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Energy prices down 4.6%

Gasoline prices down 7.7%

Food prices up 1.1%

Shelter prices up 0.5%

So the minor overall reduction was by far gasoline.

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Which makes sense because all other things in the CPI use oil to make and distribute goods. I've stopped paying attention to inflation numbers because they are all lies. The current CPI basket is complete nonsense. The numbers are built in such a way to always have low inflation unless oil prices go way up. Before this recent spike, inflation was "at historic lows and near zero". Really? Things aren't any more expensive in 2019 than then were in 2002? Nonsense.

Perhaps I misunderstood your comment, but note that "at historic lows and near zero" means that the prices in 2022 are very similar to the prices in 2021, not that the prices went back to the old values in 2019.

Of course, but there are lots of years where the inflation number was almost zero and even one year where it was negative. My allegation is that the basket is nonsense. For example, public college tuition (one of the major expenses for families) went up 250% net from 2000 to 2020 where as the CPI was up 50% net over the same time period. I think healthcare, housing, college, transportation, etc. aren't weighted into the CPI appropriately.

2% inflation a year over 17 years (2019-2002) is about a 40% overall increase in prices. Having lived through decades where inflation was 5% or 10%, it has indeed been very low for the past couple decades.

The percentages you listed are not equally weighted; they're weighted by what average consumers spend. People spend vastly more per month on housing and food than they do on gasoline.

So the conclusion that gasoline was the biggest factor in the overall reduction is not true.

Here's where you can dig out the weightings used from the BLS [1]

[1] https://www.bls.gov/cpi/tables/relative-importance/weight-up...

Yup. Since the Fed is primarily concerned with Core CPI and the employment numbers are still strong, tightening is going to continue.

How much of this is due to the release of oil reserve?

Probably actually very little - the amounts released aren't much compared to consumption; the price of gas fluctuates even under normal conditions due to large numbers of factors.

It's likely the price shot up and overshot what it "should be" (assuming such perfect price exists) and now it's settling down. The question is where the new normal will be.

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