雅思阅读精选：超越货物与人的通货膨胀_雅思英语阅读

雅思阅读精选：超越货物与人的通货膨胀

　　It isnt surprising, then, that services inflation tumbled when the crisis struck and millions of Americans became unemployed. What is interesting is that the resulting impact on inflation was masked a bit by movements in goods prices. They were rising; perhaps in part due to the lagged effect of commodity-price increases but maybe more because Chinas government was stoking its economys engine to red hot levels. Disaggregating the CPI into these components helps illustrate how the Fed might have underestimated Americas economic duress.

　　Interestingly, services inflation has trended upward over the past two years and was 2.3% in the year to April. Some might take that as evidence that the labour market is closer to full employment now than other gauges suggest. Alternatively, it could be long-run expectations reasserting themselves. But the new more-or-less stabilised rate of services inflation represents a marked downshift from the pre-crisis levels . That means that services prices are moving farther away from the pre-crisis trend, rather than catching back up.

　　I like this way of digging into CPI data. But I also think it mostly reinforces the point that what monetary policy is really interested in is the labour-market output gap and its relation to wage growth. The prices for stuff dont matter, and we dont care if factories or stores close so long as everyone who wants to work can. The goods-services distinction is useful in that it shows us once again that on that basis the Fed has done far too little.