Unexpectedly, Inflation Comes In Below "Expert" Expectations

Weird how this keeps happening.

The "target" rate of inflation the Fed is trying to get to is 2.0%.

In January, increased prices by 0.2%. Over a full 12 months, that would be 2.4%.

Also, over the past 12 months, inflation was at 2.4%. Just a bit over target. Just a scotch above the level the Fed actually wants to see.

But I thought Trump's Tariffs would kill us worse than insurrectionists killed AOC on January 6.

Some of the decreases from December's report are notable, even in categories where prices still increased incrementally. Food went from +0.7 to +0.2, for instance. Energy prices actually dropped by significant amounts across the board, -1.5% overall and -3.2% for gasoline. Fuel oil fell 5.7% in January in a month where demand would be peaking. Electricity prices fell by a tenth of a point. Only natural gas showed a significant increase of 1.0% in January.

However, the year-on-year numbers in CPI for the first twelve months of the Donald Trump administration look pretty spectacular when it comes to an affordability argument:

Overall YoY inflation: 2.4%
Food: 2.9%
Food at home: 2.1%
Food away from home: 4.0%
Energy: -0.1%
Energy commodities: -7.3%
Gasoline: -7.5%
Fuel oil: -4.2%
Energy services: 7.2%
Electricity: 6.3%
Utility gas service: 9.8%
Core CPI less food and energy: 2.4%

It's not perfect, but it's pretty darned good. The big problems here are electricity and gas, both of which the Trump administration is already working to expand.

The Wall Street Journal notes that since inflation came in high last January -- Biden's last month in office -- inflation has fallen.

The latest annual number had some help, since a high inflation reading from January 2025 has now dropped out of the past 12 months of data. Month over month from December, consumer prices in January rose a seasonally adjusted 0.2% and core prices rose 0.3%.

Don't forget, Wednesday's jobs report came in above "expectations" as well, with Trump adding 172,000 private sector jobs, and cutting 42,000 government " " " jobs " " ".

It's almost as if "experts" have some built-in, unchangeable cognitive bias that always make their predictions wrong and always in the same (anti-GOP) direction.

Oh, and remember, they also revealed that millions of "jobs" Biden "created" simply did not exist and were phantoms only existing on paper to boost Biden's electoral chances.

And don't forget this either: Trump's job numbers greatly understate how good the jobs environment is for actual American citizens. Most new jobs under Biden went to foreigners, especially illegal aliens, while jobs are now going overwhelmingly to actual US citizens.

And illegal aliens have lost jobs, for the first time in decades.

And this account says that guy is all wet, new jobs for US citizens are even higher than his chart shows.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 02:20 PM

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