News

The recent election victory of Shinzo Abe in Japan seems to be blowing up as the Japanese market, which has rallied for a while at the prospect of more Abe-nomics promptly fell on its butt last night, down 168 points in overnight trading, but the futures are hinting at a further 400-points, or more, to go.

 

While we’ll just have to wait until this evening to see how much of that actually materialized, the mood in Europe is somber and we expect the US market to open down 50 and close down a hundred and something.

 

Just for example, the land of “new royal diapers” was down 0.84% (when I checked earlier) which – if it carried over into the market here – would mean a decline of something like 130 Dow points, so that’s our dart for this morning.

 

As always, this is not trading advice, unless you’re an imbecile or fool.  But then again, judging by how things are going lately, I may be way off in my population estimates of imbeciles and fools at a planetary level and certain national capitols.

 

As always, I think Mark Twain said it best…but I I’ll be damned if I can remember where exactly, so you go read his complete works (listed over here) and I’m sure it will jump out at you.

 

The Train In Spain Is Mainly a Pain

…at least for the 140-odd people injured.  Likely not for the 78 (and climbing) dead.

 

Durable Goods

Press release just out (I highlighted the weasl-words):

 

“New orders for manufactured durable goods in June increased $9.9 billion or 4.2 percent to $244.5 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau announced today. This increase, up four of the last five months, followed a 5.2 percent May increase and was at the highest level since the series was first published on a NAICS basis in 1992. Excluding transportation, new orders increased slightly. “

 

Excluding defense, new orders increased 3.0 percent. Transportation equipment, also up four of the last five months, led the increase, $9.9 billion or 12.8 percent to $87.1 billion. This was led by nondefense aircraft and parts, which increased $6.5 billion.

 

Shipments

Shipments of manufactured durable goods in June, down two of the last three months, decreased slightly to to $229.8 billion. This followed a 1.3 percent May increase. Machinery, also down two of the last three months, drove the decrease, $0.4 billion or 1.2 percent to $34.2 billion.

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I’m not sure where the stars are, but this morning I got up with two marvelous ideas…both of which are ground-breaking and both of which deserve serious discussion.

 

The first of these is one that I’m already researching a reporting for Peoplenomics.com readers for next week based on a really interesting outcome of government surveillance…but complete details on that one after I do some more research and work out the loose ends to it.

 

But the other great idea which popped into my head this morning was a result of listening to George Noory’s interview on CoastToCoastAM Georgina Cannon who was talking about “inter-life journeys.”

 

In order to grok this, you’ll need to understand that what we are talking about here is the whole theory of reincarnation.  You know the stuff:  Born, go through a life, die, and later on in another lifetime, you can experience some of the conditions of the past life as medical symptoms, or whatever.

 

This is usually where the discussion dead-ends.  Now, while I didn’t listen to the whole show last night (I do need to get some rest) I nevertheless was struck by people’s lack of imagination!

 

I’m thinking that there must be some skill or talents developed in another lifetime that could sure be useful in this life.

 

If you read enough about past lives, not just Cannon’s work but lots of others have written in the field, you get the idea that the average time-interval between dying in a previous life and waking up/being born into the present one is four to eight years.

 

Now, since I was born in 1949, the odds seem pretty good to me that I checked out of a previous life sometime in World War Two.  When I think about it (and my fascination with flying airplanes, not to mention my inclination to eat Asian foods, born in an Asia neighborhood with the only Scottish last name that looks Asian and such) it’s easy for me to imagine that I was a Japanese or Chinese airplane pilot during the period from 1938 to 1945.

 

So this is what has me looking for a good shrink/past life regression expert to work with:  I don’t give a darn about how my subconscious has twisted thinking-up memories which may – or may not – be real.

 

No sir!  What I am after would be actually retrieving some of the SKILLS that would have been acquired over the course of  multiple previous lifetimes.  I’d call it something modest like a “Ure Hack” of personality.

 

The way I figure it is this:  Sure, there are occasional child savants who come along who may just “know” (from their previous lifetimes) how to play marvelous piano or other musical instruments. Often comes with some form of autism…like an improperly done hard drive reformat, know what I mean?

 

What I’m after would be a series of past life regressions which would attempt to work around whatever those barriers are to actually recapturing lost language and music skills for sure…not to mention trade skills which you may have learned in previous lifetimes!

 

Wouldn’t it be marvelously more efficient to spend a dozen sessions in deep regression work and be able – in that time – to recall at least one (and maybe many) past life languages?  How about all those past-life skills like some of the tradecraft you might have learned?

 

I imagine myself walking into such a series just a normal 64-year old  MBA with modest home shop. electronics, and flying skills, OK, some sailing skills, too…and walking out of a regressionbeing able to speak two past languages fluently; like passable Japanese, Chinese, French or whatever.

 

Then there would be the trades that could be brought back.  Maybe I was a free-diver who went for pearls or fish, or maybe I was a violin player in Poland or maybe I was a machinist…cook….or you name it.

 

That’s the part of past life regressions that interests the hell out of me.  Yeah, it’s a tidy little conversation starter in the woo-woo crowd to be able to make claims.  But, to come back as an expert machinist or welder, piano player or kicking it in two or three languages, well THAT gets to be pretty impressive.

 

So if you know anyone who’s in the regression business, let me know since this is an area that demands more study and it’s been percolating for a number of years and last night’s Noory show just sort of brought it back up to front-of-mind with a reminder to mention it to you.

 

I’ll let you know what I find out…but in terms of confirmation of the past lives claim, I’d say recapturing concert piano skills, or some other intricate task (like watchmaking or instrument repair) would be a marvelous proof.

 

On the other hand, if we can’t recall specifics of a trade, and if we can’t bring those back to the present, then the odds increase that what passes for past life may be something like DMT – Dimethyltryptamine (the spirit molecule) being activated around the time people are born and yet again around the time they check out.

 

If a good regressionist could demonstrate bringing back skills, then I might know an anesthesiologist (who was frustrated by the limited toolkit available to neurologists) who might be able to offer some keen insights into how to develop this into a really meaningful technology.

 

Let me see here:  Recall several lifetimes of past life skill sets including math, language and trades OR fork out 4-8 years of this life and get loaded up on student loan debt…yep, sure seems like a disruptive technology to me!

 

Prepping Notes: Sun Ovens

Reader Greg is asking:

 

“Hello George;     I’m a multi-year peoplenomics subscriber, daily reader of Urban Survival. I remember you recommending a solar oven sometime back. I can’t find it on your site. Was it the All American Sun Oven or ?...”

 

Glad you asked:  Ours is an All American Sun Oven (which run nearly $300 now) but it has survived my using it.  You can find others but ultimately it all depends on how hot you want the sun oven to get.  More reflector area and smaller internal space means you get higher temps.  300-400 is fine for baking, one pot casseroles and such.  No melting aluminum in these.

 

Now, you can build a solar oven out of some leftover window glass, some wood, insulation, and shiny reflector matgerial.  There are even plans around thenet showing how to build an oven out of glass and a cardboard box.  But if you ever need it as a real cooking source the commercial made units seem like  a better bet.  That and living in the Sahara instead of Seattle, too.

 

One thing I’m still looking for is an automatic tracker, so I don’t have to go move the oven every 20-minutes, or so.  Go read more on oven trackers here.  Send me your second proto.  I’ll see if I can break it.

 

No, I wasn’t Kidding

I’ve been a believer in the Maxa Cookie Manager product for years now and the reason is simple:  Cookies, which can track your computer use, can seriously slow down computer performance.

 

Not that you’d take my word for it, but a reader sent me this after trying the product out this week:

 

“Hey George, Just wanted to say thanks for recommending the Maxa cookie manager.  It was a breeze to install and I cannot believe how much faster my computer is!!  I start my day every morning with your column…blog…whatever it is called.  Love the way you think!  Been reading you for 3 years now.  Try and stay cool down there in Texas.  Thanks for what you do!!   Kelly “

 

If you’d like to sample how it works, click here and download it and follow the setup instructions.  I recommend the upgrade to the paid/pro version, but run it and make your own decision…

 

Christmas in July

I’ve always held TigerDirect in high regard as a marketing outfit and this morning’s “Christmas in July” sale email somehow struck me as reflecting ‘Merca’s new core values. 

 

Their four lead items:  A monitor, a 1TB hard drive, an 8-camera security system, and a laptop to use it all…   A marvelous summation of where the country has gone in a single email…

—

Another data point in the decline of ‘Merica is that Christmas is no longer a religious event… It’s being legislated away by the folks with political correctness disease.  Which leaves  Corporations to almost to own it outright with just a few residual nuisance claims.

 

It always seemed to me, though, that a good IP law firm could sue for residuals on Christmas sales claiming trade dress infringement.  Which is why I don’t own a law firm, I suppose.

 

A “Dear John” Letter

Ah, the scammers are rerunning an oldie but goodie here:

 

“I’m writing this with tears in my eyes,my family and i came down here to Manila,Philippines for a short vacation to visit a resort and got mugged at gun point last night at the park of the hotel where we lodged.All cash,credit cards and cell were stolen off me. I’ve been to the embassy and the Police here but they’re not helping issues at all,our flight leaves today and I’m having problems settling the hotel bills, we still have some money in our account but we don’t have access to it right from here.   The hotel manager won’t let us leave until i settle the hotel bills(£1,950 USD)now am freaked out.Please reply and let me if can you have the money wire to me through Western Union i promise to pay back as soon as we get back home.    Thanks you so much.  Hope to hear from you soon.  

 

John.”

 

Since this kind of email shows up with some frequency, I decided to write a useful email back.  After all, even the hard-working scammers should receive the courtesy of a reply….

 

“Dear John,

 

I was really troubled to hear of your multiple misfortunes, but as a management consultant I’m pleased to be able to offer you several opportunities to resolve your most distressing plight.  All God’s children have woes, eh?

 

First, you may find it useful to actually visit the Philippines since your message header reveals that your email originated with a YahooMail account stateside.  Tisk, tish!.  Really, John, I’m disappointed with your lack of IT experience thinking anyone would overlook such an obvious flaw!

 

Secondly, only a complete idiot would go to Manila for a vacation.  What the hell were you thinking?  Sandals in the Caribbean…a cruise….there were so many good choices and you didn’t make one.  Your bad.

 

As to the armed gunman, you should have locked your door and not been carrying easily lost items!  Haven’t you heard of Traveler’s Checks?  Dude!

 

Last:  Even a jamoke like me knows hotel management can not hold you.  Are you kidding? The average American’s weight is 196 pounds.  By contrast, the average Filipino (age 40-59) is only 122 pounds. 

 

See here John:  With a nearly 2 to 1 weight advtange you should have easily been able to kick his ass.  If not, you are simply a pussy, and that’s being polite as I can be.  You oughta look into testosterone augmentation therapy.

 

That shouldn’t be too hard to find, since you seem to be located just outside Austin, Texas. 

 

But before I make further consultative suggestions, you really oughta take some IP courses.

 

Sincerely (or nearly so)

 

George.”

 

Sending long, involved explanations to perps of such scams is fun.  It clogs up their inbox and gives them false hope.  Its like an invitation to become a pen-pal.  You can also use the address of someone you don’t like and invite him to come over and pick up the cash there.  A kinder person would use the address of a police precint station.  But I like the dual-use model.

 

Another approach would be to promise to send XXX dollars right away,  encouraging the perp to borrow from his local loan shark while he awaits the fabulously generaous cash you promise.  Then, when the cash doesn’t appear, the local loan shark will administer a stern lesson about fraud on my behalf.

 

It’s hard to con an honest man…but the dishonest?  Well, they’re pretty easy.

 

 

Write when you get rich…

George Ure (george at ure dot net)

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Here are some useful ways to spend your money…

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Last week’s report is always here.

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You know column writing has crashed in the summer doldrums when something as obscure as National Hot Dog Day is our lead item.  Yet with markets stuck in “noise trading” (futures are up a dab, gold’s back to $1,330 and Bitcoins are around $90-something) other than rejoicing that oil is back down to $106) there’s little to write about.

 

Still, it might be worth dropping by a 7-11 or Sunoco to see if they are giving out freebies and buying a drink while you’re there. Dollar dogs at Sonic, too.

 

National Hot Dog Day seems a uniquely American counterpoint to…

—

International King in the Wings Day – July 23

All of Britain is worked up, or so the mediafest seems, about the arrival of 8-pounds, six ounces of someday king material.

—

Which gets us back to the problem of writing something clever (heavy on the ‘kraut, please?) to say about Wall Street and somehow tie it in to today’s momentous occasion. 

 

I bet you didn’t know that Los Angeles consumes more hot dogs than New York, but Chicago’s O’Hare plane hoppers eat more dogs than La Guardia and LAX combined.  Here all this time I thought it was the pizza on C concourse.

 

This is also National Vanilla Ice Cream Day and you might enjoy playing Stump the Docent at Monticello by asking when Thomas Jefferson wrote down his vanilla ice cream recipe (mid-1780’s).  Sunday was National Ice Cream Day (all flavors).

 

Maybe this is what an economic “recovery” looks like.

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The market was set to open a tad higher this morning as last week’s frenzy has had a weekend to wear off or sober up.  The first news out this morning will be existing home sales at 10 AM but nothing exciting until later in the week when Durable Goods come out and that ain’t exactly a heart-stopper.

 

The reality is that genuine news takes a little time to work its way through the system:  We told Peoplenomics readers this weekend that monthly West Coast Port data for June showed a 3% slowing of imports, which is not the kind of thing to see if there’s a major recovery underway.

 

Moreover the price of oil is apparently not coming down. It was over $108 this morning and that means prices are starting to move upward slightly but the full impact won’t be felt until the 60-months of propagation/knock-on effects have time to develop systemically.

 

Behind the scenes?  Oil goes up, and this enables the Saudis to put $2-billion into Egypt to help keep that country from imploding.

 

What’s going on?  You might want to read the George Packer piece in The New Yorker magazine this morning before I tell you.

 

But the short answer is?  The Saudis have just out-bid us while we’re arguing internally.

 

If you consider international relations just like you’d assess a leveraged buy-out, many of the same dynamics are in play.  Power of the First offer, for example.

 

When the US talked but then dawdled, the Saudis were patient but in the end, faced with indecision from the Obama crowd, they stepped up, placed a $2-billion dollar down payment and now have incredible street creds for helping keep Egypt from imploding.

 

Like I said:  Outbid.  Signs of crumbling empire, my fellow Roman.

 

Meantime, gold senses this price action and has firmed back over $1,300 and the strong showing by prime minister Shinzo Abe’s part in Japanese elections this weekend mean a continuation of Abe-nomics.

 

Even this little glimmer quickly faded in Europe this morning when things are mixed and so in the interlocking world of linked markets a flat to down day by the end may be expected.

 

The Big Picture problem, the decline of 10-year bond yields since July of 1981 is still the same.  And there’s still plenty of time to  buy inflation hedges for when the long term trend reverses, but patience of a year to three may be required.

 

For now, the velocity of money has remained in collapse so all that new paper being printing up is not yet out chasing goods and services.  When it does sneak out, we look for the kind of inflation such as has never been seen before.

 

It’s just a matter of preserving your lone coin or two and waiting…hardly exciting, but it is what it is.

 

More After This…

 

 

 

ODA: Observations, Departments, and Analysis

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Quakes Are Back

After leaving our monthly earthquake reports looking lame of late, earthquake have come roaring back this weekend with lots of activity including:

• Quake in Ganzu provide China which was just a shade under 6 but that’s enough to have killed at least 54 and injured more than 300.

• 35 buildings in the business district, not to mention the parliament building were damaged in a weekend quake in New Zealand which was just under 7 on the Richter scale.

• An d there was a decent-sized 6.1 about 970 miles south of Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

Given that the Sun’s output is undershooting estimates for where it should be for the point in Solar Cycle 25, could the earth’s crust not staying warm/expanded have anything to do with these?  I’m sure the journals will get to this…just given them a year or two.

 

Graphic Evidence

A reader (Anthony) spotted a fine article which I neglected to mention last week called “The Punctuated collapse of the Roman Empire” over here.

 

“I thought I would send this along, just for the hell of it.  Cassandra’s legacy is the name of the blog.  Don’t understand why the study of collapses is not a discipline by this time – with its own math, catastrophe theory? Fame awaits – Ure’s Precipice?”

 

Well, that sure seems an attractive thing, although I’m more interested in a living wage and a few minutes to enjoy it.  Still, I made a note for Peoplenomics readers Wednesday to look at how a shorter-term matchup of the 2007 peak with the 1929 peak would fit, especially given that we have just had new all-time highs in the market.

 

Except, well, of course they weren’t all-time highs on an inflation-adjusted basis (with a string of footnotes half a mile long…) since “the Dow” would have bought you a lot more food in 2000 than it would have a couple of weeks back.  Ditto booze, too (the Pickled Price Parity Postulate).

 

There are a lot of headlines that support the notion of a latter-day Roman fall either in progress, or being down step-wise:

• Last week’s bankruptcy filing by Detroit certainly counts.

• You see here a nearby community is looking at building a 12-foot wall to keep out displaced Detroiters?

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Complexity is a grand and glorious thing:  It enables people to hide the truth right in front of themselves and even go so far as to deny its reality. Against that backdrop, please consider:

• If you had purchased an item in 1999 that cost $100 (back then) the same thing today would (using Fed figures) cost $140.17.

• Some things cost more, housing is less:  The uneven serial sectoral; inflations mask the underlying dynamics of the Second Depression.

• Similarly, more than 6,000 bank  branches have been closed since the IndyMac failure. How soon we forget!

• However, again, this is “masking” in that a few branches were acquired by other banks and some portion of the shuttered branch business had already migrated to the Internet.  It won’t be back.

• The Dow Jones Industrials are touted as hitting “all time highs” by the me-too financial press.  Yet this figure is mentioned in the absence of an honest long-term inflation context.

• The Dow so far this year has hit 15,589.4 yet when one uses the Minneapolis Fed inflation calculator, we see that the January 14, 2000 high of 11,722.98 should be 15,897.07.

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As every morning, I begin on an economic note since our roots around here are sustainable living, long wave economics, and couple of nickels from from confiscation by government (inflation and taxes) and charlatans in finance (the Bernies et al) who seem to appear at every turn.

 

But this morning’s insight from my daughter Allison tells more about the condition of America that years of schooling and whole reams of economic data.  Best of all, it’s simple for anyone to comprehend.

 

Allison works, as I think I’ve mentioned, in the communications industry in sales in the Seattle area.  She works long hours, trains hard, has encyclopedic product knowledge, and (as is the standard in our family)  is honest as the day is long so consequently she’s doing very well.  Here lately, she’s been working a lot of overtime and I asked her about that.

 

“Well, dad,” she began “We had an ad out here last week to hire some new sales reps.  We had a total of 75 resumes come in.   But then, when we called and basically invited all of these people to come in for interviews only six expressed any interest!  I was talking to a friend of mine in our HR department and she said if we’re lucky three will actually show up and then we will find one…maybe two…that are worth hiring.  And we could hire five….”

 

I trust you see the dynamic at work here?  It’s summertime.  People who are on unemployment in many states need only to demonstrate that they have applied to three or four places per week, not that they actually went somewhere when a potential job called back, did an interview, or actually followed up in a meaningful way.

 

Now, this is just a wild-ass guess on my part, but seems to me that if 75 people were invited in for interviews at least 25% ought to be interested enough to show up.  Historically, in really hard times, the number showing up would be more like 50% or more…

 

No, I’m not arguing that welfare, food stamps, and unemployment comp should change.  But just presenting the data from a trusted observer.

 

Attn. HR Folks: Research Requested

If you know anyone in an HR position, ask them what their current “call-to-interview rate”  and the “interview-to-offer” rate is running.  Then, if they keep good records, ask them what their ratio was, say, five years ago…or better: 10-years ago.

 

My bet is that we have seen a large decrease in the call-to-interview ratio as people have become much, much more selective about the kinds of work they are willing to do, and how much effort they will put in to getting a job.  They can get a subsistence easy enough, so why put forth real effort?

 

Meantime, California is likely to cut extended unemployment comp.  The dynamic there is that if California rolling three month unemployment dips under 9% then 10-weeks of benefits dry up.

 

One other note about unemployment:  Fresh figures are out from the Labor Department this morning:

 

“In the week ending July 13, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 334,000, a decrease of 24,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 358,000. The 4-week moving average was 346,000, a decrease of 5,250 from the previous week’s revised average of 351,250….”

 

With this latest bit of data integrated and with options expiration today, we look for the market to have a reasonably steady day (barring left field events) with volatility to increase next week and a possible down-side bias.

 

Student Loan Deal:

Inflation Forecasting School

There’s some excellent leg-work on what’s ahead buried in the report from the DesMoines Register which reports on a new deal being cut which may resolve student loan rates at least for a while into the future.

 

How so?  How does one infer the direction and magnitude of coming interest rate increases, the return of inflation, and such? 

 

It’s a two-part process.  First you get a sense of where Big Ticket interest rates are presently.  For this, flip over to the Federal Reserve’s Consumer Credit (which is really debt from where you and I sit) and notice the present new car loan rates.  For new cars it is about 4.13%.

 

You might want to make up a basket of rates:  Refi’s of home loans are in the 3.5% rate presently (basis a 15-year loan) and the 10-year US bond yield is running about 2½ percent.

 

Now, flip over to the present student loan rates:  They used to run a modest 3.4% for direct subsidized loans which had a first disbursement date between July 1, 2011 and June 30th of this year.

 

Now, however, a new student loan is running 6.8% (ibid).

 

The synthesis of this morning’s Des Moines Register report and a little common sense gives us two interesting thoughts to mull over.

 

First, the DR reports that democorps won a lifetime of loan cap of 8.25% while the cap for grad students would be 9.5% and for parent loans (PLUS loans) would be capped at 10.5%.

 

Which means – reading between the lines – that econometric modeling by lenders and government off in the back rooms is looking at interest rates going up another roughly 2-3% from current levels in the immediate future.  At least for now.

 

But there’s one other observation that comes into view which causes me a bit of consternation:  The marketplace presently provides more of an incentive to buy a new car than to get additional education.

 

Which, near as I can figure, is not the way to build a competitive country.

 

A number of groups are calling out the Fools on the Hill on this, but they have a track record of being “hard of thinking” when it comes to sacred cash flow cows of campaign-buying banksters.  The global chieslor cartel gets to borrow money from the Fed cheap, mark-up as loans to students, take spreads…

 

The future, seems, still has to be a profit center for the banker-class.  EBM* at work, again.

 

Is there hope?  Maybe: as Jesse Eisinger (NYT Dealbook/ProPublica) notes: “Finally, Bank regulators have had enough.”  It’s a little early to be celebrating…years early.

 

*Everything’s a Business Model

That Signpost Up Ahead?

India’s outlook on the economy has turned down in the latest Business Today-C fore Business outlook.  Snip from their press release:

 

“The turmoil in the foreign exchange market undid the gains of the last three quarters and the confidence level of businesses has dipped for the first time in four quarters.

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Normally, I’d start up a report with something economic – like this morning’s consumer price report which we’ll get to in a second – but the first thing out of the hopper this morning is to note the report from the American Radio Relay League (the ham radio society I’ve told you about umpteen times) that the “HAARP Facility Shuts Down.“

 

According to the ARRL report, the Gakona Alaska facility has been shut down since early May and while a new contractor may come along for some finishing up research this fall and winter, the diesel generators on site no longer meet Clean Air Act requirements….

 

All of which leads to an intriguing question:  What about all the reports on the net about supposed “HAARP signals” impacting the mainland of the USA which seem to still be out there being reported this morning?  I’m not hearing HAARP on my ham rig…

 

It leads to some uncomfortable conjecture about the alternative reality called the Internet.

 

I guess we’ll need to find some other means of constructing a portal for alien reptiles to enter this dimension.  Hey!  Wait!  Isn’t that was CERN is for?  And what about using HAARP for mind control programs?  Does that mean we’ve been running out of control for two months now?

 

Time to double up on the meds….

 

Consumer Prices

OK, they came out this morning and as one might expect the continue to show modest inflation at the retail/consumer level:

 

“The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.5 percent in June on a seasonally adjusted basis, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

 

Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 1.8 percent before seasonal adjustment.

 

The gasoline index rose sharply in June and accounted for about two thirds of the seasonally adjusted all items change. Other energy indexes were mixed, with the electricity index rising, but the indexes for natural gas and fuel oil declining.

 

The food index increased in June as the index for food at home turned up after declining in May. The index for all items less food and energy increased 0.2 percent in June, the same increase as in May. Advances in the indexes for shelter, medical care, and apparel accounted for most of the rise, with increases in the indexes for new vehicles and household furnishings and operations also contributing.

 

The indexes for airline fares, used cars and trucks, and recreation all declined in June. The all items index increased 1.8 percent over the last 12 months, an increase from last month’s 1.4 percent figure.

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