Over at the Atlantic Daniel Indiviglio writes that the government’s current CPI numbers “should serve as a reminder that inflation isn’t what we should be worrying about at this time.” After all, the index rose only 0.2% in January and fell 0.1% if food and energy are stripped out, the first ngative reading since the 1980’s.
Meanwhile, John Williams at Shadowstats.com reports: “Adjusted to pre-Clinton (1990) methodology, annual CPI eased to roughly 6.0% growth in January from to 6.1% in December, while the SGS-Alternate Consumer Inflation Measure, which reverses gimmicked changes to official CPI reporting methodologies back to 1980, rose to about 9.8% (9.76% for those using the extra digit) in January, versus 9.7% in December.”
