Also, inflation is higher than the numbers reported to the media, since the BLS made major changes to their methodolgy in 1983 and again in 1998. This means comparisons to previous time periods to point out “it ain’t as bad as…” are no longer valid.

People talk about revisionist history, but no one is really discussing revisionist economics which seems to impact a whole lot more folks.

Instead there is a pretty gradual gradation between -1% growth and 1% growth. -1% is a recession. 1% is not. The economy is not much different in any noticeable way, though. .6% growth is pretty slow (and pretty weak). But really it is amazing it was doing that well given all the problems.

The stimulus package is worthless as an economic tool. It is just politicians increasing the taxes even more on our grandchildren to try and distract from their failures to legislate sensibly.

If we were to enter a recession then that would at least lower inflation. At the very least I would expect Fed rates to go up once things settle a bit in the economy which would also help inflation (and those of us with high-yield bank accounts).

A bit part of what is happening may be high oil prices which causes prices to go up and can prevent production from growing fast. If this is primarily caused by oil prices then we’re really not in a recession. The question then is whether the prices are temporary or permanent. In the early 80′s we had a recession that was put into place by the Fed in order to control high inflation.