Food, Gas And Rent Push Consumer Prices Higher

[Purveyor]

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

By Christopher S. Rugaber

Associated Press
Posted: 04/15/2011 05:58:11 AM PDT

WASHINGTON -- Americans are paying more for food and gas, a trend that could slow economic growth in the months ahead.

The Consumer Price Index rose 0.5 percent in March, the Labor Department said Friday. That matched February's increase, the largest since the recession ended in June 2009. In the past 12 months, the index has increased 2.7 percent, the biggest rise since December 2009.

Excluding the volatile food and gas categories, the so-called core index rose 0.1 percent and it is up only 1.2 percent in the past year.

Consumers are spending more, but the steep rise in food and gas prices could limit their ability to purchase discretionary goods and services. Consumer spending makes up 70 percent of economic activity.



Read more: http://www.mercurynews.com/business-headlines/ci_17855210?nclick_check=1

[Shadowflash]

1. What?

The recession ended in June 2009?

I must have missed that.

[unblock]

4. a recession ending doesn't mean things are good, just that they're getting better

but "better" is a relative concept. merely "terrible" better than "abysmal".

[FreeStateDemocrat]

2. The world I live in the inflation rate is exploding, fuck the core rate hype.

[notesdev]

3. I have seen

two across-the-board price hikes at my local grocery

in the past three weeks ALONE

[Raschel]

10. Food has really gone up.

[unblock]

5. there's no inflation because your ipad 2 is so much better than your ipad 1.

they decided a couple of decades ago to call serious deflation, which of course masks the real problem, nevermind that it introduces all sorts of subjectivity into the measuring of inflation.

if $2,000 worth of computer is twice as fast as last year's model that also was priced at $2,000, does that mean i got twice the value for the same dollars? hardly, because cpu speed is only part of the equation, and only part of the utility of a computer.

they also neglect, of course, the entire concept that access to a computer these days is practically a requirement, and for many jobs it IS a requirement. that fact alone dramatically increases everyone's cost of living, but that's not really represented in the inflation calculations.

[uppityperson]

6. Food costs are directly related to fuel costs, as far as I can tell.

[Mnemosyne]

7. Directly connected. Food went up after Katrina and never came down again.

Now it's getting much worse, with no end in sight.

[grasswire]

8. and someone is hoarding housing

With more and more families doubling up, and more and more houses sitting empty, the available rental stock is unprecedented. And yet rents are going up. Why? Why? Property managers are making it ever harder to qualify, even though properties sit empty and the need for affordable housing is enormous.

The law of supply and demand would send prices lower. Something is very amiss.

[DJ13]

9. Only 1/2% ?

Even that number seems like a lowball lie.

[leveymg]

11. The so-called core index applies only to the cost of doing business for non-energy, non-food industr

ies. It shouldn't even be reported in the general press as it is so misleading. Actual consumer cost of living is up at least 10 percent over last year. But, wages are stagnant or dropping, and employment and underemployment are still at extremely high Recession levels in most sectors.

Who do they think they're shitting, here?