At least there's no inflation

Prices are just not going up. In the L.A. area, the Consumer Price Index, which measures inflation, gained a whole 0.2 percent between March and April, which is basically nothing. Over the past 12 months it was below 2 percent, also really low. If you break out the results by category, food and beverage prices were up 0.3 percent, housing up 0.8 percent, household furnishings down almost 5 percent. What did go up were gasoline (prices are now falling), apparel, cable TV, and medical care. From this morning's business chat on KPCC:

What all this tells us is that the economy remains pretty sluggish - there's not nearly enough demand to spur any kind of serious price run-up. When there's next to no inflation, it also means that wages are not going up and interest rates are likely to remain extremely low, which is good news if you want to take out a mortgage and terrible news if you want to make some money on your investments. If anything, the trend is towards deflation, which is when prices fall instead of rise - and that's not good because it discourages consumers to spend.