DEFLATION CPI Drops First Time Since 1982

[link to globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com]

No Pricing Power

Regardless of how traders or China affect commodity prices, the bottom line is consumers remain unable and/or unwilling to spend. Certainly 14.8 million officially unemployed consumers are not buying much. Nor are an additional 2.5 million "marginally attached workers" nor are 8.3 million part-time workers who want a full time job.

Marginally attached workers are those who want a job but are not counted as unemployed because they did not look for a job in the last 4 weeks.

There is no reason to believe employers are about to go on a hiring spree. Indeed there is every reason to believe they won't. Thus pricing power will remain weak.