Consider This: by 3 wood

Here's something that should drive the MSM up a wall.

Consumer-level inflation's tame in April, U.S. says

"WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) ~
Growth in consumer prices came in below expectations for April even as food prices rose at the sharpest rate in 18 years, a government report showed Wednesday.

The consumer price index rose a moderate 0.2% last month, the Labor Department said.

Excluding volatile food and energy prices, the core consumer price index increased 0.1%.

Inflation was just a bit weaker than expected, but financial markets welcomed the April CPI figures.

Consumer prices are up 3.9% in the past 12 months; core inflation is running at a 2.3% pace."

Analysis

You always want to be careful of numbers compared to "expectations", cause those expectations could have been rational or they could have been dippy. So your really want to look at the hard numbers and see what that tells you. In this case it's good news.

With inflation at 0.2% in April (annualizes to 2.4% at that rate), CPI up 3.9% in the past year including energy and 2.3% without, inflation is still relatively under control. To put this into perspective, China was up 8.5% from April 2007 to April 2008.

This U.S. inflation news is important for the following reason. The Federal Reserve Bank can either try to avoid a recession by keeping rates low (and thus expanding the money supply) to grow the economy or try to avoid inflation by raising rates (thus contracting the money supply) and slowing down the economy. so far the Fed's have chosen the first option. This relatively good inflation news means that the Fed's should be able to keep rates low for the time being and buy some time for the economy to heal and move forward.

Which of course is a good thing for the U.S.

Like I say, that should drive the MSM up a wall.

~ 3 Wood