After a year of declining crude oil prices which forged price spillovers all over the US economy, it is time for economists to look at price changes without accounting for the petrol effect. So far, 2015 has been a year in which dropping gas prices have affected almost every index from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Indeed, the Consumer Price Index started to decline since summer 2014 when the price of crude oil marked roughly U$107 per barrel. Since then, the Consumer Price Index declined continuously until January 2015. Likewise, the Producer Price Index, which behaves similarly, followed the decline until the beginning of the current year. However, both indexes started to increase from negative territory to positive areas up to 0.4 percent in July 2015, which is particularly the case of Producer Price Index.

So, if economists believed that oil prices accounted vastly for the overall decrease on Inflation, then, what is going on now with the hike in Indexes since oil prices are still low? The clear answer is that inflation has begun to bounce back.

Consumer Price Index and Producer Price Index

Price statistics have begun to move wider than they did before the summer of 2014:

Generally speaking, data in Price Indexes show that price statistics have begun to move wider than they did before the summer of 2014. This trend marks a year of some sort of stagnation in Indexes that can be traced back to the spring of 2013. This period between summer 2013 and the summer 2014 looks almost flat for both indexes. Right after such a flat period, oil prices started to drop and so did both indexes. However, oil prices are still at record lows whereas the indexes started to rebound.

Therefore, it is time to scrutinize indexes in order to establish to what extent oil prices are still dragging down arithmetically consumer prices, and at the same time looking at the origin of current monetary pressures. By isolating prices from oil effect, several conclusions on prices can be drawn. First, inflation rate without accounting for energy prices, is higher than what got reported officially. Second, prices for “guest rooms”, which is to say tourism, may indicate people are spending conspicuously. And third, almost everything else -independent from oil- is increasing.

Final Demand Index less Foods and Energy.

For instance, “in July, a 3.1 percent advance in margins for building materials, paint, and hardware wholesaling was a major factor in the increase in prices for services for intermediate demand. Furthermore, “the indexes for processed goods and feeds and for processed materials less food and energy moved up 0.9 percent and 0.1 percent respectively”, reported the US Bureau of Labor Statistics last August 14^th 2015.

More in detail and in regards to final demand services, “over 40 percent of July increase in the index for final demand services is attributable to prices for “guest room rental”, which jumped 9.9 percent”. Clearly, prices are moving up whenever oil effect gets removed from calculations.

Expect an increase in interest rates:

US monetary authorities should be aware of these recent trends for sure. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect an increase in interest rates in order to curb down excessive consumer spending, particularly whatever spending gets associated with “guest room rentals”. Nonetheless, although this conclusion is drawn exclusively from the point of view of price stability, such a thing happens to be the main mandate of central banks.