Abducens, I had no education in economics and it has haunted me. I now have a decent mentor with "compelling" views on this difficult subject at a reasonable price (free) -- I picked Alan Greenspan: http://www.fmcenter.org/site/pp.asp?c=8fLGJTOyHpE&b=235933 This simple appearing site is massive. Anyway, about every other day or so an FOMC member speaks. It takes just a short time to read what they say. I have noticed two things that I think are important: (1) very few people in this biz actually read what these people say and (2) generally speaking, FOMC members are not likely to take actions that would contradict their previously written, widely disseminated, views on a subject. These are laid out in the Governors Speeches and Governors Testimony sections. Flip through some of the materials from 2003 and or 2004 and I think you'll have some good ideas on what is going on now. It takes about a week for them to post a written version of a current speech. Geo.
the higher price of oil has been offset by our trade imbalance with china who are manufacturing everything at a fraction of our labor costs. also, the U.S. transformed from a manufacturing nation to a service nation years ago. dunno about inflation, a hotdog in the city is still a buck and so is a slice.