COLORADO SPRINGS — There is a lot of talk these days about inflation. The word you do not hear is deflation. Prices keep going up, but will they come down?
Inflation is near eight percent. It is the highest it has been in close to four decades. It means it costs more to buy everyday items.
“It is a lot of money,” said UCCS Economics Professor Joe Craig, “It makes a big difference in everyone’s individual decisions on what they choose to buy, what they can buy, what they can afford to buy.”
Government leaders are implementing strategies to offer “relief” from inflation. Things like releasing oil reserves to help with gas prices. Federal reserve leaders have raised interest rates to influence how people spend and invest money.
Craig said these things can bring the inflation rate down. He also points out that slowing inflation does not typically translate to prices coming back down.
“In fact I’d say most of them are not going to go down,” said Craig, “What we call prices falling is actually deflation. I cannot remember the last time that [happened], in any large scale sense.”
There are some exceptions where prices commonly rise and fall quite a bit. Gas prices for example can fluctuate a lot in response to swings in production and demand.
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