I probably should be happy about this, but I really don't care. This seems like something that's more important to experts and academics. Regardless of what the official indicators say, something just doesn't seem right to me. I can't necessarily quantify it or express it through some equation, something just feels...wrong.
It’s because this is a manufactured inflation (imo) that companies have created by greedy price gouging.
To imply that we should be rejoicing at the fact that companies are starting to drop prices slightly (even though the average person is struggling to afford GROCERIES) is quite frankly, disgusting.
No, we should be taking this as what it is: the world's smallest W. Take it, have a beer or a smoke if you've got them, and go back to being angry tomorrow.
Corporate price gouging has not been a primary driver of U.S. inflation, according to research published on Monday by economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
While markups for motor vehicles and petroleum products did rise sharply during the 2021-2022 inflation surge, markups across the entire spectrum of U.S. goods and services have been relatively flat during the post-pandemic recovery, the bank's latest Economic Letter showed.
"As such, rising markups have not been a main driver of the recent surge and subsequent decline in inflation during the current recovery," wrote the bank's research chief Sylvain Leduc and colleagues Huiyu Li and Zheng Liu.
But is it really progress, or did the price of everything jack up an it has come down just a bit because companys are finally getting the blowback they deserve as consumers reduce spending?
True, though this is considered feeding into disinflation in the article, so it may not lead to ill effects of deflation.
U.S. consumer prices fell for the first time in four years in June amid cheaper gasoline and moderating rents, firmly putting disinflation back on track and drawing the Federal Reserve another step closer to cutting interest rates in September.
Just a reminder that inflation slowing down doesn't automatically mean the prices will drop too. It only means the prices stop increasing. You'd need deflation to make the prices come down and that would be even worse for the economy.