June 3, 2014

Chart of the Day: Eurozone Inflation Edging Close to Zero


Hyperinflation is right around the corner! Oh, wait:

Consumer prices in the euro zone ticked ever closer to outright deflation, official data showed Tuesday, making it almost certain that the European Central Bank will move to ease monetary policy this week….Many economists say that inflation is already well below the danger zone for tipping into deflation, and some analysts have taken to calling the condition “lowflation.”

….The Governing Council of the European Central Bank, which meets Thursday, targets an inflation rate of just below 2 percent, a level that it has been undershooting for months. Adding to the pressure, a separate report showed the European labor market continuing to stagnate. The euro zone jobless rate came in at 11.7 percent in April, ticking down marginally from 11.8 percent in March, Eurostat said.

And what is the ECB planning to do about this? According to Gilles Moëc, the chief Europe economist for Deutsche Bank, “investors might be surprised to find that the scale of the central bank’s actions would probably be significantly smaller than those taken by other central banks, including the Federal Reserve in the United States.” That makes sense. After all, with unemployment at 11.8 percent and inflation close to zero, you can’t be too careful. One wrong move and inflation might skyrocket to 1 percent. And then where would we be?

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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