All told, over the four quarters of 2007, the price index for personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased 3.4 percent, up from 1.9 percent during 2006. Excluding the prices of food and energy, PCE price inflation ran at a 2.1 percent rate in 2007, down a bit from 2006.
Back then, I was talking about some of the causes and consequences of the financial crisis. At that time, new types of financial products had become so intertwined with the banking and broader financial system that the turn in the innovation cycle resulted in devastating consequences for homeowners, workers, businesses, and our economy.