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The Obama Boom: Consumer prices rise and Industrial production was flat.

by Phantom Ace ( 6 Comments › )
Filed under Business, Economy, Energy, Headlines at March 16th, 2012 - 10:07 am

The miraculous Obama Boom continues to defy economic history.  Although Consumer prices rose, it had little effect on inflation!

U.S. consumer prices rose by the most in 10 months in February as the cost of gasoline spiked, a government report showed on Friday, but there was little sign that underlying inflation pressures were building up.

The Labor Department said its Consumer Price Index  increased 0.4 percent after advancing 0.2 percent in January. That was in line with economists’ expectations. Gasoline accounted for more than 80 percent of the rise in consumer prices last month, the department said.

Outside the volatile food and energy category, inflation pressures were generally contained. Core CPI edged up 0.1 percent after gaining 0.2 percent in January. The February increase was below economists’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a 0.2 percent rise.

“The message here is we continue to have the complete absence of price pressures given the slack in the economy,” said Anthony Karydakis, chief U.S. economist at Commerzbank in New York. “Looking ahead, the upward pressure on gasoline we have seen in March has set the stage for another strong rise in headline inflation.”

Other than fuel and food, nothing else rose. As we know, fuel and food is optional.

In other news, although Industrial production stalled, factories had their 2 best months since the 90’s?

U.S. factories stepped up production in February for the third straight month, helping the economy recover and driving the best job growth since the recession ended.

The Federal Reserve said Friday that the output of the nation’s factories rose 0.3 percent last month. That followed even stronger increases in January and December, which combined for the best two month stretch since 1998.

Overall industrial production, which includes output by mines and utilities, was unchanged. Mining activity declined sharply and utilities were flat.

This is weird economic growth. Normally massive debt chokes off economic growth, yet according to the media the economy is booming. What’s going on here?