by David Stockman
LewRockwell.com
We sometimes think that the honchos at the BLS and other government statistical mills had a previous career selling swampland in Florida. After all, they often want you to believe absolutely preposterous things such as their latest report claiming the battle against inflation has been won—with the Fed’s favorite PCE deflator coming in at a below target 1.65% annualized rate in Q4.
So with the inflation genie allegedly back in the 2.00% bottle, the pot-banging on Wall Street has gotten downright shrill. According to the toddlers in the gambling pits, the Fed should make haste to crank-up its printing presses again, and right soon.
Then again, the wondrous disappearance of inflation reported in the PCE deflator does need some ‘splainin’. That’s because the 1.65% headline gain consisted of some fairly discordant sub-components: