The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their inflation numbers for the year ending November 30th on December 15, 2015. The Consumer Price Index (CPI-U) for November was 237.336 down from 237.838 at the end of October so overall prices declined -0.21% over the month but Annual Inflation was still up 0.50% (or ½%) for the year. This is the 4th month in a row where prices are lower than the previous month. In the table below we can see that last November the CPI was at 236.151. Then prices fell through January peaked in July and then fell to current levels. Month CPI-U Index Monthly Inflation Annual … [Read more...]
Are Oil Companies Ripping us off with Gas Prices?
With the steady decline in gasoline prices during 2015 people aren't too concerned with the price of gas anymore. But on occasion crude oil prices have fallen without the corresponding decline in gasoline prices. When this occurs someone always asks me if the prices are actually correlated or are the oil companies just ripping us off. This prompted me to create a chart comparing the price of crude oil to that of gasoline so you can see for yourself how well they correlate and I recently updated that chart. See the full article here: Gasoline vs. Crude Oil Prices. You might also enjoy: Are Low Crude Oil Prices a “Boom Or A Curse” For The World Economy? Includes: Top 10 Crude … [Read more...]
Annual Inflation Below 1%
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released their monthly Consumer Price Index (CPI) data on Friday January 16th for December and for the first time since 2009 reported annual inflation below 1% (although we calculated October 2013 at 0.96%). The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for December was 234.812 down from November’s 236.151 which was also down from 237.433 for October. This resulted in a monthly decrease in prices of -0.57% and an annual inflation rate of 0.76%. Overall energy on a “seasonally adjusted” basis was down -4.7% for the month and -10.6% on an unadjusted basis for the entire year. Fuel oil fell -7.8% for the month (adjusted) and a whopping -19.1% annually. Gasoline was … [Read more...]
Bureau of Labor Statistics: Inflation Down
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released their monthly Consumer Price Index (CPI) data on Wednesday December 17th for November and reported lower inflation. The CPI for November was 236.151 down from 237.433 for October. This resulted in a monthly decrease in prices of -0.54% and an annual inflation rate of 1.32% down from 1.66% in October. View the chart and read the full commentary on the current annual inflation rate. Although the FED has been targeting a 2% annual inflation rate, rates are currently much lower and have often been considerably higher than 2% as well. The FED has hit their 2% target a total of 6 times out of more than 300 data points. If we count all the … [Read more...]
Crude Oil and Gold
Because inflation decreases the value of of money, in order to have a “yard stick” of constant value it is necessary to use the inflation adjusted price when we consider the price of a commodity like Oil. Here at InflationData we have provided a variety of charts of the inflation adjusted price of commodities like Oil, Gasoline, Electricity, Natural Gas, Stock Market, Housing Prices, Education Costs and much more. But each of these requires you to rely on potentially flawed inflation statistics generated by some outside agency or government. If that agency has an agenda other than accuracy your cost estimates could be flawed. But there is an alternative and that is to compare your … [Read more...]
Energy Inflation- Oil and Gas Inflation
By Tim McMahon, editor It is extremely difficult to decide how over or under priced a commodity is when the scale we are comparing it to is constantly changing. By adjusting for inflation we can see what is happening to the price much easier. It pays to know what prices are in "Inflation Adjusted Terms". Once we adjust the gasoline price for inflation we can see that the average price for a gallon of gas since 1918 in June 2010 dollars is $2.39. So it is easy to tell whether gas is currently "cheap" or "expensive". For instance, the Annual Average gasoline price for 2009 was $2.34, which was extremely close to the long term average price of $2.39. While in 2008 the annual average … [Read more...]
Oil and Price Inflation
I recently received the following question from a student in Malaysia. I thought it was a good question so I am including it here. Dear Sir, Greetings, I am a student of International Islamic School Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur. I hope you are well. I am in grade 10 and I take business studies as one of my subjects. Recently I had a class on inflation in my school. The teacher said when fuel prices alone rises we cannot term that as inflation. I disagree with that because I think that rising fuel price is the only exception where we can say that it is inflation. When fuel prices increase the price of all other commodities increase ... please tell me if it is right or wrong to say that … [Read more...]