Despite QE-Led Money Printing, Inflation Remains Elusive

Today’s report showed that consumer prices were flat in December, and the core reading that excludes food and energy was up by only 0.1%. If you just back out energy, the core inflation was -1.2%. Dow Jones and Bloomberg both were calling for an unchanged figure in the headline CPI and a gain of 0.1% on the core CPI.

Gasoline prices were down by 2.3% and the total energy spending was down by 1.2% in December. One area that did grow in price was food, with a 0.2% gain. That actually marks six or seven straight monthly food price increases. The cost of housing/apartment rents was also up 0.1%.

All in all, this is just another tame inflation report. Maybe food prices and rents are higher, but this is not going to spook the inflation-hawk crowd.