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| Consumer prices continue decline |
| 2009-01-17 |
| Consumer prices fell in December for the third month in a row, as some analysts raised the specter of debilitating deflation -- a continuing, across-the-board decline in prices. After falling by 0.7 percent last month, consumer prices ended up increasing by only 0.1 percent during 2008. It was the lowest inflation rate since 1954, the Labor Department reported Friday. Meanwhile, industrial output at the nation's factories, mines and utilities declined 2 percent in December, the Federal Reserve reported. During the fourth quarter, as credit markets froze and the financial industry nearly imploded, industrial production plunged at an annual rate of 11.5 percent, the steepest quarterly decline since 1980. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #4 Oil prices have been falling since June. |
| Posted by: ed 2009-01-17 21:56 |
| #3 Consumer prices stayed flat or fell for a full quarter, not just during Xmas sale season, and they did so apart from oil and gas. There's an indirect effect, of course, of gas/oil prices on food prices (transportation, fertilizer), but that usually lags by a month or more. |
| Posted by: lotp 2009-01-17 21:16 |
| #2 Stupidity cubed. Prices rose when gas prices rose. Why isn't it equally acceptable to attach price DECLINES with the declines in gas prices? Are these people REALLY that stupid, or is their agenda so tight they can't see anything else? (Rhetorical question - no answer needed) |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2009-01-17 18:54 |
| #1 Why wasn't it deflation when for years stores had their post-holiday SALES? Could it be that economist don't spend a whole of time worried about incredible markups in the market place during other than down turns in the economy. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-01-17 09:17 |