13.01.2015 - The Economic Impact Of Falling Oil Prices: 'Expansionary Disinflation'
Forget about the “secular stagnation” theory of an ailing U.S. economy. Accordingly to the Labor Department, payrolls grew at a seasonally adjusted increase of 242,000 in December adding to the soaring U.S. job growth of 2014 which represents the strongest annual job creation since 1999. The unemployment rate also fell to 5.6% in December, down from 7% a year earlier and far below predictions made by economists at the beginning of 2014. In addition, the past 2 quarters of GDP growth have been well above an annualized 4%. What complicates this rosy picture however for the Federal Reserve and its dual mandate is that core CPI inflation has fallen to 1.3%, well below the Fed’s 2% target and will likely continue to fall given the recent significant decline in the price of crude oil, an input to several products included in core inflation...............................................Full Article: Source
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