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Wholesale Inflation Worst in 27 Years

by: Martin Crutsinger  |  The Associated Press

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People purchase food at an outdoor market in New York City in April 2008. US wholesale inflation jumped 1.8 percent in June from May, while core wholesale inflation, excluding energy and food prices, was up 0.2 percent.
(Photo: Spencer Platt / AFP / Getty Images)

    Washington - Soaring costs for gasoline and food pushed inflation at the wholesale level up by a larger-than-expected amount in June, leaving inflation rising over the past year at the fastest pace in more than a quarter-century.

    The Labor Department reported that wholesale prices jumped by 1.8 percent last month, the biggest one-month rise since last November. Over the past 12 months, wholesale prices are up 9.2 percent, the largest year-over-year surge since June 1981, another period when soaring energy costs were giving the country inflation pains.

    Core inflation, which excludes energy and food, was better behaved in June, rising by just 0.2 percent, slightly lower than expectations.

    Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who was scheduled to deliver his mid-year report on the economy to Congress on Tuesday, was expected to highlight the threat posed by inflation pressures. The central bank at its June meeting brought an end to an aggressive rate-cutting campaign that had been designed to keep a prolonged housing slump and severe credit crunch from pushing the country into a deep recession.

    The central bank is currently caught between the opposing forces of rising inflation and slumping economic growth.

    For June, energy prices at the wholesale level shot up by 6 percent, as the price of gasoline surged by 9 percent following an even bigger 9.3 percent increase in May.

  

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" Core inflation". What a

" Core inflation". What a fucking joke! "If you don't count x and y, then e wasn't so bad" Only thing is, you cannot not count x and y, as x and y affect what e really is. Especially given that x and y = food and energy, commodities few of us can exclude, and e = the real increase in the cost of living, or the decrease in the value of one's money. "Over the past 12 months, wholesale prices are up 9.2 percent". 5.5 percent is considered the tipping point by some; at that point, it begins to feed off itself. That is, inflation reduces workers' spending power, which in turn leads to business reducing work force to make up for the revenue loss resulting from decreased spending by worker, which leads to etc., etc. etc....................................................

At least they are giving out

At least they are giving out numbers, even though the numbers have been juggled. In other cases, such as number of people being laid off, they stopped keeping track. That's another way to lie with figures.