Bankruptcy

Consumer Prices Fall Precipitously

By J. Michael McBride

Primarily due to the fast drop in the prices of oil and gas, the latest statistics show that there has been the largest drop in consumer prices in 61 years.

“Consumer prices plunged by the largest amount in the past 61 years in October as gasoline pump prices dropped by a record amount.
The Labor Department said Wednesday that consumer prices fell by 1 percent last month, the biggest one-month decline on records that go back to February 1947. The drop was twice as large as the 0.5 percent decrease that analysts had been expecting and marked the third straight month that prices had either fallen or been unchanged.
The worry is that the recession, which many analysts believe will worsen in coming months, will further depress prices, hurting such industries as housing, autos and retailing, and contribute to a downward spiral that will feed on itself.”

Several of the reports that I regularly review have switched from predicting a future of inflation, due to the huge amount of dollars being printed, to deflation as the recession takes hold and is expected to continue.

Here is a link to this article:
http://apnews.myway.com//article/20081119/D94I6I9G0.html

Michael

Full post as published by Texas Lawyer Blog on November 19, 2008 (boomark / email).