New Inflationary Numbers and a Talk Desperately Needed on National Television

As Robert Murphy points out, there isn't a hint of deflation to be seen in the new BLS PPI and CPI reports:

From August 2010 to August 2011, we had the following increases in these categories: Consumer Goods +3.8%
Finished Goods +6.5%
Intermediate Goods +10.3%
Crude Goods +18.4%

Paul Krugman may have his confidence fairy, but it looks like someone has his own "deflation! deflation is just around the corner!" fairy that whispers in his ear at night.

Zerohedge has the new Philly Fed Business Outlook Survey numbers, showing a doubling of the prices paid diffusion index:

Increasing costs were somewhat more widespread this month compared to last month. Nearly 29 percent of firms reported paying higher prices for inputs this month. Only 6 percent reported lower prices. The prices paid diffusion index increased 10 points, its first one?month increase in seven months.

According to Robert Wenzel however:

Philly is a little whacked, there numbers are all over the
place, plus that is a diffusion index number, a completely different
animal.

Not too much info to be derived from the report besides the ongoing trend of we are living through some very monetary erratic times.

So here is a thought, instead of the continuing the side show that is the GOP presidential debates, let's just have a bunch of these played on national television:

That way we all don't have to be subjected to "repeal Obamacare!" fifty times in one hour on top of jokes about 4 aces and Rick Santorum whimpering in the corner about how he doesn't get enough attention.

Update- Precisely what is wrong with Italy and Keynesian economics:

With only 960 residents and a handful of roads, this tiny hilltop village in the arid, sulfurous hills of southern Sicily does not appear to have major traffic problems. But that does not prevent it from having one full-time traffic officer — and eight auxiliaries.

The auxiliaries, who earn a respectable 800 euros a month, or $1,100, to work 20 hours a week, are among about 64 Comitini residents employed by the town, the product of an entrenched jobs-for-votes system pervasive in Italian politics at all levels

“Jobs like these have kept this city alive,” said Caterina Valenti, 41, an auxiliary in a neat blue uniform as she sat recently with two colleagues, all on duty, drinking coffee in the town’s bar on a hot afternoon. “You see, here we are at the bar, we support the economy this way.”

Unbelievable, there is a place to start on tearing this ridiculous notion apart but it has been tackled way too many times on here.  The fiscal collapse of Italy can't come soon enough.

Update 2- Moody's chief economist, the ever incapable Mark Zandi, has come out in favor of the Obama administration's push for mortgage refinancing through the new alphabet soup acronym program known as HARP (Home Affordable Refinance Program), via MarketWatch:

“Jump-starting HARP requires that Fannie and Freddie not charge add-on rates, even for refinancing borrowers who have lost a lot of equity in their homes or have relatively low credit scores,” said Mark Zandi, the chief economist of Moody’s Analytics.

Fannie and Freddie charge a refinancing risk fee to lenders, which is passed on to borrowers, often in the form of higher mortgage interest rates. (According to one analysis, the fee can add a 0.4% levy to the prevailing interest rate.) The fees seek to offset losses Fannie and Freddie accumulate in cases when loans go into default.

As it stands now, the HARP program only allows borrowers to refinance at current low interest rates into a mortgage that is at most 25% more than their home’s current value.

Zandi made additional suggestions, including proposing that Fannie and Freddie could forgo borrower income verification and detailed home appraisals to keep costs down.

“HARP candidates have already proven their ability to pay by making timely payments throughout the tough economy,” he said.

He added that Fannie and Freddie could proactively identify the best prospects for refinancing and provide the information to mortgage lenders, who he said would then contact homeowners and conduct the refinancing.

Mish sums it up quite well:

Common sense dictates (and history proves), losses accelerate as you loosen standards. Forgo income verification and ignore credit scores as Zandi proposes and losses would soar.

It is ludicrous to propose loan modifications to those with no job or no income, and those significantly upside down on their mortgage. The former cannot afford any payment and history proves the latter will walk away anyway.

No income and no verification liar loans are among the reasons we are in this mess in the first place. Thus, Zandi clearly has a short memory, if any memory at all, coupled with no common sense whatsoever.

For a nice record of Zandi's idiocy, see here.  How this guy continues to have a job and is taken seriously is beyond me.  Not only is he the chief economist for the rating agency that missed much of the housing bubble, he failed numerous times at predicting the market bottoming out.  The dude is a joke, plain and simple.