The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their inflation numbers for the year ending September 30th on October 15, 2015. Monthly inflation was negative (disinflationary) for the second month in a row resulting in annual deflation of -0.04%. Although at this level the deflation is so slight that the BLS rounds it to Zero. So basically prices are on par with those of a year ago. However, that doesn't mean that all prices are identical to those of a year ago. In the report issued by the BLS yesterday we note that food prices are up 1.4% over a year ago while energy prices are down -18.4%. and all other items excluding food and energy are up 1.9% so we see that the primary cause of the … [Read more...]