Tim Duy gives me a shout-out in the latest edition of his ever-excellent Fed Watch contribution at Economist's View:
On inflation, see also the rays of hope David Altig sees in the August median CPI data.
That link will send you to Friday's post on the August CPI report, in which I noted that a fair share of individual price changes have been shifting from very high to only moderately high. The picture in that post pertained to the components of headline CPI, but I could just as well have showed the CPI stripped of energy components:
So, once again, taken as whole the rapidly changing prices in the market basket -- those rising in excess of a 3 percent annual rate -- have tended to rise, well, less rapidly.
I was feeling that maybe there was something hopeful in that, but my colleague Mike Bryan suggested I take a look at the picture without owner's equivalent rent. OK, I'm game:
Uh-oh. Looks like a decline in the rate of change in owner's equivalent rent is driving those first pictures. Strip that component out (along with energy) and not only is the largest share (54%) of expenditure-weighted prices rising in excess of 3 percent, but the largest part of that group is rising in excess of 5%, as has been true all summer.
I suppose that by excluding this or including that I could make these picture look about any way I please. But the exclusion of OER is not arbitrary, and the components left in the less-energy-and-OER index still account for about 65% of the CPI basket. And the story there just isn't changing much.
UPDATE: I should have noted that, in the comment section of my previous post, the always astute knzn noted the OER connection as well.