Friday, September 3, 2010

ISM Reports Upward Price Pressures

From today's August 2010 Non-Manufacturing ISM Report On Business®:

Commodities Up in Price
Bacon; Beef (5); Butter; Chicken; Coated Groundwood (2); Dairy; Diesel Fuel; #2 Diesel Fuel (2); Freight Charges (2); Fuel (8); Gasoline (2); Linen; Pharmacy Products (2); Pork; and Transportation Costs.

Commodities Down in Price
No commodities are reported down in price.


Note: The number of consecutive months the commodity is listed is indicated after each item.

Given a subpar economic "recovery" (if this a recovery be), and with immense slack in the most important cost input (labor), there should be some price declines in the above list. This smells like stag(in)flation to me.

Just a guess, but both the apparent economic facts as we have been presented them and the general cyclicality of booms and busts suggest to me that housing prices will lag the average consumer price rises that I believe are on the horizon.

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