Inflation Rate

Venezuela's interim president, Nicolas Maduro, squares off Sunday with Miranda state Gov. Henrique Capriles in an election that will decide who will complete the term of Hugo Chavez, who died March 5 after designating Maduro as his political heir. Voters will be influenced by how they fared under Chavez's Bolivarian Revolution, which reduced poverty but also brought rampant inflation, soaring crime and food shortages. Here is a snapshot of Venezuala after 14 years of Chavismo. Economy: Pressing issues include a 20% inflation rate, a ballooning government deficit and a dearth of investment.

Venezuela's interim president, Nicolas Maduro, squares off Sunday with Miranda state Gov. Henrique Capriles in an election that will decide who will complete the term of Hugo Chavez, who died March 5 after designating Maduro as his political heir. Voters will be influenced by how they fared under Chavez's Bolivarian Revolution, which reduced poverty but also brought rampant inflation, soaring crime and food shortages. Here is a snapshot of Venezuala after 14 years of Chavismo. Economy: Pressing issues include a 20% inflation rate, a ballooning government deficit and a dearth of investment.

Happy holidays. Your cable rates are going up. Again. In its most Grinch-like fashion, Time Warner Cable, the dominant cable company in Southern California, is alerting customers that rates for nearly all its services will increase as of the next bill. Some rates will be significantly higher, such as a 27.4% increase to $17 from $13.34 just to receive local broadcast channels. Others will be modestly higher, such as a 9.5% increase to $69 from $63 for broadcast plus basic cable channels, or a 7.3% increase to $58.99 from $54.99 for the digital video package.

WASHINGTON -- Despite worry in some corners about the Federal Reserve's stimulus efforts stoking inflation, there continues to be little indication that consumer prices are heading higher. The consumer price index was flat in January for the second month in a row, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday. A drop in gas prices and a halt to recent gains in food prices held down the overall index. Compared with a year ago, the consumer price measure for January was up a mild 1.6%.

In 2007, the government of Argentina fired Graciela Bevacqua and other statisticians who were collecting its price statistics and inflation estimates. Since that time, large and disturbing - even shocking - discrepancies have developed between the official inflation estimates (roughly 10% a year) and privately generated estimates announced by Bevacqua and others (roughly 25% a year). Why would the Argentine government take such drastic action? In late 2001, Argentina defaulted on its bonds, and it has refused to negotiate with its creditors.

Re "Don't Stall on Inflation Index," editorial, Jan. 13: Economists notoriously can come up with numbers to "prove" any point they set out to. As the principal shopper for my family for the past 20 years, I have seen fruit and vegetable prices jump from under a dollar a pound to double or triple that, and meat and fish and all other foods and necessities undergo similarly sharp escalations. So don't tell me the "true" rate of inflation is a piddling percentage point or two. Get real!

China's inflation rate rose slightly in March, raising concerns about the government's ability to stimulate the economy should growth falter in coming months. Rising food and fuel prices helped drive China's consumer price index up 3.6% from the same month last year, China's National Bureau of Statistics said Monday. That was up from a 3.2% rate in February. China raised its retail prices for gasoline and diesel March 20 for the second time in six weeks, increases that probably contributed to the rising food costs.

Led by soaring food prices, China's inflation rate shot up in October to a 25-month high, increasing pressure on the central government to rein in its overheated economy. China's consumer price index rose 4.4% from a year earlier, a government statistics bureau reported Thursday, making it highly unlikely the country will meet its inflation target of 3% for the year. The bulk of that increase was blamed on the rising cost of food, which surged 10% from a year earlier. A jump in inflation could prompt the Chinese government to introduce more cool-down measures that could shake up the global economy.

QUESTION: I own several rental units where the annual rent increase is based on the consumer price index. In the past, I simply picked up the Los Angeles Times at the end of the year and turned to the Trends in the Economy table. Listed there was the percentage change in the consumer price index from one December to the next. That figure was the amount by which the coming year's monthly rents were increased.

In 2007, the government of Argentina fired Graciela Bevacqua and other statisticians who were collecting its price statistics and inflation estimates. Since that time, large and disturbing - even shocking - discrepancies have developed between the official inflation estimates (roughly 10% a year) and privately generated estimates announced by Bevacqua and others (roughly 25% a year). Why would the Argentine government take such drastic action? In late 2001, Argentina defaulted on its bonds, and it has refused to negotiate with its creditors.

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Reserve, maintaining its aggressive efforts to stimulate a slow-growing economy burdened by high unemployment, said it would continue its large-scale bond-buying programs in the new year and, for the first time, announced explicit unemployment- and inflation-rate targets for when the central bank would raise interest rates.   Top Fed policymakers, at the end of their last meeting of the year Wednesday, left short-term interest rates near zero and said they were now likely to keep them there until the jobless rate fell to 6.5% or lower and the medium-term outlook for inflation exceeded 2.5%.

BEIJING - Inflation in China moderated last month in another sign that the world's second-largest economy is cooling. Consumer prices grew 3.4% from a year earlier, China's National Bureau of Statistics said Friday. That's down from 3.6% year-over-year growth in March. “We think the inflation outlook for this year is benign,” analysts at IHS Global Insight in Beijing told clients in a research note Friday. The data release comes a day after China reported surprisingly weak trade numbers for April.

WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve upgraded its outlook for the economy, predicting the unemployment rate would fall to as low as 7.8% in the fourth quarter - a drop that could have a significant effect on the presidential election. Just three months ago, most Fed policymakers expected the nation's jobless figure to be 8.2%, its current rate, or higher in the last three months of the year. The improved outlook, issued Wednesday at the end of a two-day Fed meeting, reflects a sharper-than-expected drop in unemployment in recent months and projections for slightly faster economic growth this year, including some improvement in the downtrodden housing market.

China's inflation rate rose slightly in March, raising concerns about the government's ability to stimulate the economy should growth falter in coming months. Rising food and fuel prices helped drive China's consumer price index up 3.6% from the same month last year, China's National Bureau of Statistics said Monday. That was up from a 3.2% rate in February. China raised its retail prices for gasoline and diesel March 20 for the second time in six weeks, increases that probably contributed to the rising food costs.

China's annual inflation rate fell to a 20-month low in February, giving policymakers room to ease lending at a time of slowing economic growth. "The inflation story is over, leaving [China's central bank] with fewer excuses not to step up its easing efforts, especially given a sharp slowdown in exports so far this year," said Qu Hongbin, co-head of Asian Economics Research for HSBC, in a note to clients Friday. "Get ready for more steps toward policy easing. " Consumer prices rose 3.2% from February of last year, down from 4.5% annual growth in January, China's National Bureau of Statistics said Friday.

Confidence among U.S. consumers unexpectedly rose in February as Americans became more hopeful about economic growth. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan final index of consumer sentiment increased to 75.3 from 75 in January. The median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey called for 73, which was above the 72.5 preliminary reading. The gauge averaged 89 in the five years before the 18-month recession that ended in June 2009. Fewer job cuts, faster payroll growth and rallying stock prices are supporting consumer sentiment and the spending that accounts for about 70 percent of the economy.

Happy holidays. Your cable rates are going up. Again. In its most Grinch-like fashion, Time Warner Cable, the dominant cable company in Southern California, is alerting customers that rates for nearly all its services will increase as of the next bill. Some rates will be significantly higher, such as a 27.4% increase to $17 from $13.34 just to receive local broadcast channels. Others will be modestly higher, such as a 9.5% increase to $69 from $63 for broadcast plus basic cable channels, or a 7.3% increase to $58.99 from $54.99 for the digital video package.