Your Place in Cyber Space for Inflation Data
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released the Annual Inflation Rate data for the year through the end of March on April 11th 2018. Annual Inflation is Up Annual inflation rate was 2.36% up from 2.21% in February. CPI was 249.554 in March, 248.991 in February, 247.867 in January and 246.524 in December. Monthly Inflation for March 2018= 0.23% Monthly Inflation for March 2017= 0.08% Next release May 10th Monthly Inflation: Typically the monthly inflation rate is … [Read More...]
Inflation is both a boon and a bane to the economy. It has been extensively researched, documented, and studied on a theoretical level, but it’s the practical aspects of inflation that are most incisive. In common usage, inflation refers to steadily rising prices of goods and services over time. However, strictly speaking that is “price inflation” which is generally caused by “monetary inflation” or the expansion of the money supply.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released the Annual Inflation Rate data for the year through the end of February on March 13th 2018.
Annual inflation was 2.21% in February up from 2.07% in January and 2.11% in December
CPI-U was 248.991 in February from 247.867 in January.
Monthly Inflation was 0.45% for February and 0.54% in January.
Next release April 11th
Typically the monthly inflation rate is highest during the first quarter (January through March) and lowest during the last quarter (October through December). January 2017 had inflation of 0.57% and so January 2018’s 0.54% is right in line with that (resulting in annual inflation of 2.07%).
Hyperinflation has been recorded as far back as Egypt 276 AD – 334 AD which is a long period to suffer from such a monetary blight and it has occurred numerous times since, usually due to some sort of government mismanagement issue. Unfortunately, there is no exact percentage where inflation turns from “ordinary Inflation” to “Hyperinflation”. So you can’t say for instance that 9.9% inflation is ordinary but 10% inflation is hyperinflation. Typically in hyperinflation it just gets progressively worse and worse. Every month the inflation rate just gets higher and higher until the curve goes hyperbolic. See What is Hyperinflation? for more information.
Annual Inflation for the year ending in December 2017 was 2.11%. But remember that is actually the average for the entire country. If you look at it region by region you will get an entirely different picture. According to the regional data presented by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Inflation varied quite a bit from region to region. Regions like the Midwest (and surprisingly the Northeast) had inflation lower than average at 1.7% while the South was 1.8% and the West was much higher than average at 3.1%. But even within regions there were variations with Seattle having 3.5% inflation and the Los Angeles area having inflation of 3.6% while San Francisco had “only” 2.9%.
Back in 1918 gasoline was $0.25 a gallon and by 1932 prices had fallen to 18 cents a gallon! But as we all know over the last 100 years the purchasing power of the dollar has fallen drastically so in order to get the true picture we can’t just say that the lowest price of gas was 18 cents per gallon, we need to adjust the price for inflation.
Electricity Price Inflation Residential electricity prices in the U.S. have risen from an average of 7.83 cents per kilowatthour in 1990 to an average of 11.44 cents per kwh in 2010. This is a 46% increase in 20 years and sounds like a lot but as you can see from the chart below for many years[Read More…]
Source: inflationdata.com | NYSE Index Inflation Commentary To Print this Chart: When Printer dialog box appears be sure to switch to Landscape mode Note: Please feel free to link to this page but not to the image itself as the image may be renamed (or deleted) when it is updated but the page URL will[Read More…]
Your Ability to Choose Should Increase Competition In years past consumers didn’t have a lot of choice when it came to their natural gas supplier, they were tied to the local gas utility, so if they wanted to charge a 541% markup you were pretty much stuck. But just prior to the new millennium states began[Read More…]
Inflation Adjusted Real Estate Prices- Lets take a look at the idea that housing prices always go up. Of course, each neighborhood is different, so some neighborhoods might be going down while a few miles away housing prices are skyrocketing but by looking at the nationwide average we can get a better picture of the overall trend. The St. Louis Federal Reserve publishes the following chart that shows the S&P/Case Shiller National Home Price Index and by adjusting those prices for inflation we can get a better picture of how real estate prices really act. Is a home a good investment or not?
Inflation Indexed Bonds Performance- U.S. Treasury Inflation indexed bonds are supposed to protect you from the ravages of inflation while providing a safe and decent rate of return on your money. Obviously, since safety is generally inversely proportional to risk, if inflation indexed bonds are very safe you would expect the rate of return to be[Read More…]
