]

The fact we even have to worry about inflation in the 2nd worst downturn in our lives (1970's if you were around) and possibly the worst depending on how things shake out is distrubing to say the least. If it comes about it will be 100% the fault of the Federal Reserve and government action.

You can't really argue that the consumer is buying too much. Thus I hope the public will know loud and clear who to blame if they wake up to the stagflation in 2010. Most likely they will pass it off saying someone is hoarding one commodity or another. To do so might be a rational response to their poor monetary decisions. Thus it will be wrong to blame the effect rather than the cause. But hey, who ever said the Fed and Treasury wanted you to act rationally.

In their last meeting they said it was critical that people continue to have faith in the dollar as they continue to do as much as possible to destroy that faith.

Jun 25 07:30 AM