This strategy will now be less viable given household and national financial retrenchment, and pressure on exchange rates to fall to assist in the reduction of imbalances, in the West.
Inflation has remained high, running at nearly a 3-1/2 percent annual rate over the first five months of this year as measured by the price index for personal consumption expenditures. And, with gasoline and other consumer energy prices rising in recent weeks, inflation seems likely to move temporarily higher in the near term.